Mayor London Breed’s proposed budget for the coming fiscal year will soar by $1.2 billion — making it the largest in city history — and boost investment in tackling the city’s most urgent problems: housing and homelessness. — SF Chronicle
The housing and homelessness crisis in major cities, especially in San Francisco, has been an ongoing issue. Mayor London Breed met with city officials and San Francisco residents to address new plans to address solutions towards the increased initiative towards housing and homelessness. With an... View full entry
The annual point-in-time count, delivered to the Board of Supervisors, put the number of homeless people just shy of 59,000 countywide. Within the city of Los Angeles, the number soared to more than 36,000, a 16% increase. — The Los Angeles Times
Homelessness is surging in Los Angeles County and across California, where most major cities have seen double-digit increases in their share of residents experiencing homelessness since last year. Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas told The Los Angeles Times, “At this point of... View full entry
On Tuesday, the Warren campaign released its most comprehensive climate plan yet, a $2 trillion package that commits the federal government to spend $150 billion a year over the next decade on low-carbon technology, increases energy research funding tenfold and funds a $100 billion Green Marshall Plan to aid the poorer countries projected to suffer the worst as global temperatures rise. — The Huffington Post
In specifically identifying a post-World War II-style Marshall Plan-like aid package aimed at assisting international countries lower their carbon emissions, Warren's plan seeks to go further than the other Green New Deal-style visions put forward by competing presidential candidates. In a... View full entry
Italy’s cultural heritage ministry announced on Friday (May 31) that it would revoke a lease granted to Bannon after reports of fraud in the competitive tender process. The former Breitbart chief and aide to US president Donald Trump was reportedly paying €100,000 ($110,000) per year to rent the 13th Century Carthusian monastery, but now will have to search for another spot. — QZ
What was once the potential site for a training academy for the far-right, the Italian state evicts the conservative Catholic organization Dignitatis Humanae Institute (DHI) due to reports of fraud. According to a recent report from The Economist, institute director Benjamin Harnwell was shocked... View full entry
A site in Queens home to the United African Society of Newtown, the first community of free African Americans founded in New York State, is currently being marketed by real estate entity Cushman & Wakefield for $13.8 million as a development opportunity. What's left of the 1828 community... View full entry
Last month, SpaceX successfully launched 60 500-pound satellites into space. Soon amateur skywatchers started sharing images of those satellites in night skies, igniting an uproar among astronomers who fear that the planned orbiting cluster will wreak havoc on scientific research and trash our view of the cosmos. — The New York Times
“This has the potential to change what a natural sky looks like,” Tyler Nordgren, an astronomer who promotes night skies told The New York Times. Astronomers and night sky-enthusiasts worry because SpaceX is planning to send potentially thousands of satellites into orbit as part of a new... View full entry
The City Council voted to close a zoning loophole that has allowed developers to boost building heights with excessive mechanical spaces—but it’s only the first step in addressing the issue, say lawmakers. — Curbed NY
The zoning amendment will limit the city's notoriously over-sized mechanical spaces to 25-feet in height before additional space begins to eat into a project's allowable buildable area. New York City lawmakers are pushing to close other loopholes, as well, including rules impacting the use... View full entry
Called the NikeLab Chicago Re-Creation Center, the space feels like being inside a giant Nike shoebox designed by Abloh himself. It features the self-aware, over-indexed print labeling that Abloh is known for. The Re-Creation Center sign itself has “for promotional use only” printed on top. The rest of the space’s irony is more subtle, or arguably nonexistent. — Fast Company
Virgil Abloh is a name that's grown synonymous with what is trending in design and fashion. A connoisseur of creating new things from the simplest of concepts, Abloh's collaboration with Nike has emphasized his influence not only in design but in design culture. Having worked with some of the... View full entry
The Taliban captured the 12th-century Minaret of Jam and killed 18 Afghan security personnel tasked with protecting the World Heritage Site. Pro-government forces have yet to re-secure the area. The current condition of the brick structure and the surrounding communities, who were both threatened by torrential flooding just last week, is still unknown. — The Antiquities Coalition
Nearly two decades after the American-led invasion of Afghanistan began, significant works of Islamic heritage continue to fall under threat in the country. Just last week, for example, the 12-Century era Minaret of Jam, the world's second tallest Islamic tower, appears to have been captured by... View full entry
[Helen Liu] Fong’s specialty was Googie architecture, what Wong calls futuristic “Jetson kind of aesthetic” coffee shops and motels that would sweep the highways of America in the middle of the last century. Some of Fong’s most famous projects include the Holiday Bowl on Crenshaw Boulevard, the first Norms Restaurant, Johnie’s Coffee Shop, and the still kicking Pann’s Restaurant at 6710 La Tijera Boulevard. — Curbed LA
A whimsical subcategory of mid-century design, known as 'Googie' architecture, was as integral to the Southern California architecture scene as any modernist homes designed by Schindler, Neutra or the Eameses. This is because Googie architecture was the design of choice for coffee shops, delis... View full entry
The Louvre in Paris turned away thousands of tourists waiting in line to enter the museum yesterday after security staff staged a walkout. The employees are on strike to protest the museum’s handling of its exploding attendance, which exceeded 10 million people last year. This growth has resulted in “unprecedented deterioration in visiting conditions, and obviously working conditions,” according to the guards’ union. — Artnet
The beloved Louvre in Paris is one of the most visited museums in the world. With its iconic pyramid expansion designed by the late I.M. Pei it has become a must-see site. Just last year, the museum attracted 10.2 million visitors, a record-breaking attendance in the museum's history. Other... View full entry
The Supreme Court on Tuesday let stand a lower court’s ruling that said transgender students in an eastern Pennsylvania school district can use locker rooms and restrooms that match their gender identity. — Daily Beast
The United States Supreme Court declined to review a previous decision from the Third Circuit Court in Doe v. Boyertown School District that had upheld the school district's policy of allowing transgender students to use their bathroom of choice. View of a gender-neutral bathroom at the Federal... View full entry
The clunky, amoebalike building cannot seem to decide between the digitally derived expressionism of such architects as Frank Gehry or Zaha Hadid, and Zumthor’s own brand of minimalist modernism. We’re left with a museum that benefits nobody and satisfies none of the needs of the art in its collection, nor of the public that will view it. And yet in April, it was approved... — New Republic
With the recent approval of LACMA's redesign back in April, Peter Zumthor's design for Los Angeles' iconic art museum has received an alarming reaction from the public, specifically those in the architecture community. In Archinect's most recent coverage of the museum, many of our readers shared... View full entry
The Design Nexus seeks to honor the work of African American designers from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds together on a single platform to showcase their craft and the places they work. — Harvard Graduate School of Design
The Harvard University Graduate School of Design has launched the African American Design Nexus (AADN), a new virtual collection that highlights African American architects and designers from various generations, practices, and backgrounds. National Museum of African American History in... View full entry
Marshall Brown, an Associate Professor at the Princeton University School of Architecture, has been producing a provocative series of post-war architecture collages since 2013. 14-9-2 2013-2014, Collages from magazine pages, glue, on archival paper, 17 x 14 vertical 14 x 17 horizontalThey often... View full entry