A complex scale model of Tokyo is on view by appointment at Tokyo's Mori Tower in Roppongi Hills. The model was built in 2003 by 30 Mori employees over approximately 17 months. All streets and buildings were photographed at street level and from above via helicopter. They were then adjusted in Photoshop and glued to polystyrene models. — thepolisblog.org
Inspired by the massive public protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and Madrid’s Puerta del Sol Square, hundreds have camped out in a square near Wall Street since Sept. 17, 2011, as part of a campaign dubbed "Occupy Wall Street." — Democracy Now @ Youtube
On Saturday NYPD and its counter terrorism beat arrested and humiliated 80 activist for terrorizing Wall Street. These are the peaceful protesters with articulate voice and a message, aware of social injustice growing in American cities. Could this be the beginnings of American Spring? In the... View full entry
I've lately been exchanging bile on this subject with a friend, a Tokyo architecture professor who, having seen off earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown, is having a harder time surviving the avalanche of well-meant, if simultaneously self-serving, condescension. — smh.com.au
In a recent Washington Post article architect Roger K Lewis wrote about a recent article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology which examined how commercial architecture’s similarity across nation provides mobile Americans with a sense of stability. Donna Sink, thinks it has less to do with with concepts like "familiarity-seeking" and more to do with the profit motives of developers.
In the second part of the CONTOURS: Whither Goest Thou, Green Economy: feature, Sherin Wing looks at the how the R-word index and the drag that the so-called PIIGS is having on the economy, are impacting the greening of the economy. Her essay attempts to put aside overblown... View full entry
Imagine a city like Los Angeles disappearing from the map completely. That's exactly what happened to Chaohu, a city in eastern China's Anhui province with a similar population — about 4 million. The people have remained, but the city has vanished in an administrative sleight of hand. — npr.org
Perhaps you have noticed that commercial architecture lining roads in Maryland and Virginia looks more or less the same and not much different from strip malls and boxy stores lining roads in Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Texas, Ohio or Oregon. [...] Why do housing developments and retail shopping facilities look so much alike, given how much Americans value individuality, freedom of expression and independence? — washingtonpost.com
Google is committed to providing our users with the richest, most up-to-date maps possible. [...] In this case, the edit for the 9/11 memorial site was made by a map maker user on Sept 12, 2011. — New York Observer
That was fast. View full entry
We are days away from launching our new blogging platform, and we're looking for a few motivated individuals to get started now. If you're an architecture student that wants to represent your school with a school blog, we want to hear from you. But our new blogging platform will no longer be... View full entry
This ad for mega-exhibition Pacific Standard Time has been floating around for a few days and the bad news is it's not an actual campaign image. The good news is that Ice Cube's celebration of Ray and Charles Eames is totally real. A rep for PST tells us this ad is "an unapproved rough concept" that was leaked, but she adds that "The ads for the campaign featuring Ice Cube and Eames will be released in the coming weeks." — la.curbed.com
Gotta love LA. View full entry
Piranha was commissioned by Silverstein Properties to create a short film depicting the completion of The New World Trade Center site. Piranha wrote, produced, art directed, filmed, and finished all vfx for this inspiring piece marking the 10th year anniversary of 9/11. — Vimeo
Piranha has shared with us a short film that they delivered on September 6th to Silverstein Properties that depicts the renaissance of downtown New York. It was presented at Tower 7 at a press event, in presence of Mayor Mike Bloomberg.Produced by Piranha NYCDirected by Gaspard Giroud View full entry
Over the next six months Architecture for Humanity plans to transform their current Open Architecture Network, an online network that empowers architects, designers, builders and their clients to share architectural plans and drawings, into a robust platform that provides dialogue and tools to support a shared vision of a more sustainable future across sectors. The combined strength of these communities, both created out of the TED Prize, will help spur innovation, learning, and best practices. — architectureforhumanity.org
Welcome to Miami – a city where civic advocacy and forward thinking can land you in jail if you’re not careful. Friday’s TransitMiami Park(ing) Day 2011 was a huge success; hundreds of visitors came out throughout the day to enjoy downtown Miami’s newest temporary pop-up park. Working in collaboration with the Miami Parking Authority, we transformed 10 on-street parking spaces into a tree-lined, shaded park, complete with moveable chairs, and a solar-powered mobile wifi hot... — transitmiami.com
Over twenty architects, designers, philosophers and photographers across Sydney have participated in a series of creative conversations, which transform the image of this harbour city from generic postcard perfection to a set of multiplicitous, individual urban narratives. These are networks of surrender, whose ambition is not the cohesion of a finished, consumerable product, but the construction of new communities for creative work. — Gwangju-Design-Biennale_MEDIA-RELEASE.pdf
"Networks of surrender" sits in the ‘Communities’ sub-section of the 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale alongside four other invited cities: Johannesburg, Macau, Medellín, and Tel Aviv-Jaffa. The exhibition is a collaboration between three practitioners/academics Samantha Spurr... View full entry
Simultaneously acting as exhibition, discussion tool, and architectural manifesto, “What About It? Solo Exhibition” presented for the first time a physical collection of the intellectual provocations, architectural narratives, and theoretical adventures of WAI Architecture Think Tank... View full entry
Richard Hamilton the British painter and printmaker and pioneering figure in Pop Art, died on Tuesday. Donna Sink, used it as a teachable moment noting "I *just* showed this collage to my students as an example of an experiential rendering of a non-specific space. RIP", referring to Richard Hamilton's 'Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?', which is often referred to as the first example of Pop Art.
In Archinect's newest feature CONTOURS: Whither Goest Thou, Green Economy?, Guy Horton, claims "If the Obama administration is guilty of anything it is of being too optimistic and, yes, hopeful. The culture, with all of its working and non-working machinery, was not ready for big green to be... View full entry