If you're in New York City these days, make sure to check out the exhibition Desired Sync: Global Crisis & Design ver.1.5. Organized by the Korean Cultural Service New York and presented by the Institute of Multidisciplinarity for Art, Architecture and Design (I:M), Desired Sync is the second of a series of exhibitions honorable selected from the official ‘2012 Call for Artists’ program organized by the Korean Cultural Service NY. — bustler.net
In Still Ugly After All These Years: A Close Reading of Peter Eisenman’s Wexner Center, Alexander Maymind argued the center's "grid-based diagrams instantiate disestablishment effects[2]...hinge on a particular aesthetic reading of architectural ugliness." 18x32 responded "I like where you've gone with the 'Ugly' here, but I don't think this building offers the best example. Nothing about Wexner is viscerally repellant, abhorrent or disgusting."
Alexander Maymind shared his essay Still Ugly After All These Years: A Close Reading of Peter Eisenman’s Wexner Center, recently published in One: Twelve Issue 4, April 2012. Therein he begins by suggesting how the center's "grid-based diagrams instantiate... View full entry
An OMA-designed temporary pavilion at the Cannes Film Festival was inaugurated today with a screening of Kanye West's debut short film Cruel Summer. The pavilion, with a design led by Shohei Shigematsu, is a raised pyramid containing a seven-screen cinema invented by West's creative team, Donda. — oma.eu
Neft Dashlari, an artificial settlement off the coast of Azerbaijan, was constructed by the Soviets after World War II, when the state was facing a major oil shortage. (Image by Jon Björgvinsson) — Der Spiegel
Kate Katharina Ferguson writes about a current exhibition at the Museum of Architecture at the TU Berlin, which features photographs of ghost towns from around the world. From a deserted Cypriot holiday resort to a brand new Chinese city devoid of inhabitants, the exhibit asks why people... View full entry
we want to experiment in making better public spaces. Cities are built in a very formal and classist fashion, which is at odds with the good that rapid production and public participation can do for urban development. — Huffington Post
Tidda Tippapart recently talked to Aurash Khawarzad ( founder of Change Administration + co-founder of the Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary collective DoTank) about the challenge of creating the post-Hipster city, gentrification, and what it means to (re)build New York City... View full entry
The artist intended it to be a display of his love for the city: white plastic bags stamped with the “I ♥ NY” logo lighted from within and glowing moonlike from lampposts and trees in Brooklyn and beyond. Almost immediately, the installation attracted attention, though probably not the kind the artist, Takeshi Miyakawa, expected. — nytimes.com
"Mr. Miyakawa also worked for years as a model-maker for the architect Rafael Viñoly, Mr. Lim added." View full entry
Gotham City is undergoing one of the most expansive construction booms in its history. The most prestigious architects from across the globe have buildings in various phases of completion all over town. As chairman of the Gotham Landmarks Commission, Bruce Wayne has been a key part of this boom, which signals a golden age of architectural ingenuity for the city. And then, the explosions begin. — io9.com
The architect who created the £269 million aquatics centre has criticised “rude” Games bosses for not inviting her to a single event.
Zaha Hadid claimed she was not asked to the opening or closing ceremonies of the Games, or to any of the diving and swimming heats at her acclaimed building in the Olympic Park.
— thisislondon.co.uk
Behold the Subway Terminal Building, hidden in plain sight in the middle of downtown LA, where at one point during the 1940′s over 65,000 riders were shuffling down into the depths of Los Angeles to board a train which traveled beneath the busy streets. And, fittingly, it’s just a block from where you might board the Red Line subway today. — gelatobaby.com
The Music Box is a New Orleans art installation that makes regular artist’s colonies look like Camazotz. In this tiny shantytown, every building is also a musical instrument, and the entire town can be played in a beautiful, spooky symphony that looks and sounds like something out of Coraline. — grist.org
Musicians look at the bridge differently. Mickey Hart, the former Grateful Dead drummer, sees the Golden Gate Bridge as a "giant wind harp." He plans to be at Crissy Field on Sunday evening, the bridge's 75th birthday, to perform an original composition.
The bridge will be the star. "The most famous bridge in America," Hart said, "is actually a musical instrument."
— sfgate.com
Philip Kennicott interviewed Frank Gehry and analyzed the current proposal for the Eisenhower Memorial and what has gone wrong to date with the process. Donna Sink, felt it "was an excellent article. The slideshow is the first time I've really understood the urban context of this memorial, and OMG I love it completely now!..."
For the latest Working out of the Box feature Archinect interviewed Prutha Raithatha. Raithatha is actually a full-time architect but also an experimental fashion blogger, stylist and writer. She writes a personal blog called Don’t Shoe Me that captures New York City’s... View full entry
Campus 2, as it is currently called, will not replace the 1 Infinite Loop campus. Instead, it will provide “research facility” office space for an additional 13,000 employees, which is more than 3,000 than 1 Infinite Loop. There is also 300,000 feet of expansion space for future growth. — 9to5mac.com
The original rationale for the open-plan office, aside from saving space and money, was to foster communication among workers, the better to coax them to collaborate and innovate. But it turned out that too much communication sometimes had the opposite effect: a loss of privacy, plus the urgent desire to throttle one’s neighbor. — New York Times
In 1975 Buckminster Fuller first defined the term tensegrity, a portmanteau of “tensional integrity.” It refers to structural systems that derive their stability from various elements acting against each other with equal force, like the surface tension of a bubble. Tensegrity lies at the heart of giant projects like the Georgia Dome. But you can apply it to build the ultimate blanket fort, supported by finely balanced brooms that never touch one another. — wired.com