A six-story-tall floating "Rubber Duck" is making its West Coast debut at the Port of Los Angeles, where it will lead more than a dozen battleships and sailboats in the Tall Ships Festival L.A. parade [...]
Dubbed the world's largest rubber duck, the giant inflatable was created by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman.
"The friendly, floating Rubber Duck has healing properties," Hofman said on the event's website. "It can relieve the world's tensions as well as define them."
— latimes.com
Adorable? Certainly. Humorous? Obviously. Architecture? Maybe.According to Hofman's website, the Rubber Duck "doesn't discriminate people and doesn't have a political connotation... The Rubber duck is soft, friendly and suitable for all ages!" This description accounts for all rubber duckies ever... View full entry
“Anyone who has been going to Burning Man for the last five years is now seeing things on a level of expense or flash that didn't exist before,” said Brian Doherty, author of the book “This Is Burning Man.” “It does have this feeling that, ‘Oh, look, the rich people have moved into my neighborhood.’ It’s gentrifying.” — NYT
"By the way, there are over 62 million Burning Man results in the Google search but who can guarantee they all originate from Nevada desert? After all, men and women burn daily all over the world. Right?" - from Burning Man, a new religion? View full entry
In a paper published this month, the researchers describe how they very simply and very quickly seized control of an entire system of almost 100 intersections in an unnamed Michigan city from a single ingress point. The exercise was conducted on actual stoplights deployed at live intersections [...] As is typical in large urban areas, the traffic lights in the subject city are networked ... allowing them to pass information to and receive instruction from a central management point. — Ars Technica
Tilikum Crossing is the nation's first multi-modal bridge that will be off-limits to private automobiles. It will carry MAX light rail trains (the impetus for construction) as well as Portland's streetcar line and city buses, and of course pedestrian and bike lanes on both sides—but no cars. [...]
"Transit has a huge impact on urban planning. I mean, if you look at our city, it was designed around streetcars. On some level, it has to be part of their DNA."
— citylab.com
We are very sad to learn of the passing of amazing designer Deborah Sussman, who died this morning after a battle with cancer." — @DesignObserver — Twitter
Designer Deborah Sussman passed away this morning at age 83.Perhaps best known for her environmental and graphic design for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, Sussman began her career working as an office designer for Charles and Ray Eames in the 1950s. She founded her own firm in 1968, and... View full entry
As low-income populations have gone to college and food insecurity has risen up to swallow the lower rungs of the middle class, hunger has spread across America’s university campuses like never before. In some places, it’s practically a pandemic: At Western Oregon University, 59% of the student body is food insecure [...] 39.2% of the [CUNY's] quarter of a million undergraduates had experienced food insecurity at some time in the past year. — MSNBC
Lack of adequate and steady food is a rampant problem both domestically and internationally. A recent National Geographic article analyzed the problem of food scarcity in the US across the last fifty years. Traditionally concerned with "hunger," since 2006 researchers at the USDA have shifted... View full entry
“We are the ‘blue planet’ and everything we do here in cities is connected to and impacts the oceans. But we don’t in the urban planning community think of connecting our work to oceans and ocean conservation.” [...]
Blue Urbanism ... explores the ways cities and oceans connect, such as through food, trash, the need for energy and commerce.
— nextcity.org
Recent research by Pew showed that half of the 20- to 34-year-olds polled did not expect to be living in [Philadelphia] in five to 10 years, largely because of concerns about education and career opportunities (the ones that never knock).
I love Philadelphia, it has become my home. But what will happen if the bulk of today’s middle class follows their parents and trickles out to the suburbs?
— psmag.com
The Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) claims its annual Liveability Survey could be used to "assign a hardship allowance as part of expatriate relocation packages," among other things.
But that needn't apply to those in Melbourne, which for the fourth year running has been declared the best city in the world to live.
The Australian culture hub was buoyed by superlative healthcare, infrastructure and education as well as a murder rate of 3.1 per 100,000 people, half the global average of 6.2.
— cnn.com
While three Canadian cities made the ranking's top 10 (again), U.S. cities keep failing to score high.The world's top cities for liveability are:1. Melbourne, Australia2. Vienna, Austria3. Vancouver, Canada4. Toronto, Canada=5. Adelaide, Australia=5. Calgary, Canada7. Sydney, Australia... View full entry
Olafur Eliasson has tried something else. For his latest site-specific project, which opens on 20 August, the artist has transformed the entire south wing of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark into a convincing riverbed – a messy, stony accumulation of sedimentary rock and watery channels that threatens to silt up the white space of the gallery entirely. The result is an uncanny collision of manmade and natural views, and a Sublime reminder of the slow power of nature to erode [...]. — apollo-magazine.com
Moscow City Hall has formally prohibited the moving or reassembly of a Soviet architectural landmark that has been under threat of demolition blamed by conservationists on real estate developers. [...]
The radio tower's materials, architectural composition, structural elements and location all fall under the conservation order by City Hall's heritage department, published by Consultant.ru judicial database.
This puts an end to earlier proposals to move or dismantle and rebuild the tower.
— themoscowtimes.com
Previously:Muscovites are voting by smartphone on whether to demolish a beloved modernist landmarkArchitects Try to Save a Tower in Moscow View full entry
The Emerald Necklace Expanded Vision plan, a multi-partner visionary project spearheaded by Amigos de los Rios and the Conservation Fund, aims to connect the forests of the San Gabriel mountain range with the waters of the Pacific through a network of public park space, bike and walking trails, and restored waterways. It’s an ambitious plan that will require coordination of the 88 cities and and dozens of public agencies in the L.A. Basin to achieve. — nextcity.org
In late May of 2012, my friends and I travelled up to Montreal from upstate New York for the first time, only vaguely aware of the escalating student demonstrations there. When we arrived, we found ourselves in a sea of red. The students we stayed with all had little red felt squares pinned to... View full entry
As the state has withdrawn, Santiago Cirugeda has stepped in to turn abandoned sites in Seville and other Spanish cities into dramatic art spaces that are inspiring a new breed of architect — theguardian.com
The United States is currently engulfed in one of the worst droughts in recent memory. More than 30% of the country experienced at least moderate drought as of last week's data. In seven states drought conditions were so severe that each had more than half of its land area in severe drought. Severe drought is characterized by crop loss, frequent water shortages, and mandatory water use restrictions. — USA Today
California and Oklahoma are both experiencing "exceptional drought" – the most severe category – in 25-30% of the state. Both of these states, particularly California, are major agricultural regions and the effects of the drought will have profound ripples economically. North Texas has been in... View full entry