I’ve been poisoning my brain the last couple of weeks narrowing down 2000 prospective McMansions to 16. Please give me a round of applause for this immense personal sacrifice. Instead of ranking them myself like I usually do, I will be doing a bracket at the end of the next post where you can vote for the Most Terrible in Texas! (After all, everything’s bigger in Texas!) — mcmansionhell.com
McMansion Hell, a bi-weekly blog delighting in architectural education through ridicule, now brings us a Texas bracket. The top 8 worst McMansions of Texas suburbia have been chosen and properly mocked. Now it's your turn to choose which belongs at the innermost circle of hell. Here are a few of... View full entry
The name change, however, also reflects two facts that have long bedeviled the arch and its role within the National Park Service. Saarinen’s soaring arc of steel is an icon of the automobile age, an attraction that has always been more about playing to the passing audience of the interstates than any particular relevance to the idea of national expansion. It also honors historical events that are now understood as deeply problematic within the larger trajectory of American history. — The Washington Post
It's a big day for the city of St. Louis, which is celebrating the grand reopening of the Gateway Arch. The monumental renovation project includes a new name — the Gateway Arch National Park, a new museum, and a major redesign of the park's urban landscape. The exhibitions inside the museum... View full entry
As New York enters the third decade of the twenty-first century, it is in imminent danger of becoming something it has never been before: unremarkable. It is approaching a state where it is no longer a significant cultural entity but the world’s largest gated community, with a few cupcake shops here and there. For the first time in its history, New York is, well, boring. — Harper's Magazine
The story keeps going. "This is not some new phenomenon but a cancer that’s been metastasizing on the city for decades now. And what’s happening to New York now—what’s already happened to most of Manhattan, its core—is happening in every affluent American city. San Francisco is overrun... View full entry
Im developing a new guide called the ‘Manual on Uniform Traffic Engineer Excuses’ or #MUTEE,” tweeted Boise-based planner Don Kostelec in a moment of genius.
“You get to name the chapters. Go!”
The responses were swift, and hilarious, and like so much humor carried painful truths.
— cal.streetsblog.org
Don Kostelec recently opened the door to traffic engineering jabs with a call for chapter titles on his Manual on Uniform Traffic Engineer Excuses. Some of these cutting responses are all too real... ... View full entry
This metallic box is the new $21m home for the AM Qattan Foundation, an arts centre that its founders hope will stand as a “beacon of culture” in the occupied West Bank.
“It has been years of fighting to achieve anything close to the standards we wanted. There are defects, but it is the best we could do while building under (Israeli) occupation,” [says achitect Juan Pedro Donaire, whose firm designed the new building]
— The Guardian
At Pioneer Works, in Brooklyn, the show “Gerard & Kelly: Clockwork” — photographs, text, installations, and live and filmed dance — references the three small structures and the intertwined careers of their architects: the Schindler House in West Hollywood, Calif., by R. M. Schindler; Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, Conn.; and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House in Plano, Ill. — New York Times
Artists Brennan Gerard and Ryan Kelly's film Schindler/Glass uses three iconic modernist houses as the backdrop in which issues of gendered space and domestic intimacy are explored. The video piece is part of an ongoing series by the artists called “Modern Living". Shot... View full entry
Last Wednesday, on the eve of the AIA National Convention, I had the pleasure of talking with Miguel McKelvey, co-founder of WeWork. The conversation was held in Midtown Manhattan, in the Project 6 by AF showroom to an invited crowd of 75 architects. The event was co-hosted by Project 6 by... View full entry
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the most important decision on fair housing in a generation. He’ll almost certainly get to see it overturned in his lifetime.
When Kennedy announced his long-rumored retirement on Wednesday, he shined a spotlight on the tenuous political balance of the U.S. Supreme Court. Famously a swing vote, Kennedy sided with the court’s four liberal justices on defining decisions on reproductive rights, same-sex marriage, the death penalty, and other hot-button social issues.
— City Lab
The "disparate impact" ruling of the Fair Housing Act is now being reconsidered by HUD. This could lead to the department repealing altogether, despite the fact that the Supreme Court already affirmed its constitutionality. Justice Kennedy's legacy of further integrating society is vulnerable to... View full entry
Out in the deserts of Lime, Oregon, an unexpected site of boulder-sized luxury handbags has taken over the arid landscape. The gigantic purses, which sport the designs of Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Prada, Gucci, Chanel and McQueen, are part of Thrashbird's latest project titled 'Valley of Secret... View full entry
A Menlo Park company called Katerra announced that it had acquired Michael Green Architecture, a 25-person architecture firm in Vancouver, British Columbia. On June 12, the company revealed that it had bought another, larger architecture firm, Atlanta-based Lord Aeck Sargent. This comes five months after Katerra raised $865 million in venture capital from funders led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund, which has also invested heavily in the co-working startup WeWork. — City Lab
Startup Katerra looks to revolutionize the construction industry through streamlining the entire process with their design-build model. The company has acquired Michael Green Architecture, known for designing tall wood buildings, and Lord Aeck Sargent. With these two firms... View full entry
AERIAL FUTURES, a non-profit think tank exploring innovation in the architecture of flight, have created a new film titled Urban Constellations looking at the relationship between a city and its airports. Using NYC as a case study, this video asks how fragmented pieces of infrastructure can be... View full entry
In a major victory for the Frick Collection, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission on Tuesday approved the museum’s latest plan to expand and renovate its 1914 Gilded Age mansion — the institution’s fourth such attempt to gain more space for its exhibitions and public programs. [...]
Some critics were disappointed by Tuesday’s vote. Theodore Grunewald, a preservationist, called it “a vote for blandness.”
— The New York Times
The approved proposal represented a revised version of the Frick Collection expansion scheme, taking into consideration concerns brought forward by the Stop Irresponsible Frick Development preservationist group at an impassioned four-hour public hearing in May. The expansion plans were designed... View full entry
Utopia, the Library and Academy for Performing Arts, has recently opened in it's new building designed by KAAN Architecten. Located in Aalst, Belgium, the brick structure incorporates a historic school building from 1880 embedded within. Utopia by KAAN Architecten, located in Aalst, Belgium... View full entry
This Saturday, June 30, 2018 from 6:30-10pm the A+D Museum will unveil The Assembly. The Assembly is a new tradition; it is a gathering. This approach to exhibition openings is an expression of the museum's mission to join together a diverse group in celebration of different disciplines of design... View full entry
Last week Archinect profiled Denver-Based Paul Andersen for a Small Studio Snapshot. Apple Chris liked what he read "nice interview...and a sense humor. the entire Pop paragraph is quotable". Five Rooms at the Landmark Gallery in the Chicago Cultural Center. Designed with Paul Preissner... View full entry
