With a sleek modern sensibility and an awareness of the power of open, cleanly articulated vistas, Frank Welch designed sophisticated homes for a sophisticated clientele. Known affectionately as "The Dean," Welch's 90 years on earth spanned the creation of numerous spacious, elegant structures in... View full entry
The alleged deception: The retailers market and sell the hefty lumber as 4x4s without specifying that the boards actually measure 3½ inches by 3½ inches...The retailers say the allegations are bogus. It is common knowledge and longstanding industry practice, they say, that names such as 2x4 or 4x4 do not describe the width and thickness of those pieces of lumber. — Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel
Taking literal interpretations to a new, class-action-lawsuit extreme, a group of men are suing Home Depot and Menard's for failing to specifically label their 4 X 4s as being 3.5" X 3.5" (one can only imagine the litigious hurt and fury when these men discover that Aunt Jemima's Syrup is not made... View full entry
In 2013, it took an architect an average of 14 years to complete the initial education, myriad examinations and extra curricular activities neccessary to acheive licensure. In 2016, that figure dropped by 1.5 years thanks in part to an accelerated testing schedule. As a press release notes... View full entry
Now, although the horror is still raw and much about it is still unknown, it has also become clear that Grenfell exposes in the harshest possible way questions of the current state of social housing, about the accessibility, affordability and quality of homes, and their impact on people’s lives. — The Guardian
The Guardian's feature examines the new documentary Dispossession: The New Housing Swindle which addresses the build up anger surrounding the issue of affordable housing and the failed attempts at combatting it, including Margaret Thatcher's right-to-buy policy and the effects of the 60s and... View full entry
Almost 20 years since Frank Gehry’s $100m titanium-clad Guggenheim Bilbao opened, another city on Spain’s north coast is getting a major contemporary art centre designed by an internationally acclaimed “starchitect”. — The Art Newspaper
Renzo Piano's first big commission in Spain, The Centro Botín, is opening today. The architect claims that its comparisons with the museum that became a model for culture-driven regeneration schemes worldwide are too simplistic. According the president of the Fundación Botín’s visual arts... View full entry
Featuring a talk by Dr. Ann Rubbo on the artist and architect Marion Mahony Griffin, this screening of "A Girl is a Fellow Here: 100 Women Architects in the Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright" at the Center for Architecture in New York on June 28th at 6 p.m. investigates Wright's history of working... View full entry
For those of you in the Los Angeles area, you are already aware of the Arroyo Seco Weekend music festival, taking place in Pasadena this weekend. The festival is a new event hosted by the same people that run Coachella, Desert Trip, and other amazing art/music/culture events. For this... View full entry
“It would be quite fun to be on Mars because you would have gravity that is about 37% of that of Earth, so you would be able to lift heavy things and bound around,” [Elon Musk] adds, predicting that journey times could eventually be cut to 30 days. — The Guardian
Aside from the money, specific technology, and solid timeframe, Elon Musk has figured out a way to get to Mars. The colonization plan, which is designed to place about 1 million people on the planet in 40-100 years using a yet-to-be constructed ship that would carry 100 passengers per trip, needs... View full entry
As the country’s crime rate and prison population have steadily declined for years, dozens of correctional facilities have closed altogether. So when the number of migrants started to rise—more than 50,000 entered the Netherlands last year alone—the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) saw a solution. — National Geographic
Many prisons in the Netherlands have been repurposed to house refugees who are waiting to be granted asylum status, a process that usually takes at least six months. Free to come and go as they please, the refugees are not allowed to work but are encouraged to learn Dutch and build connections... View full entry
The American architect – part of the New York Five and one of the city’s most iconic modernists – talks to Port about his body of work and branching out from his beloved colour white — Port Magazine
Classical revival is perhaps the architectural style most identified with colonization. This building, which references Washington architecture, is a building of formal rooms, offices, and hierarchies, echoing structures of European authority. — Royal Architectural Institute of Canada
This June the federal government announced that the US' former embassy building in Ottawa will become a space dedicated to Inuit, Métis and First Nations communities which the task force of the RAIC finds to be a deeply inappropriate space for an Indigenous Centre. "Canada's Indigenous... View full entry
For Lovecraft, the ubiquitous angle between two walls is a dark gateway to the screaming abyss of the outer cosmos; for Ballard, it’s an entry point to our own anxious psyche. — Places Journal
H.P. Lovecraft and J.G. Ballard both put architecture at the heart of their fiction, and both made the humble corner into a place of nightmares. Will Wiles delves into the malign interiors of their imagined worlds and the secret history of the spaces where walls meet. View full entry
First-name-only architects Chris and Ian of Skyline Chess have already rendered landmark buildings of London into chess pieces, and now they're trying to create a similar set of New York City, provided they receive enough funding via their Kickstarter. Each building has been carefully chosen to... View full entry
Ever wondered when the high-rises in downtown Los Angeles were built? This two-minute video of animated renderings by Commercial Cafe provides a brief history and date for most of the skyscrapers downtown, from City Hall to the Wilshire Grand, concluding with a color-coded erection sequence by... View full entry
MPavilion is an Australian architectural commission and design event that annually erects a new temporary pavilion, designed by a leading international architect, in Melbourne’s historic Queen Victoria Gardens.This year's structure, designed by OMA, is inspired by ancient amphitheaters... View full entry
