Located on the former site of a Unilever palm oil plantation in the Congolese forest, the Lusanga International Research Centre on Art and Economic Inequality, or LIRCAEI, is a new white cube museum space dedicated to “the transformation of former plantation spaces into areas for artistic... View full entry
Critic Curt Gambetta brings forward an age old uncomfortable question on corporate public spaces whose main purpose is often curtailed by exemplary architecture that is hard to reject. His piece titled, "No free gifts," carefully borrowed from the anthropologist Mary Douglas, asks the... View full entry
Have you ever realized that Hong Kong skyscrapers have holes in them? They're called dragon gates, and according to the Chinese principle feng shui these holes allow dragons to fly from the mountains to the water each day. It's believed that blocking the dragon's path could bring misfortune. Buildings with bad feng shui, such as the Bank of China Tower, have been blamed for surrounding companies going out of business. — Business Insider
Double-paned, waterproofed windows for insulation? Check. Reinforced steel beams for stability during an earthquake? Check. Hole in the center of the building so dragons can fly through? View full entry
How do you transform a classical museum without dramatically altering the existing architecture? Frank Gehry and the hardworking crew at Gehry Partners have chosen to remove a few walls and increase the amount of natural and artificial lighting, creating a stronger visual connection between... View full entry
Although the LACMA exhibition a few years ago featuring props from Stanley Kubrick's films was, as cineastes say, "nifty," there's something even niftier on view at The 14th Factory: an elaborately detailed, fully inhabitable set recreated from the still-powerful ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey... View full entry
The grueling pace of architecture school notoriously leaves little room to catch up on your beauty sleep. But even the most rigorous students need a bit of shuteye every once and a while, whether under a desk or inside an installation. @usczzz documents passed out students from the USC School of... View full entry
The Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles acquired a seriously massive archive directly from the studio of Frank O. Gehry today. Dubbed The Frank Gehry Papers, the archives — which were granted as part gift and part purchase — reveal a comprehensive overview of the first 30 years of the... View full entry
Not content to creepily stalk you with tailored ads on Facebook and Google, ISPs can now sell your internet browsing history to third-parties for cash, thanks to the corporately-backed husks that voted for the move in the U.S. House of Representatives. According to The Washington Post:Congress's... View full entry
Walk through the towering door now, and Midtown falls away. The transition is not abrupt; a visitor is met first with a bank of wooden cupboards, easing newcomers off the street and into the vastness of the house itself. Then, space. The main room provides an unimpeded vista through 100 feet of natural-lit openness, a glass wall, a courtyard and pond, and a small separate structure beyond. The effect — of muted light, of air, of cleanness — is moving. — The New York Times
Fresh from her daily column at The Paris Review, Sadie Stein visits a Philip Johnson-designed apartment/artistic showcase in midtown Manhattan known as the "Rockfeller Guest House."Combining a rich historical narrative with some evocatively observed design, this piece is, as befits its author, a... View full entry
In a bold semantic move years in the make, the AIA has renamed a NAAB-accredited, employed graduate on the path to licensure as either a "design professional" or "architectural associate." While you can still call a student pursuing their degree while working in an office an intern (which is... View full entry
The famous, and provocative, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has been commissioned to build one of his largest public works ever—100 fences and installations that will be placed around New York City. Entitled “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors,” the project was commissioned by the Public Art Fund in... View full entry
After the clocks going forward at the weekend, we have more light to get out and play with. Make the most of it on Friday, with another TATE late in the evening sun (hopefully). A beer and art with friends watching the sunset from the heights of the Switch House viewing platform… what could be... View full entry
Segregation is no accident.Nearly five decades after the Fair Housing Act of 1968, American cities remain racially, culturally, spatially and economically divided. Entrenched conditions and persistent biases undermine the policies and priorities that would heal lingering wounds.So argues Catalina... View full entry
...it is not the mall that is declining, but suburbia. The mall, meanwhile, is becoming urban. In fact, a new breed of shopping centre is integrating so seamlessly into its urban surroundings that it can be difficult to draw any line between city and mall whatsoever.
On both sides of the Pacific, the mall is not “dead”. It has simply transformed...[but] “While the idea of the shopping mall becoming ‘urban’ has a certain appeal, the net effect is to turn the city into a shopping mall.”
— The Guardian
Stefan Al, author of Mall City: Hong Kong's Dreamworlds of Consumption, writes about how shopping malls in places such as New York, Melbourne, and Hong Kong are increasingly blending into the cities themselves — transforming into “a new breed of shopping centre”, Al writes. View full entry
Over the past century, kitchens have gone from being a back room to the center of many homes. Now, according to a new study released by the AIA, many homeowners are requesting outdoor kitchens, creating an uptick in work for residential architects. “Homeowners continue to find new ways to add... View full entry