“Designing from Instagram for Instagram seems like a snake eating its own tail. Everywhere looks like everywhere else and the eye grows tired of bananas or concrete tiles or mirror rooms.” — The Guardian
The built environment, this article from Bella Mackie suggests, is increasingly being designed as a 'backdrop;' a stage for those masses which might otherwise be disinterested in the fields of aesthetics and art production. This phenomenon can be felt when traveling the world just as apparently... View full entry
[Warner Bros.] would foot the bill for an aerial tramway to transport visitors to and from the Hollywood sign, starting from a parking structure next to its Burbank lot.
The effort, dubbed the Hollywood Skyway, would cost the studio an estimated $100 million, according to a person close to the company who was not authorized to comment. The tramway would take visitors on a 6-minute ride more than 1 mile up the back of Mt. Lee to a new visitors center near the sign [...]
— Los Angeles Times
Several cable transport solutions are being proposed for popular Los Angeles landmarks right now: besides the gondola system that could connect Dodger Stadium with Union Station, the idea of an aerial tramway carrying visitors up to the Hollywood Sign has been brought back to life by media giant... View full entry
"Along with their monumental role in Rome's urban fabric, the architectural status of fountains has long been uncertain. It can be hard to determine when they ceased to be viewed as public water utilities, and came to be regarded as purely artistic objects." — Places Journal
In the same week in 2016, a group of tourists were denounced as trespassers for splashing around in one of Rome's historic fountains, while Fendi was praised for its tribute to Italy's artistic legacy by staging a fashion show across another. Anatole Tchikine is prompted by these contrasting... View full entry
In her latest book Medium Design, Easterling turns this idea of disposition to our ways of thinking, and rehearses a set of tools to address unfolding relations in spatial and non-spatial contexts. She rejects the righteousness of manifestos and certainty of ideologies, urging ways of thinking better attuned to complexity and ambiguity. — failedarchitecture.com
Keller Easterling, architect, theorist, writer and Professor at Yale University School of Architecture, discusses her new book, Medium Design, with Hettie O’Brien. In this conversation she expounds on the ideas around no new master plans or right answers, tying together concepts from her... View full entry
Diller Scofidio + Renfro together with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang present The Mile-Long Opera: a biography of 7 o’clock, a 5 night series of performances taking place along the High Line. Featuring 1,000 singers from across NYC, this extensive community engagement initiative... View full entry
The LA Forum for Architecture and Urban Design has offered a critical look at the city of Los Angeles since the late 80's. The nonprofit has been providing public programming, exhibitions, and publications through its ever-shifting board of directors and volunteer contributors. To celebrate this... View full entry
Continuing with designing for space, Foster + Partners will showcase their vision of life on Mars and the Moon as part of the Future Lab showcase at the 2018 Goodwood Festival. The firm will show a range of models, robotics, and futuristic designs to explore the future of life in space... View full entry
Tate St Ives has been announced as Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018, the largest and most prestigious museum prize in the world. Anne Barlow, director of Tate St Ives, was presented with the £100,000 prize by artist Isaac Julien and the ‘world’s best teacher’ Andria Zafirakou at an award ceremony at the V&A, London. — Art Fund
"Tate St Ives tells the story of the artists who have lived and worked in Cornwall in an international context," said Stephen Deuchar, chair of the judges. "The new extension to the gallery is deeply intelligent and breathtakingly beautiful, providing the perfect stage for a curatorial programme... View full entry
A very special kind of Bauhaus experience awaits visitors here: overnight accommodation in the studio building. In the recreated studios, the atmosphere of the Bauhaus remains palpable today. Everything from the floor plan and the materials to replicas of the original furniture has been returned to its original state in meticulous detail. — Bauhaus Dessau
As the Bauhaus approaches its centennial next year, what better way to emerge oneself in the essence of Modernism than enjoying an overnight stay in the school founder's most iconic creation, the Walter Gropius-designed Bauhaus building complex in Dessau, Germany. The Bauhaus Dessau studio... View full entry
Achieving pay equity is a foundational act of building an environment in which creativity can flourish. Taking the first step toward equality via pay empowers us to move forward, together, to address the more complex challenges that await. Comprehensive, math-based tools are available to assess the problem. Let’s put them to work. Follow the money (or lack thereof), and fix pay inequity now. — fastcodesign.com
Jeanne Gang's firm Studio Gang recently scrutinized their office for any existing pay gap. She explains that despite their prioritization of equality there was in fact a small gender pay gap in their office. Using her own practice as an example, Gang urges every architecture studio to go through... View full entry
Bjarke Ingels, along with fellow BIG partner Jakob Lange, are heading to Burning Man this summer with the ORB, a giant reflective ball installation scaled to 1/500,000 of the earth’s surface. With a diameter of nearly 100 ft, the ORB will hover above The Playa, reflecting everything around it... View full entry
I’ve been poisoning my brain the last couple of weeks narrowing down 2000 prospective McMansions to 16. Please give me a round of applause for this immense personal sacrifice. Instead of ranking them myself like I usually do, I will be doing a bracket at the end of the next post where you can vote for the Most Terrible in Texas! (After all, everything’s bigger in Texas!) — mcmansionhell.com
McMansion Hell, a bi-weekly blog delighting in architectural education through ridicule, now brings us a Texas bracket. The top 8 worst McMansions of Texas suburbia have been chosen and properly mocked. Now it's your turn to choose which belongs at the innermost circle of hell. Here are a few of... View full entry
The name change, however, also reflects two facts that have long bedeviled the arch and its role within the National Park Service. Saarinen’s soaring arc of steel is an icon of the automobile age, an attraction that has always been more about playing to the passing audience of the interstates than any particular relevance to the idea of national expansion. It also honors historical events that are now understood as deeply problematic within the larger trajectory of American history. — The Washington Post
It's a big day for the city of St. Louis, which is celebrating the grand reopening of the Gateway Arch. The monumental renovation project includes a new name — the Gateway Arch National Park, a new museum, and a major redesign of the park's urban landscape. The exhibitions inside the museum... View full entry
As New York enters the third decade of the twenty-first century, it is in imminent danger of becoming something it has never been before: unremarkable. It is approaching a state where it is no longer a significant cultural entity but the world’s largest gated community, with a few cupcake shops here and there. For the first time in its history, New York is, well, boring. — Harper's Magazine
The story keeps going. "This is not some new phenomenon but a cancer that’s been metastasizing on the city for decades now. And what’s happening to New York now—what’s already happened to most of Manhattan, its core—is happening in every affluent American city. San Francisco is overrun... View full entry
Im developing a new guide called the ‘Manual on Uniform Traffic Engineer Excuses’ or #MUTEE,” tweeted Boise-based planner Don Kostelec in a moment of genius.
“You get to name the chapters. Go!”
The responses were swift, and hilarious, and like so much humor carried painful truths.
— cal.streetsblog.org
Don Kostelec recently opened the door to traffic engineering jabs with a call for chapter titles on his Manual on Uniform Traffic Engineer Excuses. Some of these cutting responses are all too real... ... View full entry