Zaha Hadid says it's not her job to pay attention to how many migrant workers die in the construction of her World Cup stadium. We asked four top architects--Bjarke Ingels, Liz Diller, Clive Wilkinson, and Curtis Fentress--how morality fits into the process of accepting or rejecting a commission. — fastcodesign.com
[Santa Monica will] be able to offer its residents real net neutrality, which the [FCC] is working on rolling back for just about everyone else in the US. [...]
Santa Monica has cleverly and quietly been installing its own network of city-owned fiber-optic cables for years, and they intend to keep the net neutral. [...]
Santa Monica has also made about $5 million providing internet service and leasing out the cables to other providers, and their competition has driven down rates.
— la.curbed.com
The Federal Communications Commission recently proposed that internet service providers (like Verizon, AT&T, and Time Warner Cable) should be able to charge companies extra for faster service -- so for example, Netflix could pay AT&T more to ensure faster download speeds for its viewers... View full entry
The best museums are more than just expensive buildings that house expensive pieces of artwork. They have original exhibitions, engaging educational programs, and even tell a lot about a city's character. The Art Fund is one step closer to finding Britain's 2014 Museum of the Year, which acknowledges the very best achievements of museums across the UK. — bustler.net
Ranging from iconic national institutions to up-and-coming local galleries, six finalists continue to compete for the £100,000 prize:Pictured above: Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, NorwichMary Rose Museum, PortsmouthHayward Gallery, LondonDitchling Museum of Art + Craft, East SussexTate... View full entry
The South African city is World Design Capital 2014, yet residents of Khayelitsha township live in cramped, unhygienic conditions. The need for long-promised urban reform is urgent. [...]
“Cape Town is a paradise for the minority, but I could hope for a city where everyone has access to the same opportunities that I have,” says Wolff. “Mandela may have postponed revolution – but for how much longer is the question.”
— theguardian.com
The Fox River has shown little respect for Mies' brilliant juxtaposition of the natural and the man-made. In the past 18 years, the river has inundated the [Farnsworth] house three times. [...]
Confronted with the prospect of more flooding, the house's owner is carefully weighing how to preserve and protect the house, two goals that potentially conflict... Such are the choices in an era when disastrous "100-year floods" seem to occur every few years.
— The Chicago Tribune
As announced yesterday on Archinect, the Vancouver Art Gallery has selected the Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron to design their new building. The new museum’s site will double the footprint of the old neoclassical building, and relocate the museum to a newly densifying area of Vancouver’s... View full entry
The Green Lane Project, established in 2012 by non-profit group PeopleForBikes, continues its ambitious mission to expedite the process of building more protected bike lines with six new U.S. cities in tow: Atlanta, Boston, Denver, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and Seattle.The program celebrated its... View full entry
For more than a century, [Helsinki] has funded its own statistics bureaus to keep data on the population, businesses, building permits, and most other things you can think of. [...]
Helsinki and three of its neighboring cities are now banding together... Through an entity called Helsinki Region Infoshare, they are bringing together their data so that a fuller picture of the metro area can come into view.
— citiscope.org
As city governments become stronger drivers of infrastructural change, and the idea of a "connected city" becomes imminent, cities must learn how to manage and wield the vast amount of data collected. Parallel developments in city demographics, creating stronger links between cities within a... View full entry
"Buildings in paintings have always been treated as a background, as something subordinate to the figures themselves," says co-curator of Building the Picture, a new exhibition at the National Gallery that aims to put the architecture of Renaissance paintings on centre stage. "We're arguing that the buildings are active protagonists. They're not just propping up the characters, but are also capable of carrying key messages and performing a series of crucial roles themselves." — theguardian.com
A treasure trove of Coast Miwok life dating back 4,500 years - older than King Tut's tomb - was discovered in Marin County and then destroyed to make way for multimillion-dollar homes, archaeologists told The Chronicle this week.
The American Indian burial ground and village site, so rich in history that it was dubbed the "grandfather midden," was examined and categorized under a shroud of secrecy before construction began this month on the $55 million Rose Lane development in Larkspur.
— sfgate.com
Hong Kong's Kowloon Walled City was the densest place on the planet before it was torn down 20 years ago. In this Wall Street Journal interactive, you can take a trip through the city, explore its history and hear from the people who lived there.
The WSJ has developed an impressive rich-media piece on the Kowloon Walled City using photography, video, audio, text and interactive features to tell the stories of the history, environment and inhabitants. View full entry
Architects don’t invent anything; they transform reality”, Álvaro Siza Vieira, the giant of Portuguese modern architecture, has often been quoted as saying. Could it be that a need to transform reality then, or even to escape it, is at the root of a new wave of architectural projects in the Portuguese hotel industry? — ft.com
Designed to be an autonomous community, the top of the bridge would serve as a pedestrian walkway with a section cordoned off for cars. Below, self-sustaining residences, shops, and leisure centers would be built into the bridges' support structures. The concept imagines residents living comfortably in the neighborhoods created within the upside-down towers, all while enjoying the view of the Calabrian countryside. — theverge.com
When all stages are completed, the 65,000 people daily who pass through the Hudson Yards’ office towers, residences, shops, restaurants, hotel, public school, and public open space will contribute to a massive stream of data intended to help answer the big questions about how cities of the future should be managed. [...]
“It really started from the question: If we could know anything about the city, what would we want to know and how could we do a better job at measuring the pace of life?”
— fastcoexist.com
With billions in federal, charity and insurance dollars flowing in after [Hurricane Katrina], there were suddenly resources for change.
“The city essentially got the opportunity to do a do-over,” said Carol Bebelle, a lifelong New Orleanian and executive director of Ashé Cultural Arts Center. [...]
In many ways, it was a top-to-bottom re-imagining of the cityscape.
So, is the city in a better place than it was nearly nine years ago? It depends on how closely you look.
— equalvoiceforfamilies.org