John Lautner's influential architectural legacy is hard to miss. Some of his works, like the Elrod House in Palm Springs or the Chemosphere in the Hollywood Hills, have been depicted in blockbuster Hollywood movies. Other projects, however, live on as humble—and not so... View full entry
It’s also not hard to picture oneself as a homesteader. The land is not free but it is cheap—some of the cheapest in the United States. In many respects, a person could live here in this vast, empty space like the pioneers did on the Great Plains—except you’d have a truck instead of a mule, and some solar panels, possibly even a cell-phone signal. And legal weed. — Harper's Magazine
"The San Luis Valley, with its cheap land, was a sort of magnet for these off-gridders," writes Ted Conover in his fascinating long read for Harper's Magazine about homesteaders on the margins of America. "There were a few hundred of them in total. Nationwide there are probably several thousand... View full entry
How will we live together? That’s the question on the minds of Paolo Baratta, president of La Biennale di Venezia, and Hashim Sarkis, curator of the 17th International Architecture Exhibition, as they unveil a guiding vision for the 2020 Venice Biennale. Baratta and Sarkis announced the... View full entry
In the 2018 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 396,448 people were booked into an ICE detention facility, up 22.5% from a year earlier, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Between October and January, apprehensions along the southwest border rose to 201,497, up a third from the same period a year ago. — The Wall Street Journal
According to The Wall Street Journal, the private prison business is booming as a result of the hardline immigration policies of President Donald Trump. Despite the growing controversies surrounding the government's treatment of detained migrants in increasingly makeshift and inadequate... View full entry
Henning Larsen has completed work on a new 750,000-square-foot opera house and cultural center in Hangzhou, China. The opera-in-the-park-style complex is wrapped by a fractured metal panel and glass facade designed to reference the cracked ice that forms during the winter months along... View full entry
A slim hotel tower slated to rise on a Historic Core parking lot is slated to begin construction in spring 2020 and wrap up in 2022.
The Spring Street Hotel is developed by Lizard Capital and designed by Asap/Adam Sokol Architecture Practice. It would hold 170 rooms—20 of them suites—as well as a restaurant, bar, conference rooms, a screening room, and a gym.
— Curbed LA
Downtown Los Angeles has seen a significant revitalization in the last twenty years, with much of the change happening in its central Historic Core, the dense area of early 20th century buildings now largely occupied by wealthy residents. A striking new addition to the Historic Core might... View full entry
When the so-called House of the Century rose from the swampy earth back in the early 1970s, it arrived as a vision of the future, a biomorphic experiment in modern living. Back then it was a bright white jumble on the shoreline, and depending on your angle of approach, it looked like either a man's erect genitalia or a giant schnoz.
Today, this futuristic house is a decaying relic of the past, and its future is a subject of concern and conjecture.
— Dallas News
Though Ant Farm, the experimental architecture firm founded by Doug Michels and Chip Lord in 1968, is not among the most well known firms of that era, they produced a number of projects both famous and deserving of fame. They are perhaps best known for their early experiments with inflatable... View full entry
In California and Oregon, beavers are enhancing wetlands that are critical breeding habitat for salmonids, amphibians, and waterfowl. In Nevada, Utah, and New Mexico, environmental groups have partnered with ranchers and farmers to encourage beaver activity on small streams. Watershed advocates in California are leading a campaign to have beavers removed from the state’s non-native species list, so that they can be managed as a keystone species rather than a nuisance. — placesjournal.org
Writing in Places Journal, landscape designer Stacy Passmore explores the amazing landscapes beavers create when they are allowed to fulfill their natural role as environmental engineers. More and more, beavers and humans have become partners in reshaping the landscapes of the American west... View full entry
Architect Francis Kéré has completed work on Xylem, a new pavilion at the Tippet Rise Art Center in Montana that is fashioned from a collection of tree trunks. The 2,100-square-foot pavilion, described as "a quiet place to contemplate nature" by the organizers, draws inspiration... View full entry
It's a small, dense, island nation where 100% of the population is urbanized. And yet, the city-state of Singapore is the greenest city in Asia, according to the Green City Index, and arguably has few competitors in the rest of the world. As Singapore's population and economy grew, so did its green cover: it was about 36% in the 1980s and it now stands at 47%, according to the Center for Liveable cities. — CNN
Becoming one of the "must-see" places in the world, Singapore has created a name for itself amongst travelers. Even Hollywood has already capitalized on the nation's likability and illustrious cityscape thanks to the top-grossing film, Crazy Rich Asians. However, beyond the food and Instagramable... View full entry
While technological sleights of hand grow more and more sophisticated, it is important to remember that sometimes paint, pencil, and sunlight are all that is needed to create transformative works of art. A good example of the latter approach comes from Italian artist Peeta, a Venice-based... View full entry
Fans of Netflix's science fiction horror series Stranger Things were recently treated to season 3, which almost entirely takes place within a suburban mall. Filled with neon, fake marble and geometric water features, the postmodern mall design became the ideal setting for the show set... View full entry
“A Pattern Language” is not about architecture, but about how specific design choices can help us build better relationships. By fitting a series of those choices—the patterns—together, you get a room, a house, a neighborhood and eventually a city. — Curbed
Curbed architecture critic Alexandra Lange takes us on a journey through some of the key lessons from Christopher Alexander's seminal work, A Pattern Language. The book, originally published in 1977 has long been out of fashion in architecture schools, but, Lange argues, with the rise... View full entry
MIT’s Self Assembly Lab and Maldives-based Invena have unveiled Growing Islands, a provocative underwater structural system that redirects wave energy and sand accumulation flows to build new islands and help rebuild existing beaches ravaged by rising sea levels. Diagram showcasing the... View full entry
You’ve never heard of him, but then it’s his job to be invisible. Kelley calls himself a supermarket ghostwriter: His contributions are felt more than seen, and the brands that hire him get all the credit. Countless Americans have interacted with his work in intimate ways, but will never know his name. Such is the thankless lot of the supermarket architect. — The New Food Economy & Longreads
Joe Fassler profiles Kevin Kelley, cofounding partner and principal at Shook Kelley, and the firms' history of work applying "the theater of retail" to groceries. Besides newer competitors such as Amazon/Whole Foods, local supermarkets also face “channel blurring” and new patterns of... View full entry
