The US expends more energy on air conditioning, for example, than the whole of Africa does on everything. Then again, it expends even more energy on hot water, which doesn’t get the same rap. The question then is not whether to condition climate, but how. As long ago as the 1940s the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy demonstrated, with his village of New Gourna near Luxor, how traditional techniques of orientation, ventilation, screening and shading could be revived. — The Guardian
Rowan Moore dives into the history of air conditioning and how the development of this technology shaped architectural design over the years. Rather than condemn its use, Moore advocates for optimizing both old and new techniques for sustainable cooling with the current challenge to scale up for... View full entry
One of Europe’s most visited sites, with about 12 million tourists a year, is in dire need of repairs. Centuries of weather have worn away at the stone. The fumes from decades of gridlock have only worsened the damage. “Pollution is the biggest culprit,” says Philippe Villeneuve, architect in chief of historic monuments in France. “We need to replace the ruined stones. We need to replace the joints with traditional materials. This is going to be extensive.” — Time
Notre Dame faces major repairs as the historic Cathedral's structure decays due largely to pollution. Funding for the repairs needed were difficult to raise as the cathedral is owned by the French government, yet their arrangement allows the Catholic archdiocese of Paris to use it for free. Both... View full entry
This summer’s extreme weather has hit home some stark realities. Climate disaster is not slated to happen in some far-flung theoretical future. It’s here, and now. — MEDIUM
Penned by Nafeez Ahmed, investigative journalist, recovering academic, tracking the Crisis of Civilization, the article points to a more urgent than urgent times in terms of civilisation and not merely the climate change. Also an urgent quote from a friend internalizing the article for... View full entry
Across Hong Kong, where almost half the population lives in government-provided housing, public housing complexes have become wildly popular Instagram destinations. Locals and tourists have flocked to estates around the city, craning their necks to get that perfect social media shot and irritating residents in the process.
The estates have drawn professional interest as well, featuring prominently in marketing campaigns and even a music video by the Korean boy band Seventeen.
— The New York Times
Hong Kong's public housing, largely built in the 1960's and 70's, has attracted widespread public attention for its aesthetic appeal. These modernist style high-rises photograph beautifully with colorful displays of clean lined symmetry. While these buildings are visually engaging, they also play... View full entry
Depending on who you ask, brutalist buildings like the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C., are little more than misshapen mounds of concrete. But architecture professor Mark Pasnik says the structures were built with a much deeper meaning in mind.
"People think of them as communistic or as alienating," says Pasnik, who came to brutalism's defense in a recent Boston Globe op-ed.
— wbur.org
Architecture professor Mark Pasnik makes the argument for preservation of brutalist buildings in an opinion piece for the Boston Globe. Pasnik's piece was in response to Trumps recent outcry to tear down the FBI headquarters. He explains the style's history of material honesty, along with reasons... View full entry
Airbnb received mixed feedback on the concept — amidst concerns that the competition could cause damage to the famous wall. "We deeply respect the feedback we have received," said Airbnb in a statement.
"We will be working closely with our hosts and guests in China as well as community leaders to highlight the culture and history that make China one of the most dynamic destinations in the world," said Airbnb.
— CNN
Not too surprisingly, Airbnb cancelled their Great Wall of China one-night-sleepover contest a few days before its August 11 submission deadline. The company stated that they "will be in touch in the future about other ways you can explore and discover amazing experiences in China." View full entry
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has just announced $13.2 million in grants for cultural infrastructure. 29 U.S. cultural institutions were awarded with matching grants including libraries, museums, archives, colleges, universities, historic sites, scholarly associations... View full entry
Thanks to the overwhelming clarity of [Le Corbusier's] positions, the bewitching nature of his epigrammatic style and the already-powerful international movement for Modernism, the impact he had on a rising generation of Japanese architects would prove to be immense. But it would be the nature of that impact to be felt only in conditions of overwhelming ambivalence. — The New York Times
Nikil Saval traces Japan's modernism back to Le Corbusier citing influences on Kunio Maekawa and Kenzo Tange. Japan was the earliest country in all of East Asia to engage with Le Corbusier's work in the late 19th century, and by the 1930's many of his books has been translated into Japanese. The... View full entry
Construction has begun on a steel net to prevent people from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, after years of debate over whether such an obstacle would mar the bridge’s romantic image.
For at least the next two years, crews will toil throughout the night to build a coarse web of marine cable beneath the Art Deco span that is both an international symbol for engineering beauty and a magnet for suicides.
— San Francisco Chronicle
"Oakland companies Shimmick Construction Co. and Danny’s Construction Co. won the contract to design and build the net for $211 million — about three times what the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District Board of Directors had proposed when it put the project out for bid in... View full entry
Two weeks ago, somebody untied Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s $40 million yacht from its mooring. It got me thinking about another opulent display of wealth owned by DeVos: her 22,000-square-foot nautical-themed summer mansion, located in Holland, Michigan. Just a few more years of climate change and it’ll be floating too. — vox.com
Kate Wagner critiques Betsy DeVos’s Michigan summer mansion on her humor blog McMansion Hell. Wagner unpacks not only the architectural design but also the greater social implications of why the education secretary's McMansion is so horrendous. The essay is dedicated to "all of the public... View full entry
Mixed media artist Michael Velliquette has been making imaginary architecture models. A prolific artist who favors paper as his medium, his latest is a series of carefully detailed installations. Using hand-cut paper shapes, Velliquette assembles countless pieces of paper into complex forms... View full entry
But gender bias is not the most dangerous consequence of the lone-wolf image: It is the unspoken permission to abuse that should worry us. For the privilege of working alongside this aggressive and uncompromising genius, we are asked to tolerate his erratic, harsh, and selfish behavior. [...] To fight sexual abuse and abusers, we must first let go of this simplistic and fictitious image of the lone wolf. — Esther Sperber on Architect Magazine
In this short opinion piece, Studio ST Architects founder Esther Sperber argues that, in light of the ongoing #MeToo movement, rejecting the prevalent “lone wolf”/creative genius myth and emphasizing a collaborative culture instead are important steps to stopping abuse in architecture. View full entry
MAD Architects have restored Japan's historic Kiyotsu Gorge Tunnel as a permanent art installation, “Tunnel of Light”, coinciding with the 2018 Echigo-Tsumari Triennale. The art event hosts approximately 160 artworks across 200 villages, inhabiting abandoned spaces as sites for interaction... View full entry
Chinese authorities are razing one of the Beijing studios of dissident artist Ai Weiwei. He said that demolition crews showed up without advance warning, and have begun the process of tearing down the studio.
Ai has been a longtime critic of the government, and on Saturday, he began posting videos to his Instagram feed of the studio's destruction. "Farewell," Ai wrote. "They started to demolish my studio 'Zuoyuo' in Beijing with no precaution."
— NPR
Ai, who has been living in self-imposed exile in Berlin since Chinese authorities returned his confiscated passport in 2015, responded to NPR about the sudden demolition of his Zuoyou studio in Beijing: We didn't receive any advance warning or announcement of the demolition. We were required to... View full entry
At around 12,000 years old, Göbekli Tepe in south-east Turkey has been billed as the world’s oldest temple. It is many millennia older than Stonehenge or Egypt’s great pyramids, built in the pre-pottery Neolithic period before writing or the wheel. But should Göbekli Tepe, which became a Unesco World Heritage Site in July, also be regarded as the world’s oldest piece of architecture? — The Art Newspaper
T-shaped limestone pillars. Image: Wikipedia.Archaeological research of the ancient Göbekli Tepe ruin site in present-day Turkey suggests that the impressive monolithic structures, believed to date back to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic era (10th–8th millennium BCE), might in fact be the first... View full entry