For the past five years van der Vegt and Max Cohen de Lara, his partner at XML, have studied the halls of parliament of all 193 United Nations member states. In a new book, Parliament, the duo elegantly connects architecture to the political process.
All 193 assembly halls fall into one of five organizational layouts: “semicircle,” “horseshoe,” “opposing benches,” “circle,” and “classroom.” And these layouts make a difference.
— wired.com
If you can imagine how debating with someone seated beside you might feel different from arguing with someone standing at a pulpit, you can appreciate the impact.For more on the intersections of the architectural and the political, follow these links:Looking into the White House's “much longer... View full entry
Martino Stierli took over as MoMA's chief curator of architecture and design in 2015, when the museum was already undergoing major changes. Diller Scofidio + Renfro's redesign was underway, and the architecture and design galleries faced something of an uncertain future in the expanded museum... View full entry
Home design is among the many subtle and not so subtle indicators of cultural norms that tell us what the ideal family should look like. But more families — through choice and circumstance — are creating families in ways that don’t match up with the nuclear family ideal. In post-World War II America, marriage rates have decreased and more children are born to unmarried parents. Today there is no one family form in which the majority of kids grow up. — PS Mag
If you could throw out all the conventions and constructs and limitations of our current understanding of family, what would you create for yourself? And what’s stopping you?For more on the politics of home design, check out these links:If you can’t stand the domesticity, get out of the... View full entry
“Genetics, early experiences, family relationships and social settings can’t be addressed through urban design,” McCay explains. “But urban design can and should play a role, just as it does for physical disorders, which have equally complex causes.” [...]
But experts believe guidelines for healthy urban environments are currently failing to take this growing awareness into consideration. [...]
“understanding of these issues is not yet mainstream” in the architectural community.
— theguardian.com
Layla McCay, director of the Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health, outlines the various ways urban design and mental health intersect:Check out more videos from UDMH on their website.For more news on urban psychology:Measured Genius: One-to-One #29 with Pierluigi Serraino, author of 'The... View full entry
This week’s picks come with an energy and collaborative passion which is so characteristic of this time of year. With the London Design Festival raging on and the anticipation of a new season hanging thick in the air, it seems as though London has started afresh, seemingly recovering from... View full entry
Exhibitions from our founding in 1929 to the present are available online. These pages are updated continually. — MoMA
Go ahead and dig in! All there, including architecture. Now, that's a museum service. View full entry
"Humanity went through stone age, went through ice age, and today, going through plastic age. We need to find solution,” explains Robert Bezeau, the man intent on amending the global reach of plastic waste by building houses out of it. A transplant to Panama from Montreal, he has started... View full entry
In OMA and artist Taryn Simon's "An Occupation of Loss," professional mourners create unique performances of grief into an enormous sculpture of eight 45 foot concrete inverted wells that act as "a discordant instrument." It's not just for professional criers: during the day, visitors are... View full entry
There was a period where people created a caricature of the Mediterranean or Tuscan style, increasingly ornate and garish — WSJ
"Along with Beanie Babies, the Sony Discman and other trends of the 1990s, the once wildly popular Mediterranean-style home has fallen out of fashion.An analysis of current home listings shows that asking prices for Mediterranean-style homes—known for stucco walls, tumbled stone and... View full entry
At 41, Bjarke Ingels could be fairly described as architect-famous, meaning people outside of his profession might be able to finger one of the buildings he's designed, but not the man himself.
In person, he exudes a boyish charisma that one minute suggests a Silicon Valley wunderkind and the next a president of a frat house. [...]
His most distinctive features are his eyes, which are such dark pools you can practically see your own twin reflections in them.
— rollingstone.com
More from BIG and its founder:Session 14: His bjark is BIGger than his bjite – A chat with Bjarke Ingels at the opening of BIG's "Hot to Cold" exhibitionInga Saffron calls BIG's new Navy Yard building "mesmerizing", "reminiscent of a Richard Serra sculpture"Bjarke Ingels Group + AECOM join... View full entry
Following the Olympics’ closing ceremony, and as September’s Paralympic Games continue, international attention has begun to shift to the future of Rio de Janeiro’s Olympic sites. These buildings must be built to evolve to accommodate Paralympic and future athletes, and the success of this... View full entry
According to estimates by the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration, up to 60,000 people will seek asylum in Norway this year alone, most of them from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of these newly-arrived people have little knowledge of where to go to find basic resources, not to mention where... View full entry
During his time in power, as head of state and as leader of the all-powerful, secularist Ba’th party, Saddam would oversee an unprecedented program of monumental development across the historic city of Baghdad. This was not limited to monuments of war and hollow bronze shells, but enormous palatial complexes, museums, art galleries, and civic squares [...] marshal it, awkwardly, unevenly, into the post-industrial age, a modern city shaped by the aspirations and egotistical tastes of a despot. — failedarchitecture.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:Iraq honors Zaha Hadid with commemorative stamp — which features rejected Tokyo stadium designDestruction of Iraq’s oldest Christian monastery by ISIS militants went unreported for 16 months View full entry
Designed by three architects, one Cuban and two Italian, the new schools were constructed in flamboyant, sinuous forms deliberately reflecting the local landscape. Built in brick and terracotta as a pragmatic response to the US embargo of imported steel, ... these were a confident repudiation of Western-style International Modernism. But of the five original schools in the complex, only two were completed, as the deepening relationship with the USSR prompted disdain for such exotic forms — theartnewspaper.com
More on Archinect:Unfinished Spaces premieres tomorrow night on PBS; Archinect talks to the filmmakerHow Havana tries to come out of its crumbling shell without betraying Cuba's revolutionary rootsSelling Cuba (Gehry's already there)The promises and problems of a Cuban architecture marketRicardo... View full entry
Unsurprisingly, the majority of the U.S.' job growth over the past five years has been centered in large metro areas like Los Angeles and New York. What might be surprising is how the majority of those newly created jobs are either "mid-wage" or "low-wage" jobs, here defined as those that pay... View full entry