Mr Ai has already said he cannot talk to the media, and he is not allowed to leave Beijing without permission.
He is also reportedly banned from using the microblogging site Twitter. His account has been dormant since April.
— bbc.co.uk
Related: check out Archinect's first issue of our new zine, addressing the capture and release of Ai Weiwei View full entry
...doesn't the general freakout over the shutdown suggest, in and of itself, its fundamental folly? It hurts to lose the 405 even for a weekend not because freeways are so valuable or because we love them so much but because we've painted ourselves in a corner in terms of mobility. We have left ourselves no escape hatches or viable alternatives. — LA Times
LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne eyes impending automotive doom. Follow the link for a thoughtful piece on "the city's great synecdoche" and how its future might impact architectural landmarks. View full entry
Scott Erdy, designer of the new library, says open, flexible space — the furniture is movable and the walls act as one giant whiteboard — allows student and staff "knowledge transfer," a concept reinforced by Danuta Nitecki, dean of Drexel's libraries. "We don't just house books, we house learning," she says. — time.com
If you believe the adage about real estate -- that bit about the three most important things being location, location, location -- then one would think there are few places worse to own a home than the Gaza strip. [...] And yet, home prices are up sharply. — marketplace.publicradio.org
The eccentric California creator of a Mojave Desert compound of whimsical buildings known as Phonehenge West was jailed Friday for failing to obey an order to tear down the illegal structures. — Slate
The city of Sacramento has launched a new campaign to keep the public in the fight for a new arena. The city is asking its neighbors to become citizen architects. Now you don’t really have to be an architect to sign up. In fact, if you’re a Kings fan and you want a new, downtown arena then you’re probably just who the city is looking for. — fox40.com
Prora was designed to accommodate 20,000 people in one go. Hitler was convinced Germany lost World War I because its population lost its nerve. His idea was to create cheap package holidays to wed the nation to Nazism and to shape happy, strong, well-rested new generations capable of winning the next war. — Der Spiegel
Germany's newest youth hostel offers access to one of the best beaches the Baltic has to offer. Sunseekers are flocking to the place, which is booked out for the summer season and is already receiving bookings for summer 2012. The hostel stands just meters away from one of the best beaches the... View full entry
This work of art looks like a giant grass sphere, but it's actually flat.
This land art is an anamorphosis which is a distorted projection that comes to life when viewed at the proper angle. Stand to the side and you will see angular grass and dirt. Stand at the correct angle and the 3D image jumps out at you.
— gizmodo.com
We loved the futuristic lobby, which is decked in purple neon and stainless steel, and has a robot that stores luggage. It feels more like the inside of a video game than another overstuffed hotel entrance. — businessinsider.com
William Shakespeare wrote plays in five acts; now comes Watts Village Theater Company, organizing a theater piece in five light-rail stops. Dubbed "Meet Me @Metro II," it'll be performed along the Metro Blue Line between Watts and downtown Long Beach over the coming two weekends. — latimesblogs.latimes.com
But the real show is outside, where the garage includes a number of large-scale public-art installations, including pieces by Anne Marie Karlsen (along 2nd Street) and L.A. firm Ball-Nogues Studio (along 4th Street). The Ball-Nogues piece, called “Cradle,” features hundreds of stainless-steel spheres suspended from one of the garage’s exterior walls. The design is open-ended enough to suggest both sea foam and a Newton’s Cradle... — latimesblogs.latimes.com
We're excited to announce the release of the first issue in the Archinect Zine! This is a collaboration between Archinect and our friend Christian Chaudhari's publishing initiative Friction House. Creator and producer of the Archinect Zine is Christian Chaudhari, LA-based architect, writer... View full entry
An alley between an old tenement block and a tower block in Warsaw, Poland, will be the location for the skinniest house in the world.
The four-storey home will have a bedroom, lounge, bathroom and kitchen, stretching back nearly 40ft, but instead of the traditional staircase, each floor will be accessed by a ladder.
It will take over from the world's current official narrowest house, The Wedge, on the island of Great Cumbrae.
— dailymail.co.uk
New York Times art critic and "Abroad" columnist Michael Kimmelman will become the paper's new architecture critic, the Times is announcing today. — featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com
Three hundred years ago one Nehemiah Tinkham, with wife Submit Tinkham and six children, landed on the shores of New England to establish a home in the wilderness. — places.designobserver.com
DesignObserver has just republished J.B. Jackson's classic essay "The Westward-Moving House," originally published in Landscape in 1953, which traces the evolution of the American house over three centuries and across the continent. Geographer Paul F. Starrs and photographer Peter Goin at the... View full entry