The Architecture Lobby (TAL) has put forth a set of guiding principles for architects to follow as debate over a potential Green New Deal takes shape across the industry. According to a recently-published memo, TAL is pursuing a four-pronged approach for envisioning how architects can... View full entry
[W]hen will Los Angeles International Airport resurrect its own iconic, underused, transportation-adjacent architectural wonder?
Maybe soon.
As the airport advances on a major expansion and modernization, including a new people-mover train scheduled to open in 2023, Los Angeles World Airports officials are looking for ways to bring a hotel into the core area that includes the Theme Building.
— The Los Angeles Times
Since its completion in 1961, the Theme Building has greeted visitors to Los Angeles with its uniquely space-age, mid-century design from the center of the Los Angeles Airport. The Pereira & Luckman-designed building has taken on a lot of functions in its 58 year history (including a few... View full entry
Ishigami’s structure is a striking object, but it could have been so much better, and it is a frustrating outcome in what has been a troubled year for the Serpentine. [...] After almost 20 years of commissioning novelty structures to host summer parties for sponsors, it feels like the format could do with a rethink and look beyond the bounds of the gallery’s garden, and the collectors’ estates where the structures end up. — Oliver Wainwright, The Guardian
A few days before the opening of the 2019 Serpentine Pavilion, Oliver Wainwright of The Guardian wrote a piece calling for the Serpentine Galleries to consider rethinking the format of the yearly Serpentine Pavilion program (like appointing the architects earlier, for starters). It's been a rough... View full entry
Polymath designer Virgil Abloh's 12 Figures of Speech exhibition has opened at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. The exhibition was designed by Samir Bantal, director of AMO, the research and design arm of Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). A screen-printed temple front. Image by... View full entry
Municipalities, in the interest of preserving open space, could once be counted on to take over troubled courses. But subsidizing golf has become a toxic political issue in most places. — chicagobusiness.com
Are the days of America's golf clubs numbered? Reading the news, it doesn't look too good. A recent Crain's report chronicling the ailing state of suburban Chicago golf clubs points out that while business was booming for the region's country clubs just a decade ago, the game has fallen flat in... View full entry
As part of a recently-opened exhibition envisioning the future of Paris's urban highway system, a team led by Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA) has unveiled a dramatic, two-pronged vision for what the city's Boulevard Périphérique might look like in 2050. Ratti, working with research... View full entry
Many baby boomers poured millions into these spacious homes, planning to live out their golden years in houses with all the bells and whistles.
Now, many boomers are discovering that these large, high-maintenance houses no longer fit their needs as they grow older, but younger people aren’t buying them.
— wsj.com
The Wall Street Journal reports that wealthy baby boomers in America's far-flung retirement suburbs are having trouble selling their McMansions. The problem? The homes are too big, too expensive, and too far away from everything else. Another issue: Too many multi-million dollar homes are... View full entry
Subtle historic restoration and bold reinterpretation have rarely combined on a site as well as they have in an oft-visited district San Francisco. A stone's throw from the Painted Ladies is a Victorian home built in 1889 which draws little attention to itself upon first glance. Back Façade of... View full entry
The family of the revered South African trumpeter and cultural activist Hugh Ramapolo Masekela recently unveiled a memorial pavilion honoring the musician that architect David Adjaye designed. Masekela passed away last January at the age of 78. The late Hugh Ramapolo Masekela. Photo: Brett... View full entry
"It is difficult enough for Firefighters operating inside of high-rise buildings. Access to the fire area and to whatever is on fire is paramount to save lives and to protect Firefighters operating at these fires... While we acknowledge and accept the risks of our profession, we strongly oppose construction methods that are inherently dangerous that for no valid reason increase the threat to the lives of the public and our members." — Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York
The Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York has come out in strong support of state-level legislation aimed at limiting the ability of real estate developers to use "mechanical void spaces" to game zoning codes into allowing them to construct taller buildings. In a strongly-worded... View full entry
Materials scientists in China have developed an insulator that reproduces the structure of individual polar bear hairs, while scaling toward a material made up of many hairs for real-world applications in architecture and aerospace. Polar bear hairs are hollow, and the shapes and spacing of their hollow centers is responsible for their distinctive white coats, as well as being a source of incredible heat-holding capacity, water resistance, and stretchiness. — earth.com
Shu-Hong Yu, professor of chemistry at the University of Science and Technology of China and co-author of the paper titled Biomimetic Carbon Tube Aerogel Enables Super-Elasticity and Thermal Insulation published in the journal Chem, writes, “Polar bear hair has been evolutionarily optimized... View full entry
2020 Democratic presidential contender Cory Booker has unveiled an ambitious housing and homelessness prevention plan. With his plan, the current junior senator from New Jersey and former Newark mayor takes a multi-faceted approach that aims to address many of the structural issues that underpin... View full entry
The World Monuments Fund (WMF) is celebrating a milestone in its ongoing work at the Angkor archaeological park in Cambodia: the completion of a decade-long $4.8m conservation effort on the eastern side of Phnom Bakheng, one of the site’s oldest temples. — The Art Newspaper
Restoration work on the eastern half of the ancient temple is now complete. Image courtesy of WMF."WMF’s work at Angkor began with a 1989 field mission to evaluate the damage it had suffered following 20 years of civil strife and international isolation," explains the World Monuments Fund... View full entry
The “Renewable Rikers Act,” crafted by Queens Councilmember Costa Constantinides, aims to create a green vision for the 400-acre correctional facility that would keep the island out of the hands of luxury developers, while lessening the burden on communities loaded with city infrastructure. — Curbed NY
A trio of legislative efforts are underway in New York to transform the Rikers Island jail into a green energy powerhouse for the city. Queens Council member Costa Constantinides told Curbed, “Closing Rikers Island, if we do this right, can not only end overpolicing and the atrocities... View full entry
Over the past several years, home automation and smart home technology have become exceedingly popular and are now more commonplace than ever before. In the not so distant past, these concepts were hard to grasp, and felt out of reach for the average homeowner.
The House of the Future in Ahwatukee, Arizona, designed by former Taliesin Associated Architect Charles Schiffner, embraced these innovative concepts as early as 1978.
— The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation
Frank Lloyd Wright was a visionary, but he likely couldn't have predicted the next big to have spun out of Taliesin West, the architect's winter home and school in the Arizona desert. When he passed in 1959, many of his apprentices formed an architecture firm named Taliesin Associated... View full entry