This isn't your grandfather's urbanization: population figures in major U.S. cities, which on the whole are on the uptick after declining in the 1960s, are adding residents not to their already built urban cores but rather in the form greenfield sprawl, which makes use of farmland and lightly... View full entry
Mike Ford, a lead architect for the Universal Hip Hop Museum, has studied and written about the relationship between disastrous urban planning/architecture and the rise of hip hop. Essentially, Ford's argument is that the ghettoization of African Americans in the 20th century via ill-conceived... View full entry
"it performs the functions of a great city, in terms of size, cosmopolitan style, creative energy, international influence, distinctive way of life, and corporate personality [proves that] all the most admired theorists of the present century, from the Futurists and Le Corbusier to Jane Jacobs and Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, have been wrong.” — the guardian
"In the 1960s, British architectural critic Reyner Banham declared his love for the city that his fellow intellectuals hated. What Banham wrote about Los Angeles redefined how the world perceived it – but what would he think of LA today?"With a nod to Glen Small's Biomorphic Biosphere is... View full entry
Los Angeles, where homes sell for a median price of $475,000, has an overall Walk Score of 66.3. Each additional walkability point adds an average of $3,948, or a 0.83% bump, to the sale price. [...]
Pedestrian access adds the most proportional value to homes in cities such as Atlanta, where the overall score is 48.4 and revitalization efforts are starting to open up more community gathering hubs. A single-point upgrade to an Atlanta home’s Walk Score boosts the sale price 1.69% on average.
— latimes.com
More on the relationship between pedestrianism and the market:Jan Gehl: "Never ask what the city can do for your building, always ask what your building can do for the city."Locals welcome The 606, a.k.a. Chicago's "High Line", but anxiety for its future remainsStockholm's Vision Zero offers... View full entry
In this fascinating piece by Rumaan Ali for Slate, he explores how children's picture books offer a fun historical survey of the ideal architecture and interior decor for each place and time, spanning from the early 20th century to contemporary times. Although the books usually incorporate some... View full entry
With the U.S. presidential election coming up, a few Americans are considering moving to Canada, a move that actually might be lucrative if you're an architect. Responding to the forces of globalization, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is aiming to inject new economic life into his country... View full entry
The idea behind Turncoats is for people to relax, slough off their more cautious professional selves, and engage in full-throated (yet respectful!), rapid-fire debate on a broad range of topics. Audience members are encouraged to speak up, Powerpoints are strictly forbidden, and alcohol is served liberally. — washingtoncitypaper.com
Started in London in the last couple years, Turncoats has chapters in Scotland, Vancouver, Serbia and now, the U.S. The first D.C. Turncoats event takes place tomorrow, August 24, and is centered around the debate topic of "D.C. Wants Boring Architecture". Find more details here.More on debates... View full entry
In the first case of its kind, the Islamic extremist Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi has today (22 August), pleaded guilty to war crimes for destroying historic monuments in the ancient city of Timbuktu in northern Mali. Al-Mahdi is accused of ordering the razing of nine mausoleums and the 15th-century Sidi Yahia mosque. It is the first time the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has heard a case about the demolition of cultural heritage. — theartnewspaper.com
Learn more about Timbuktu's outstanding value as a world heritage site on UNESCO's website.Related stories in the Archinect news:Palmyra after ISIS: a first look at the level of destructionDestruction of Iraq’s oldest Christian monastery by ISIS militants went unreported for 16 monthsFear grows... View full entry
Design/Build with Jersey Devil: A Handbook for Education and Practice is a wonderful mixture of history, interviews, experiments and how-to’s, all focused around the design/build pedagogy and practice of its 1970s pioneers, Jersey Devil. Author Charlie Hailey, who is also an architecture... View full entry
Up to 12 million people are “urbanising” every year in India, a rate surpassed only by China. It means the country will need a sustained building spree that would see more than 75 million people employed in construction by 2022.
As it races to build 110 million extra homes needed, plus necessary transport infrastructure, by 2025 the size of India’s construction market would reach $1 trillion, the third largest in the world, according to KPMG.
— globalconstructionreview.com
Related on Archinect:Poverty, corruption and crime: how India's 'gully rap' tells story of real lifeIndia on the brink: what's in store for the country's architectural futureWorld's first Slum Museum is coming to MumbaiNew Delhi mandates odd-even car rationing to fight world's worst air pollution View full entry
The Palace of Culture and Science, a 237 meter tall socialist realist high-rise, towers over the city of Warsaw, Poland. Given as a “gift” to the Polish people by the Soviet Union, the building was originally called the Joseph Stalin Palace of Culture and Science. It was built between 1952 and... View full entry
Hello Games has created its own periodic table of elements for the universe of No Man’s Sky ... This allows them to generate 1.8 quintillion planets that are all different from one another and built governing the inherent logic set forth. [...]
“It is no longer about designing a final object or a product, but about designing or configuring the system or the process of their formation—the underlying code, algorithm, or procedure that can generate not just one but multiple outcomes.”
— killscreen.com
More from the games chest on Archinect:Art of Intervention: One-to-One #34 with architect Abraham Burickson, founder of the immersive theater company, Odyssey WorksA tour of experiential magical realism games from the Triennale Game CollectionPokémon Go is forcing us to grapple with 'virtual... View full entry
Radicalism in Architecture is not a simple choice and it’s not dominated by the lack of reason, an important idea now that Architecture has become, due to the new technologies and trending fashions, easily reproducible. — AA.LABAUT ARCHITECTS
Adrian Labaut Hernandez states, "Architecture does not need to say anything, it doesn’t need to talk, doesn’t need to express anything specific, and it doesn’t need, overall, to be needlessly “Radical”. Architecture always has a meaning when it is created based on strong conceptual... View full entry
Completed in 1954 for Robert and Marianne Snower, Marcel Breuer designed the house site unseen. The Snowers had reached out to Breuer after seeing his work in a magazine, and lived there until it was bought in 2014.The current owners, Rob Barnes and Karen Bisset, then renovated some key aspects of... View full entry
Thomas H. Truslow Jr., a general sales manager at Corning Glass Works, proposed a solution of flexible waterproof strips directly to Johnson executives, bypassing Wright.
The architect seethed. “Are you then unfamiliar with the way of work with an architect,” he wrote in a typed letter on Nov. 10, 1948. He added an angry question mark in green ink.
“The scheme is not the Johnson Company’s,” the typing continued. “It is the architect’s.”
— washingtonpost.com
The full, typed letter reads (with handwritten text in bold):My dear Mr. Truslow: You have the cart before the horse. It is necessary to secure the architect's approval before going to the owner. Are you then unfamiliar with the way of work with an architect - ?The scheme is not the Johnson's... View full entry