After stalling for years, the $243 million World Trade Center Performing Arts Center started to make headway in recent months, and now Silverstein Properties have revealed the official renderings. With the help of billionaire businessman Ronald O. Perelman's $75 million gift, the 90,000-square-foot marble cube designed by REX will both stand out as an impressive piece of cultural architecture and co-exists with the other structures on the WTC complex. — 6sqft
This post is brought to you by The Architectural League. Join friends and colleagues for Tabula Rasa, the 2016 Architectural League Beaux Arts Ball taking place at A/D/O, a new design space in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. This year’s theme celebrates the creative act of fresh thinking and... View full entry
Beating out SOM and Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, the Portland-based firm ZGF Architects has taken the number one spot in Architect Magazine's annual ranking of the fifty best architectural firms. The ranking, which evaluates firms using the criteria of Business, Sustainability, and... View full entry
OMA teamed up with the digital consultancy and product development studio Bengler—who also converted the firm’s massive data set into a website—to put together an installation-cum-digital platform for the 2016 Oslo Triennale. Dubbed PANDA, the “counter-organizational platform” both... View full entry
Because this species is very similar to cockroach species that already exist in the urban environment, they likely will compete with each other for space and for food. — Daily News
Seems like there is no such a thing as "free lunch."High Line may have brought invasive cockroach that can take the cold to NYC View full entry
Many films ― even great ones ― have used occupations as shorthand for personalities or ‘types.’ [...]
male movie-architects are assumed to personify the perfect romantic lead: they are “creative, but not as grubby as musicians; fiscally sturdy, but not as stodgy as bankers; dreamers with briefcases; visionaries of the tangible.” [...]
Narrative tensions emerge in the perceived misfit between the image — or stereotype — of a profession and the celluloid figure who embodies it.
— placesjournal.org
This hearty round-up sifts through the stereotypes and expectations of how Hollywood portrays our on-screen architects, against the backdrop of #OscarsSoWhite and a male (overwhelming) majority. Less about professional accuracy and more about personality types, the piece focuses on how these... View full entry
The McMansion style, built between 2001 and 2007 and averaging 3,000 to 5,000 square feet, lacks the appeal with today's buyers compared to old vintage homes or large freshly built homes.
The realization is especially hard on homeowners trying to sell because when they bought the giant homes in the early 2000s, they thought of them as great investments, Feinstein said.
Then, the idea was that bigger was better because prices presumably would keep going up.
— Chicago Tribune
Now, housing analysts say the day of the McMansion has come and gone. An analysis just completed by Trulia shows that the amount buyers are willing to pay for McMansions over other homes has fallen 26 percent in just four years. As homes in general have been regaining value, McMansions have been... View full entry
Watch professional tennis, and you'll notice that silence makes up a significant part of the game, to the point where spectators can hear the bounce of the ball each time it lands on the playing surface. The acoustics of the new Rossetti Architects-designed roof for the Arthur Ashe stadium, which... View full entry
This is high-rent blight.
The vacancy problem is immediately visible but lacking in hard data. The intent of this project is to provide some background around commercial vacancies and use a map to give some insight into the extent of the issue, ideally doubling as a tool for community groups and policymakers to identify areas for intervention.
It's an obvious problem without a clear set of causes or solutions, but there are several contributing factors [...]
— vacantnewyork.com
Click here for the interactive VACANT NEW YORK map.Related stories in the Archinect news:New map tool reveals NYC's vacant lots zoned for revitalizationA New Mapping Tool Lets NYC Residents Peek Into Developers' PlansNew York City's tree species mapped View full entry
Modern architecture, during its heyday, was deeply concerned with its civic function; its mission to reform housing and improve the city was a moral imperative. But the failure of this utopian vision has served to...[give] rise to a profession in which its practice is defined increasingly by individual “star” architects and “architecture for architecture’s sake”... — AEI.org
In a piece on the civic benefits of music, literature, and architecture to the public sphere, Rebecca Burgess finds architecture to be somewhat lacking, based on the writings of Michael J. Lewis. Is this a complaint about the good old days in the vein of Prince Charles, or a meaningful critique in... View full entry
Once known as the city of single family homes, Los Angeles is now developing high-density housing complexes, not only in downtown, but according to this Urban Land article, on the traditionally reluctant-to-develop West Side.The developments mark a shift in how Los Angeles conceptualizes living... View full entry
Martz’s proposal would make the suburb of Altamonte an unlikely test bed for one future of public transit. It would also raise questions about whether such a future can serve everyone equally, and force Martz to navigate between the transparency of public office and the demands of a multibillion dollar company with a penchant for secrecy. [...]
for some transit advocates, the embrace of Uber and its competitors risks undermining civic ideals of accessibility and transparency.
— theverge.com
More on the contentious ride-sharing giant:Uber lets you hail its self-driving cars in Pittsburgh later this monthNew study finds ride-sharing apps like Lyft and Uber have no effect on drunk-driving fatalitiesWithout Uber or Lyft, Austin turns to Facebook for ridesA look at the history and future... View full entry
What are dreams made of? More importantly, how are these dreams executed, and how do we live in the corresponding gap between vision and reality? For the residents of the U.K. towns Basildon and Essex, who dwell in post-World War II "New Towns" designed to be social utopias, their struggles to... View full entry
How much would you be willing to pay to shave a minute off your commute? For New Yorkers, the answer appears to be around $56 per month. That’s how much more New Yorkers pay in rent, on average, for a one-bedroom apartment that’s a minute closer by subway to Manhattan’s main business districts.
That finding...puts an approximate value on the old real estate adage about the importance of location, location, location.
— Five Thirty Eight
More data collectin' and crunchin':Chicago installs "urban Fitbits" to track air quality, noise levels, and trafficInvestigations into the threat of air pollution have failed to account for people's movementTracing the physical infrastructure supporting the internet View full entry
“By accident, we’ve created the perfect habitat there. People don’t think about that because they think that this part of the river is ugly and concrete, but it’s a critically important habitat for these shorebirds.” [...]
As the city makes its decisions about the river’s future, it is called upon to be sensitive to all life that has managed to grow around it, despite its not-so-green surroundings.
— kcet.org
For more on the LA River's redevelopment:Will Gehry's L.A. River plan result in water savings?Gruen Associates, Mia Lehrer, Oyler Wu appointed to design L.A. River Greenway in San Fernando ValleyWhat's happening with Frank Gehry's masterplan for the LA River?Before the masterplan gets underway... View full entry
