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
The Berlin activists who staged a protest at a vacant government building didn’t imagine they’d end up leading a €140 million redevelopment project. — Places Journal
During the 1960s, the Haus der Statistik was built for the national statistics office for East Germany. The massive complex spreads over eight blocks at half a million square feet, comprising three connected mid-rises and some smaller buildings. As years passed, the Haus der Statistik's history... View full entry
When Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti took office in 2013, the city was home to 22,993 homeless residents [...].
The number of unhoused people living within city limits now stands at 36,300—and 75 percent are unsheltered.
With homelessness up 58 percent on his watch, the mayor struck an apologetic tone in a letter sent to residents Tuesday.
— Curbed LA
"As your mayor, I take full responsibility for our response to this crisis," wrote Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti in an open letter this week. "And like everyone who has seen families in tents or spoken to a homeless veteran in need, I am both heartbroken and impatient. While we have housed more... View full entry
In Los Angeles, where even houses get their proverbial close-ups as TV or movie locations, a property’s appeal can crest on its IMDb credits alone.
But only the Sowden House in the Los Feliz neighborhood can claim film cameos, a pedigreed architect and a history as the possible site of a grisly unsolved murder. Never mind the fact that the exterior entryway resembles a menacing maw, earning it the apt nickname “the Jaws house.”
— The New York Times
The Sowden House, in Los Feliz, California, has one of the most storied pasts in architecture and Hollywood history. Designed by Lloyd Wright, son of Frank Lloyd Wright, the home was completed in 1926 for John and Ruth Sowden as a "bohemian playhouse for aspiring actors and Hollywood bons... View full entry
Following delays caused by a lawsuit aimed at protecting the adjacent, city-owned Theodore Roosevelt Park, construction officially kicked off for the American Museum of Natural History’s new Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation. Designed by architect Jeanne Gang, the $383 million Center will add new galleries, classrooms, a theatre, and an expanded library while linking 10 museum buildings for better circulation throughout the campus. — 6sqft
A rendering of the Gilder Center's interior. Rendering by MIR and Studio Gang.Entrance to the Gilder Center from Theodore Roosevelt Park. Rendering by MIR and Studio Gang.Entrance to the Gilder Center from Theodore Roosevelt Park. Rendering by MIR and Studio Gang. View full entry
After her win, Stroker spoke to reporters about the lack of accessibility on Broadway. She said that most of the theaters’ backstage areas are not generally accessible to performers with disabilities.
“I would ask theater owners and producers to really look into how they can begin to make the backstage accessible so that performers with disabilities can get around,” she said, per The New York Times.
— Huffington Post
Ali Stroker became the first person to use a wheelchair to win a Tony Award during Sunday night's glitzy ceremony at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Her historical win — which was for Best Featured Actress in a Musical in the acclaimed Broadway revival of “Oklahoma!” — is a milestone in... View full entry
American homes are a lot bigger than they used to be. In 1973[...] the median size of a newly built house was just over 1,500 square feet; that figure reached nearly 2,500 square feet in 2015.
But according to a recent paper, Americans aren’t getting any happier with their ever bigger homes. “Despite a major upscaling of single-family houses since 1980,” writes Clément Bellet,[...], “house satisfaction has remained steady in American suburbs.”
— The Atlantic
For many homeowners in America, happiness is often incorrectly measured by how flatteringly the scale of one's home can be compared to those around them. Since the construction of Levittown and other post-war suburban developments, American homes have, on average, been built with incrementally... View full entry
The Trump Administration has opted to use an Army base in Oklahoma to hold growing numbers of immigrant children in its custody after running out of room at government shelters.
Fort Sill, an 150-year-old installation once used as an internment camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II, has been selected to detain 1,400 children until they can be given to an adult relative, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
— Time.com
As of April 30, 2019, the department of Health and Human Services has taken 40,900 children seeking asylum into custody along the southern border, a 57% increase from 2018, according to Time. The surge in detainees has overwhelmed existing and new temporary detention facilities in southern... View full entry
