When Steve Jobs designed a new headquarters for Pixar, he obsessed over ways to structure the atrium, and even where to locate the bathrooms, so that serendipitous personal encounters would occur. Among his last creations was the plan for Apple’s new signature headquarters, a circle with rings of open workspaces surrounding a central courtyard. — Walter Isaacson, Linkedin.com
For two days on the cusp of fall, a gaggle of mayors, journalists, technologists, and civic-minded entrepreneurs convened for The Atlantic’s CityLab 2014 conference in still-balmy downtown Los Angeles. The full title, "Urban Solutions to Global Challenges", jumps off of the presumption that... View full entry
Calling Los Angeles streets a “front door to the world and the place where public life and private enterprise connect,” Mayor Eric Garcetti and the city Department of Transportation released a strategic plan Monday aimed at making them safer and more accessible by 2025.
The 61-page report, titled “Great Streets for Los Angeles,” looks toward ending all pedestrian-related deaths, improving safety around public schools and changing the timing of streetlights [...]
— Los Angeles Daily News
Included in the plan are initiatives to help the city become more bike-friendly, such as adding more bike corrals on the street and racks to city buses. This comes on the heels of new, state-wide legislation recently signed by Gov. Jerry Brown aimed to increase bike safety. Assembly Bill 1193 will... View full entry
When Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he did so, for the most part, using the light of the sun that streamed through the windows of the building. And for the past 500 years since then, viewers have admired the results of that work, for the most part, with the help of that same light source. Starting next month...the famous ceiling will be getting a new look in the form of new lights. Some 7,000 LEDs, to be precise [...] — The Atlantic
CityLab's more than 400 attendees will bring together the people who are creating the cities of the future—dozens of mayors from around the world, practitioners, planners, architects, artists, economists, urban scholars, and other civic leaders—to discuss emerging trends and share best practices for common challenges. — AtlanticLIVE
Archinect will be covering the second annual "CityLab: Urban Solutions to Global Challenges" conference, a summit for top figures in city governments, design, architecture, journalism and technology to address pressing urban issues. Hosted by The Atlantic in partnership with The Aspen Institute... View full entry
Hacking an architecture exhibition through augmented reality? Yes, there's an app for that. "Project Source Code" is a digital guerrilla-style exhibition created by architect/artist/researcher Güvenç Özel that lets mobile-device users "hack" key works in Rem Koolhaas' "Elements of Architecture"... View full entry
The Information reports that Page started up a Google 2.0 project inside the company a year ago to look at the big challenges facing humanity and the ways Google can overcome them. Among the grand-scale plans discussed were Page's desire to build a more efficient airport as well as a model city. To progress these ideas to fruition, the Google chief has also apparently proposed a second research and development lab, called Google Y... — theverge.com
Apple has previously advertised the environmentally conscious features of Campus 2, most notably on the recently updated environmental section of its website, which states that the building will be "powered by 100 percent renewable energy sources" and rely on natural ventilation instead of temperature control during 75 percent of the year. Apple will also be installing more than 300 electric vehicle charging stations on the campus and planting more than 7,000 trees on the grounds. — theverge.com
Look for coverage of the confernce here on Archinect next week. For now, follow Archinect on Twitter, or via #anfarch#anfarch TweetsThe ANFA Conference will explore, from a scientific basis, the range of human experiences with elements of architecture, through collaboration between architects and... View full entry
The latest entry in the Showcase: series featured Barkow Leibinger's Stadthaus M1, located in the "sustainable model district" of Vauban in the already so-called "green city" of Freiburg. Plus, Nicholas Korody looked at Factory Berlin, a "start-up campus" hosted by Google, built... View full entry
An investor group hoping to build a high-speed train capable of cutting the travel time between Baltimore and Washington to 15 minutes says in a filing to state regulators that it has lined up more than $5 billion in financial backing. The commitment is from the Japanese government, which hopes to showcase the technology behind superconducting magnetic levitation or “maglev” trains to an American audience […] — Washington Post
The article notes that the maglev train has detractors, many of whom complain at the cost, which is far higher than other high-speed rails like those currently being built in California. For more information on the California project, check out the Atlantic's coverage here.Meanwhile, Joanna Symons... View full entry
“The project does not provide the storm damage mitigation and storm-surge protection that is promised, or at least the U.S. Geological Survey comments on the plan question the science behind those proposed benefits.” [...]
“A project like this, where the science is being questioned by government scientists and the environmental impacts are clearly negative, it’s a poster child for where we shouldn’t do this. This stretch of Fire Island is a park, for goodness sake.”
— nextcity.org
Students and professionals had another opportunity to take part in the third cycle of the AA Athens Visiting School program, "Cipher City: Revolutions". Taking place at the National Technical University of Athens this past spring, participants focused on addressing the roles of change, adaptation and interaction through scripting and digital fabricating techniques at large scale models. — bustler.net
The program set out to challenge the motionless built environment in the collaborative creation of a kinetic pathway prototype called Kinetic Haze. Participants applied the basic design elements from their own proposals in creating the project in less than five days.Here's a glimpse of the... View full entry
For the latest edition of the Cutting Room series Paul Petrunia got back in touch with Joseph Kosinski who was first interviewed back in 2004, for Les Jumelles, the Art of Speed film created for Nike as a member of KDLAB.This time the conversation focused on his transition from architecture to... View full entry
Software companies don’t usually go around buying architecture and design firms, but The Living isn’t your typical beards-and-Blue-Bottle band of architects. The 7-person shop in the Brooklyn Navy Yard was acquired earlier this year for a small, undisclosed price by design and engineering software maker Autodesk. The reason: The Living’s expertise in blending all that’s new in materials, 3-D printing and more arcane new fields such as biological manufacturing and algorithmic design. — forbes.com
