All 17 members of a White House advisory panel on the arts and humanities resigned en masse Friday in response to President Trump's divisive comments on the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va.
The move follows the mass exodus of major business CEOs who quit two White House panels this week to protest the president's response to last weekend's clashes between far-right groups and counter-protesters.
— LA Times
Last week as multiple CEO's began quitting both the American Manufacturing Council and the Strategic and Policy Forum in protest of Trump's response to Charlottesville, Trump has decided to not move forward with the Council on Infrastructure. On Friday, the entire Arts Committee resigned over the... View full entry
Melbourne, Australia has been ranked as the most “liveable” city in the world for the seventh consecutive year by the Economist Intelligence Unit.
The EIU’s benchmark annual report titled “The Global Liveability Report 2017,” ranks 140 cities in order of best living conditions.
Melbourne’s 97.5 score is down to perfect assessments in health care, education, and infrastructure, as well as hitting over 95 in stability, and culture and environment.
— qz.com
As in previous years, the top 10 list is mostly comprised of major cities in Australia and Canada, while Vienna — once again — barely misses the first spot by 0.1 percentage points overall. Auckland, Helsinki, and Hamburg manage to claim some coveted spots at the top for their respective... View full entry
After a three-year search that included more than 30 potential sites, the American Institute of Architects Houston Chapter selected the 1906 Riesner Building, to be the home of Architecture Center Houston, which is expected to open in mid-September.
Originally, the three-story Riesner Building was a typical commercial building for its time, complete with double French doors facing the street.
— Houston Chronicle
The winning entry for the 'Re-Imagine Architecture Center Houston' competition, designed by Murphy Mears Architects, proposed to devote the first floor of ReACH to flexible office and meeting space, restore the original brick and openings in the West façade, and re-purpose the Boiler Room for... View full entry
This week we're joined by Inga Saffron, the Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer. If you haven't read her latest piece on Henry Wilcots, the relatively unknown architect responsible for finishing Louis Kahn's masterpiece in Dhaka, go read it now. We talk with... View full entry
Essey is an engineer at Uber and an early adopter of the Internet of things. He can control his lights with his Amazon Echo or an array of touchpad sensors he has installed throughout the home. Sensors tell him when there's water in the basement or a leak under the sink.
While Essey's setup might sound a little like science fiction, it's a prototype of the future. Some critics are worried these devices won't be secure and that companies will use them to spy on us to make money.
— NPR
As the Internet of things becomes more ingrained in our daily lives, some people are turning ordinary homes into smart homes. One way of doing that is by integrating smart appliances (dishwasher, fridges, microwaves, toasters, etc). That strategy, however, can be expensive and not very... View full entry
In its scale, this faintly quaint, eloquently designed contraption aspires to conjure up the spirit of those 19th-century exemplars of elegant engineering like the Brooklyn Bridge or the Eiffel Tower: industrial-era monuments of structural form, both necessary and sufficient, ingenious but not space age, encapsulating the aspirations of a city. — NY Times
While the Shed, an art and performance space designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Rockwell Group will be in construction for at least another year, the structure is already capable of conducting its five minute moving act along the High Line. Weighing in at 8 million... View full entry
Today the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) announced that the curators of the German Pavilion at the Architecture Biennale 2018 will be Lars Krückeberg, Wolfram Putz and Thomas Willemeit of GRAFT together with Marianne... View full entry
The panic was kicked off by photos posted to social media tagging traffic news organization JS100. The posts said the under-construction building across from Mahatun Plaza near BTS Phloen Chit looked in danger of collapse.
Concerned citizens gathered Tuesday at the construction site on Phloen Chit Road where the building’s angled appearance sparked concern about its structural integrity to hear district officials and site management say it was part of the design.
— Khaoso English
“The building isn’t crooked or leaning over, it’s part of the architectural design,” Morakot Sanitthangkul, Pathum Wan district director, said.”Let me confirm for everyone again, for the fourth time: It’s part of the 3D design.” The 32-floor hotel was designed by Tandem Architects... View full entry
The New York Wheel has been delayed repeatedly since it was first announced in 2012. Initially, developers planned to finish the North Shore attraction in 2015, but that has since been pushed back to at least 2018. The estimated cost of the project has also grown from $230 million to $590 million. — AM New York
As announced on Monday, The New York Wheel in Staten Island is spinning toward completion once again. The developer, New York Wheel Owner LLC, said it planned to work with American Bridge Company, which built a similar observation wheel in Las Vegas. View full entry
Abellanas’ secret cabin replicates the childhood experience of hiding under a table or in a closet – ‘The feeling kept hidden while still being able to hear and see what happens around us,’ he says. ‘Observing passing cars and trains with no one seeing me gives me great sense of peace.’ — The Spaces
Fernando Abellanas, a self-taught designer from Valencia has created a pop-up studio into the underside of a traffic bridge. Its metal base is moved from one side of the bridge to the other by a hand crank along rails, where a shelf, chair, and desk have been bolted to the bridge’s concrete... View full entry
On Tuesday Gunnar Birkerts, Detroit-based Latvian-American architect passed away at the age of 92. Born in 1925, in Riga, Birkerts was a graduate of the University of Stuttgart in Germany and immigrated to the United States in 1949. He began his architectural career with Perkins+Will before... View full entry
Autonomous aerial vehicles have a host of applications, researchers say. Large ones can be used for commercial transport and national security. Small drones could survey disaster sites, inspect infrastructures like bridges and wind turbines, gather environmental and atmospheric data, and deliver packages, for example. Package delivery goes beyond Amazon orders. — The Michigan Engineer News Center
University of Michigan’s College of Engineering is adding an outdoor fly lab for testing autonomous aerial vehicles to the university’s spate of advanced robotics facilities. Designed by Harley Ellis Deveraux, M-Air will be a netted, four-story complex situated next to the site where the Ford... View full entry
Marble~ish was developed as part of the research from the 2016/17 Harry der Boghosian Fellowship at Syracuse School of Architecture. Conducted by Maya Alam in collaboration with her students “~ISH: Stages Before the Real” is an installation exploring questions concerning the in-between: site... View full entry
The proposed building will contain exhibition space on the ground floor and second floor, classrooms between the second and third floor, a theater on the third floor and offices between the fourth and sixth floors. There will also be an event space on the second floor and an aquarium room on the fifth floor. — Real Estate Weekly
The proposed $325 million six-story expansion won the Landmarks Commission’s approval in October 2016. Designed by Studio Gang, the building will be located along Columbus Avenue on the museum’s rear grounds near West 79th Street. The majority of the 218,000-square-foot Gilder Center will be... View full entry
The historic Japanese city of Kumamoto, famous for its picturesque 15th century castle, experienced a damaging earthquake in 2016, leading to the demolition of several of its historic buildings. The World Monument Fund has pledged to help restore the remaining older buildings (although it should... View full entry
