A special construction material keeps concrete whiter than white. — CNN
The first application was on Richard Meier's Jubilee Church in Rome. View full entry
Most discourse on “smart” and “sentient” cities, if it addresses people at all, focuses on them as sources of data feeding the algorithms. Rarely do we consider the point of engagement — how people interface with, and experience, the city’s operating system. — Places Journal
As we enter the era of so-called “smart” cities, Shannon Mattern argues on Places, we need to consider how citizens interface with the city’s operating system. What does a “right to the city” mean for our future cities? “Can we envision interfaces that honor the multidimensionality and... View full entry
His writing has a patient, deliberate quality that is rare at a moment when the dominant medium of architectural discourse is Twitter. Perhaps this is why Mr. Rybczynski, despite himself, is suddenly all the rage. — nytimes.com
in retrospect, the second fair can be seen as the last un-self-conscious public celebration of automotive culture — NYT
Phil Patton reflects on the 50th Anniversary of the 1964 World’s Fair aka "Auto-Nirvana". View full entry
Lewis Mumford wrote that, in a city, “time becomes visible.” Not, it would appear, in Raleigh, North Carolina, where a city board has just decided that a rather discreet and understated modern house might need to be torn down because it damages the ambience of a historic district, which is to say it destroys the illusion that the neighborhood is a place in which time has stopped. — Vanity Fair
A battle of bureaucracy and "historic preservation" is playing out in a Raleigh, NC neighborhood. Louis Cherry, FAIA, is building his own home in the Oakwood neighborhood of Raleigh. After having received approval for his design by relevant city agencies, including the Raleigh Historic Development... View full entry
Several factors contributed to the library’s decision: a study that showed the cost of renovating the 42d Street building to be more than expected (the project had originally been estimated at about $300 million); a change in city government; and input from the public, several trustees said. (Four lawsuits have been filed against the project.) — nytimes.com
“Obviously I respect the decision of the trustees and whoever’s been involved in the decision,” Mr. Foster said. “If I have any kind of sadness on the thing — besides obviously not having the project going ahead and having spent a huge amount of passion on the project with colleagues —... View full entry
Oren Safdie, architecture-turned-playwright (and son of Moshe Safdie), has taken his play False Solution to Santa Monica, after a run in NYC last year. False Solution, Safdie's 3rd architecture-themed play, following Private Jokes, Public Places and The Bilbao Effect, follows German-Jewish... View full entry
We were participating in a little experiment trying to answer the question, “How does the brain respond to the city?” The headsets were recording second-by-second readings of our brain waves via Bluetooth to an app on the iPod. The resulting gigabyte of data, gathered from about 50 participants, will be aggregated into a visualization to be presented May 13 at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn. It’s part of the Van Alen Institute’s multiyear “Elsewhere: Escape and the Urban Landscape” project. — theatlanticcities.com
Ai’s studio, called 258 Fake, has become China’s equivalent of Andy Warhol’s Factory. And Ai himself has increasingly taken on Warholian overtones: there is now little distinction between Ai the artist who creates artworks, and Ai the dissident who gets beaten by the cops. (In 2009, police pummelled his face, causing a cerebral haemorrhage.) Both are merged in an ongoing performance in which the man has become the art, and the art is the man. — aeon.co
Brazil’s burgeoning middle class have an important place in the country’s slums. This finding is part of a survey released by the newly created Instituto Data Favela which established that, in 2013, 65% of the country’s slum-dwellers belonged to the middle class. In 2003, this proportion was 33%. [...]
“But we are not only interested in the middle class,” he argues, “We want to benefit all community residents through sustainable and comprehensive development, achieved through economic avenues.”
— thisbigcity.net
Mark your calendars! Some popular architects will be speaking in the upcoming "Innovators" talk series at the Museum of the City of New York, starting tomorrow May 6 at 6:30 p.m...
Accompanying the current "Palaces for the People" exhibition, each talk will explore the influence of the Guastavino Company, led by a Catalan father-son team whose architecture, construction, and design practices helped shape NYC's built landscape.
— bustler.net
Below is the panelist line-up:May 6 - Innovators: Building Design and Construction: Guy Nordensen (Guy Nordenson Associates); Valentine Lehr (Lehr Consultants International); Jill Lerner and Marianne Kwok (Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates); and Corie Sharples (Shop Architects)May 14 - Innovators with... View full entry
Archinect is delighted to present 5468796 Architecture's travelogue for their award-winning research project, Table for Twelve. The Winnipeg-based firm received the 2013 Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture from the Canada Council for the Arts, awarded to emerging Canadian architects with... View full entry
Architect Richard Meier's new residential building will feature his signature jutting planes and surfaces carved from white steel and glass. The 37 apartments, starting at about $2 million, are 73% sold even though ground won't be broken until June. The project, named Vitrvm, and the buzz surrounding it, is what you might expect from the designer of L.A.'s Getty Center except for one thing: It is in Bogotá, Colombia. — The Wall Street Journal
We're always very excited to discover new work by Swiss artist, Zimoun, known for his "architecturally-minded platforms of sound." His latest site-specific installation, 36 ventilators, 4.7m³ packing chips, recently opened at the Art Museum Lugano, Switzerland. The show still runs until July 11. — bustler.net
Read an excerpt from the exhibition catalog on Bustler. View full entry
A key element of his success is that for much of his career, he hasn't been doing the work alone: In a field that often relegates women to the background, the Fuksas firm is a shared enterprise, run in tandem with Doriana Fuksas, his wife since 1981. "Maybe we're complementary," says Doriana (née Mandrelli). "We love the same things, the same feelings and moods—just in a different way. I'm much more pop; he's more classic." — online.wsj.com