This week, London is set to be bright, warm, and action-packed… proving that you don’t need to leave the city in August! From interactive, innovative engineering, to an exhibition of memes, this week’s picks are decidedly fun-filled. Check back regularly to keep up to date with London's... View full entry
Donald Trump has made a wall on the US-Mexico border a controversial centerpiece of his presidential campaign, and EU countries have erected fences to keep migrants and refugees out. But the Berlin Wall anniversary should be a stark reminder: Walls can only contain people for so long. [...]
Almost 28 years after the wall came down, Germany’s capital remains economically disadvantaged from its divided years, while buildings in the former East still show the scars of neglect under Communism.
— qz.com
Related on Archinect:Design a wall that separates Trump from the U.S. in this call for ideasThe Problem With Designing Trump’s Border WallUS/Mexico border wall competition provokes controversyBerlin After the Wall: A Microcosm of the World’s Chaotic Change8,000 Glowing Balloons Recreate the... View full entry
project managers at a building site in North Korea’s capital Pyongyang are openly supplying their exhausted work force with powerful methamphetamines called “ice,” North Korean sources say. [...]
Officials in charge of the project are pushing workers hard to finish frame construction on the buildings, which include a 70-story high-rise apartment building and at least 60 other structures, before the weather gets too cold, sources said.
— Radio Free Asia
The construction project in question appears to be Ryomyong Street, a so-called "Pyonghattan" for its giant scope and reportedly the country's tallest apartments. According to a report in Foreign Policy, the spread of methamphetamine (aka "ice") first began in North Korea during the 1990s, when... View full entry
Still dreaming about living in one of Muji's pre-fab houses? That wish can come true for one lucky person, and maybe their family or friends. The lifestyle brand is currently accepting applications for a two-year residency in a new test model of Muji's Window House in Kamakura—rent-free and... View full entry
Perhaps the most notable business line to suffer from slow growth is WeLive, which offers young renters fully furnished apartments and a communal atmosphere. The two inaugural locations opened in lower Manhattan and Crystal City, Va., earlier this year in converted office buildings. But the costs of converting those spaces proved high given the extensive remodeling needed... Now the company is aiming to put WeLive locations mainly in newly built developments that can be custom designed. — wsj.com
More news from under the WeWork umbrella:Strange bedfellows: exploring shades of privacy in co-livingThe kibbutz, rebranded for Silicon ValleyChief creative officer Miguel McKelvey on WeLive's "relatively neutral" interior designCan WeWork re-engineer the spatial dynamics of society?WeLive... View full entry
Zoning, although designed with the benign intention of keeping toxin-spewing industrial factories away from residential properties, has certainly been used for ill: ask any African-American family in the 20th century whose application to use their VA entitlement to buy a house was denied due to... View full entry
“if augmented reality really catches on, and an internet environment overlaid on our real world surroundings becomes common, what will be the rules around using that augmented space?" [...]
Could you sell, lease, or subdivide the digital rights to your own home, yard, or lobby? Could you extract a toll, tax, or commission from virtual usage?
— bldgblog.com
Referencing multiple, international cases of private property disputes over the mega-popular Pokémon Go game, Geoff Manaugh floats the idea of zoning regulations for virtual and augmented reality instances.As players wander through public and private spaces alike to catch 'em all, they inevitably... View full entry
computer vision and artificial intelligence are the keys to a debate behind a door that’s been locked for a long time: the social impact of design in cities. [...]
"Now that we have new tools to measure aesthetics, we can estimate its consequences" [...]
[MIT Media Lab associate professor Cesar Hidalgo] wants to develop more empirical ways to study cities and the way they’re perceived—and, in turn, provide better science to the policy-makers who shape legislation.
— fastcodesign.com
More on neural networks and aesthetic quantification:Mark Zuckerberg's resolution for 2016: build an at-home AI "like Jarvis in Iron Man"Further strides made in Nobel-winning research on the neuroscience of navigationArchinect's Lexicon: "Neuromorphic Architecture""Sculpting the Architectural... View full entry
The Graham Foundation has announced the winners of their annual grants to organizations. In total, the grants amount to $419,000 and will support 31 projects, ranging from exhibitions to site-specific commissions and publications. The winning projects were selected out of a pool of... View full entry
Richard Herber, owner of the [Frank Lloyd Wright-designed] home at 3901 N. Washington Road, said he wanted the [historic] distinction pulled because he wanted to sell the house for the best price.
Getting the property off the historic list was the only way to “cast a wider net to the widest number of people,” he said. [...]
Not everybody is a candidate for buying a home that’s historic, ... but those who are know exactly what they’re doing.
— journalgazette.net
More on the sticky business of historic preservation:The Seagram Building after the Four Seasons: maintaining a costly landmarkFrom Minnesota to Pennsylvania: moving a Frank Lloyd House halfway across the countryRIP: Bruce Goff's Bavinger House demolishedNo guarantees for historic residential... View full entry
“Everybody in China has been moved to a new location or a new city, new town, new apartment... But with such a big movement, or revolutionary change, there is very little discussion or very little meaningful challenge — intellectual challenge — about what architecture is in this fast developing society.”
Despite the country's building boom, Ai says that the state of China's architectural philosphy has largely remained stagnant because conversation is stifled.
— asiasociety.org
Ai Weiwei, along with former ambassador to China Uli Sigg, journalist Martin Meyer, and Jacques Herzog, discussed architecture's role in contemporary Chinese society as part of a panel hosted by Asia Society Switzerland. Weiwei referred to architecture alongside any aesthetic discussions, as... View full entry
Minimalist furniture. Craft beer and avocado toast. Reclaimed wood. Industrial lighting. Cortados [...]
The interchangeability, ceaseless movement, and symbolic blankness that was once the hallmark of hotels and airports, qualities that led the French anthropologist Marc Augé to define them in 1992 as "non-places," has leaked into the rest of life. [...]
This confluence of style is being accelerated by companies that foster a sense of placelessness … Airbnb is a prominent example.
— theverge.com
Nicholas Korody previously explored this phenomenon, of supposedly idiosyncratic Airbnb styling converging on the generic.Related on Archinect:Airbnb turns to urban planning as it looks towards the future of home-sharingAfter allegations of racial discrimination and #AirbnbWhileBlack fallout... View full entry
Dora Epstein Jones is the newly minted executive director of the A+D Architecture and Design Museum in Los Angeles. With a doctorate in Architectural History, Theory and Criticism from UCLA, Epstein Jones came to A+D after nearly 15 years at SCI-Arc, where she led the coordination of humanities... View full entry
Dan Graham points his finger at conceptual art as it practiced today and taught in schools. Makes a lot of sense when it is overused and over-appropriated meaninglessly and endlessly. I don't think he would say that forty years ago. Though, he spares Lawrence Weiner. View full entry
Casinos like the Taj Mahal have destroyed Atlantic City’s public space. Gambling’s arrival replaced the outward-looking hotels, shops, and promenades of the mid-century boardwalk with clusters of dark, labyrinthine resorts, set back from the street and enclosed behind monitored security gates. [...]
Atlantic City’s model of a plush, self-contained casino abutting a ruined neighborhood has become a synecdoche for the last forty years of American urban development.
— jacobinmag.com
To dissect the urban effects of Trump's Atlantic City casino, Sam Wetherall traces the city's history as a booming resort town through the early 20th century, and into its current economic crisis:In 2014 alone, casino closures cost Atlantic City more than ten thousand jobs, a staggering figure for... View full entry
