The largest remaining statue of Lenin in Ukraine was removed from its pedestal in Zaporizhia last week, the latest victim of the Ukrainian ban on Soviet symbols. But how do you go about “de-communising” an almost entirely Stalinist city? — calvertjournal.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:Owen Hatherley on Kiev's struggle with its Soviet architectural heritageOwen Hatherley on the mass housing history of Moscow’s suburbsMoscow skaters reclaiming hidden spaces on top of Soviet-era buildings View full entry
the ‘‘disruptive’’ thinking that insists a workplace ought to care not just for your average needs (supplies, potable coffee, a microwave) but for your deepest psychological ones as well has its insidious side. If the new workplace technology makes it impossible to leave work at work, the ‘‘ethonomic’’ thinking behind new workplace design is intended to make it increasingly difficult to separate our work lives from everything else. — nytimes.com
More on the humanities of office design:SelgasCano creates a stunning members-only workspace for ‘creative nomads’New Ways of Designing the Modern WorkspaceArchinect's Lexicon: "Serendipity Machine"Aftershock #2: "Serendipity Machines" and the Future of Workplace DesignWhy Steve Jobs Obsessed... View full entry
In Tijuana, another architect is devising a plan to turn the Tijuana River channel into a solar farm that could provide power to as many as 30,000 homes.
Rene Peralta, co-founder of the Tijuana firm Generica and director of an architecture master's program at San Diego's Woodbury University, thinks that his city can transform this unwieldy piece of infrastructure into a renewable energy plant and water-cleaning station.
— The Los Angeles Times
February 2016 was the hottest month in several thousand years, so it seems like a good idea to start transforming erstwhile urban heat islands into power-generating rivers. Below, Generica's rendering of the proposed redesigned Tijuana river channel:For more on projects that turn seemingly... View full entry
Everyone loves the free samples, kitschy items, and affordable price points of SoCal grocer Trader Joe’s. The one thing that does spark ire about the chain is the small parking lots, which produce equal amounts of anxiety and horn abuse. But the website Strong Towns points out that TJ’s small footprints trickle down to cheaper prices for consumers. — Los Angeles Magazine
If you're not within walking distance of a TJ's (or, if you're just lazy) parking in one of the lots requires the steady nerves of a Zen master and the spatial dexterity of an architect. Whatever method you use to get there, just don't forget your bag, or all of your kitschy sustainability cred... View full entry
The daring concept proposes one cantilever on the Cornish mainland and another on the island fortress, where, legend has it, King Arthur was conceived. The two structures stretch out to each other across the void but do not quite meet. — theguardian.com
The victorious design was conceived by the Belgian company Ney & Partners Civil Engineers in partnership with British architects William Matthews Associates. View full entry
The police had allowed me to fly with them so that I could see the world from their perspective. Through its aerial patrols, the division has uniquely unfettered access to a fundamentally different experience of Los Angeles, one in which the city must constantly be reinterpreted from above, in real time, with the intention of locating, tracking and interrupting criminal activity. This also means that the police are not only thinking about Los Angeles as it currently exists. — New York Times
"Their job is to anticipate things that have yet to occur — not just where criminals are, but where and when they might arrive next. They patrol time as well as space. In this sense, although it has been in continual operation for the past 60 years, the division has much to tell us about... View full entry
San Antonio-based Architecture firm Lake Flato announced that it took upon itself to offer to its employees the opportunity split the $1,000 cost of the reservation deposit for the Tesla Model 3.
"As our Teslas and TSLA have been very good to us for the last 3+ years, we felt that it would be a great time to contribute more broadly to the adoption of sustainable transport." -Lake Flato Partner
— Electrek.co
Health care, a decent salary, and a pretty good deal on one of the globe's most environmentally friendly (and svelte-looking) automobiles: Lake Flato Architects is setting itself apart in the benefits department by offering to go in on the deposit for a new Tesla with its employees. No word on... View full entry
Rikers is built on a landfill. The ground underneath the facilities is unstable and the decomposing garbage emits poisonous methane gas. In addition to extreme heat and poor air quality, flooding and crumbling infrastructure pose a serious threat, especially when superstorms like Hurricane Sandy strike. As the violence and human rights violations worsen, so do the environmental circumstances surrounding Rikers. — Grist
The article details flood-risk, extreme heat, a lack of air circulation and other air quality issues among other problems plaguing the prison.For related content, check out some of these links:How one California prison is betting on architecture to decrease recidivism ratesArchitecture of... View full entry
A rising number of daredevil stunts such as scaling skyscrapers and parachuting from tall structures is being fuelled by competition for online acclaim, according to “urban explorers”, who warn more people are dying as a result.
The immense popularity of online videos of people climbing the world’s tallest buildings, including the London Shard, had turned urban exploration, which traditionally involves surreptitiously exploring the off-limits corners of towns and cities, into an extreme sport
— the Guardian
Urban exploration, or "urbex," has a long and interesting history, involving clandestine networks of people sharing skills and knowledge of the infrastructure of cities. But, driven more by a desire for likes than exploration, people are increasingly getting themselves into dangerous... View full entry
The cartoon drawings and graffiti scrawled all over the 1970s hangout of the Sex Pistols - a former silversmith’s workshop attached to a townhouse in London’s Denmark Street – have helped the building be awarded Grade 2* Listed Status.
The decision by the Department of Culture, Media & Sport, on advice from Historic England, is a major victory in the campaign to maintain Denmark Street, known as “Tin Pan Alley”, which is widely seen as a spiritual home for British popular music.
— independent.co.uk
The contemporary design champion is moving from its current location in Shad Thames to the former Commonwealth Institute building, a Grade II*-listed 1960s landmark conceived by architects RJMM.
Its new home, which is being remodelled by designer John Pawson, will provide three times more space and have a learning centre, auditorium, library and a ‘Designers in Residence’ studio.
— thespaces.com
As the number of people moving to cities continues to rise, with 66% of the global population expected to live in urban areas by 2050, it is critical to understand how urban living is affecting us — Urban Mind
Living in a concrete jungle has its pros and its cons, but how exactly does urban living affect mental wellbeing? A new cross-disciplinary project intents to find out by using a smartphone app called Urban Mind. The app is designed to monitor various aspects of a metropolitan environment... View full entry
The Shukhov Tower, a 1920s broadcast transmission tower in Moscow that is a landmark of modernist structural engineering, has been placed on the 2016 World Monuments Fund Watch list of endangered global cultural heritage sites.
Activists in Moscow organized two days of events over the weekend to observe the tower’s 94th birthday [...]
At a Kremlin meeting last December, Mr. Putin praised activists for rallying to save cultural heritage sites and dressed down officials for not doing enough.
— nytimes.com
The Shukhov Tower, also known as Shabolovka Tower, previously in the Archinect news:Russia's Shukhov Tower is saved following a 91% smartphone vote in favor of keeping itMoscow Puts Iconic Shukhov Tower on Protected Landmark ListArchitects Try to Save a Tower in Moscow View full entry
Nationwide, Airbnb lists about 173,000 units, equal to about 3.5% of the more than 5 million rooms rented out by traditional hotels — not enough to pose a serious threat to the hospitality industry, according to a study by CBRE's hotel research arm. [...]
The study goes on to say that Airbnb properties have started to pressure hotels to keep rates low in a handful of cities where home-sharing units are plentiful, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and [New York].
— latimes.com
More from the short-term rental market:Airbnb intentionally misconstrued data to "garner good press", according to new reportAirbnb draws ire with passive-aggressive adsIkea and Airbnb: a match made in globalized heaven?Airbnb to collect taxes in ParisAirbnb rentals cut deep into San Francisco... View full entry
In 2000, women represented 13 percent of registered architects; today, that number stands at 19 percent. If this rate of progress holds, we’ll have to wait until 2093 before we reach a 50-50 gender split...Yet numbers alone won’t ensure retention if architecture’s gender-biased professional culture remains unchanged. Ten or 20 years from now, we may still be asking ourselves, 'Where are the women architects?' — Metropolis Magazine
Despina Stratigakos — whose Architect Barbie collaboration sparked heated debate a few years ago — reflects on architecture's glacial progress toward gender equity as well as the profession's emerging "third wave of feminism".More related to equity in architecture:Why International Women's... View full entry