At the end of his life, Robert Propst, creator of the cubicle system, called his invention “monolithic insanity,” yet we seem unable to tread down any other path. Longstanding calls for the Redesign of the Cubicle continue... — opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com
The winning design has been selected in the AIA Architect Barbie Dream House competition, hosted by the American Institute of Architects. The entry submitted by New York architects Ting Li, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP and Maja Paklar, Assoc. AIA, received the most public votes, out of the 8,470 votes registered. — bustler.net
The series Broken houses is based on photographs of abandoned structures neglected by man and destroyed by the weather. The photos are found in the web while pursuing an amateur photographer from North Dakota who obsessively documents the decaying process of these houses. His photographs are used to create small scale models. Afterward, in the studio, the models are photographed again, omitted from their background and placed in gray. — acidolatte.blogspot.com
According to court documents, Resendiz admitted in a June 2010 deposition that he was drunk when he signed nine contracts with the architectural design firm Synthesis+ for $1 million worth of work. — tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com
Found via this discussion in the Forum. View full entry
It’s an ongoing debate in American society whether class or race is a stronger bond. A new study from the US2010 Project shows that race is still more determinant than class when it comes to where you live. The study found that in almost every measurement, the affluent black or Hispanic American in a household earning more than $75,000 lives in a poorer neighborhood than the average white or Asian American living in a household earning under $40,000. — scpr.org
Albanians have been trying to figure out what to do with the pyramid for years. Just last month, the parliament passed a law to tear it down. Even so, opponents of the demolition are gathering petitions to save the building. And the current president is deciding whether to sign the bill or side with the protesters. — theworld.org
Foxconn’s founder and chariman Terry Gou said the company will replace an unspecified amount workers with one million robots in three years. Foxconn is the Asian manufacturer that is responsible for many components inside of Apple, Sony, and Nokia’s devices. — 9to5mac.com
For a related discussion check The Diminishing Returns of Technology. View full entry
Architects in 2009 described Istanbul’s downtown neighborhood of Tarlabaşı as an unsafe place for children -- a district whose destruction and reconstruction would be in the interest of its residents.
Few dispute that Tarlabaşı is run-down and that many of its residents live below the poverty line. But the congested neighborhood is also one of the few remaining places in the city center where there is affordable housing for the urban poor.
— eurasianet.org
He is one of the most appreciated young ceramic artists. With more than 10 solo exhibitions had in the past ten years in Kyoto, Tokyo, Aichi, Osaka and Faenza, he was awarded Merit Prize at the 1st Taiwan International Ceramics Biennale in 2004. In 2010 he received the Kyoto City Artist Prize, which is one of the most valuable Japanese art awards. — acidolatte.blogspot.com
Bing's citywide plan calls for dividing Detroit into three categories based on a neighborhood's health — steady, transitional and distressed — and then concentrating certain services in those areas. — The Detroit News
Bing's citywide plan calls for dividing Detroit into three categories based on a neighborhood's health — steady, transitional and distressed — and then concentrating certain services in those areas. For example, building demolitions would be more common in "distressed" and... View full entry
Chairman Gideon Mulyungi said 24 buildings have collapsed in the country since 1996. “Forty-one lives have been lost and 47 people injured over the same period,” Mr Mulyungi said in an interview. — nation.co.ke
It’s just hard after all the years of hearing the snickers that Burning Man has become too commercial, or that it jumped the shark, only to see it actually happen.We had a good run though, didn’t we? Even the Dead had to quit at some point.” — The Shroom
San Francisco, CA –Larry Harvey, the man who pioneered Burning Man, the famous counter culture music and arts festival founded in San Francisco in 1986, which later moved to the desert north of Reno, Nevada, announced that 2011 is its final year. Previously in elseplace View full entry
His ‘Multiscape’ sculptures are city scenes literally carried by preserved dead animals or other objects found along the side of the road. With this subject matter, Pim Palsgraaf shows us contradictions between culture and nature. The urban city is seen to overtake nature. One gets the feeling that urbanism is a process which grows like a tumor. — acidolatte.blogspot.com
... several people have confirmed that the goal was to amass 300,000 online subscribers within a year of launch. On Thursday, the company announced that after just four months, 224,000 users were paying for access to the paper’s website. Combined with the 57,000 Kindle and Nook readers who were paying for subscriptions and the roughly 100,000 users whose digital access was sponsored by Ford’s Lincoln division, that meant the paper had monetized close to 400,000 online users — Felix Salmon, blogs.reuters.com
There may be a future for newspapers after all. View full entry
From the air, where those Iowa cornstalks don’t conceal the pattern of blind convergence, the world economic situation looks distinctly like a crash waiting to happen. From three directions, the United States, the European Union, and China are blindly speeding toward the same intersection. The question is: Will anyone survive to attend the prom? — huffington post
From City of Quartz and teaching architecture students how to write, Mike Davis is now looking beyond Southern California. View full entry