The architectural design profession continues to grow, with more women pursuing licensure than ever before, according to data released today by the NCARB...The number of practitioners working toward licensure reached an all-time high in 2015 with more than 41,500 individuals either taking the Architect Registration Exam, reporting Architecture Experience Program (AXP, formerly IDP) hours, or both. That’s up from 37,178 in 2014—a record high at that time. — Architect Magazine
But, as a recent poll conducted by the AIA shows, gender discrimination and harassment remains high. More than two-thirds of women polled in a survey in March reported a lack of gender equity in architecture.For more on the state of women in the profession, check out these links:How sexist is... View full entry
Too often children from low-income neighborhoods are called broken...That needs to stop.
“You keep telling kids that, and they actually begin to believe they are broken, that there is something wrong with them,” she said. “When in reality, it’s not the children that are broken, it’s the environment and area around them that is not working properly.”
— The Washington Post
Ananias Jolley was a high-school student in Baltimore who had a knack for building things with his hands, and he had dreams of becoming an architect. Living in a low-income neighborhood wrought with violence, his life was tragically cut short at age 17 when he was killed by a classmate. The story... View full entry
The moment a space like [a gay bar] disappears, a sense of identity goes with it. “When you don’t have those spaces, you lose the ability to see yourself," [...]
"...we also need to continue to modify it in a way so everybody has access, so we’re not doing the same thing that the mainstream population is doing to us and isolating ourselves in certain spaces due to access.”
— attn.com
Related on Archinect:Obama administration to designate Stonewall as America's first LGBT memorialAs "gayborhoods" gentrify, LGBTQ people move into conservative AmericaThe future of gay neighborhoodsHow LGBT Acceptance Is Redefining Urban AmericaU.S. LGBTQ preservation group pushes to preserve more... View full entry
When is a garden bridge not a garden bridge? When it’s a bridge garden, according to Allies and Morrison, the Southwark-based architects who have come up with a cheap and cheerful alternative to the eye-wateringly expensive, contractually dubious proposal by Thomas Heatherwick and Joanna Lumley for a floating forest across the Thames. — theguardian.com
Read related news here: London's garden bridge, the saga continuesWhy are Heatherwick's proposals succeeding in New York but tanking in London?Sadiq Khan investigates troublesome details in Thames garden bridge projectIs London experiencing a brick boom? View full entry
The show, curated by the V&A’s Maria Nicanor and Zofia Trafas White, is a fascinating exploration of the 20th century engineer’s life and work, and how it has influenced today’s practices in his field. Arup, fittingly argue the curators, was a true pioneer, championing real collaboration with architects, using a computer for the first time during the Sydney Opera House project in the 1960s – a hefty but fascinating machine called 'Pegasus', on display at the show. — wallpaper.com
Read more UK news here:This week's picks for London architecture and design eventsMuseum of London design shortlist revealedAuthor of 'Interactive Architecture' on the built environment in the age of ubiquitous computing View full entry
Now that the iconic restaurant’s impending demise is only weeks away, its furniture, tableware, and custom-made Knoll furniture will be included in the 500 lots headed for auction next month on July 26. News had surfaced last summer when Seagram Building owner Aby Rosen did not renew the lease for the quintessential Midtown “power lunch” spot for the last decades of the 20th century since it opened in 1959. — 6sqft.com
Additional background on this news can be found here: Landmarked Four Seasons restaurant must not be changed, NYC landmarks commission rules View full entry
Although the game was simulating an environment from 1989, urban planners these days still run into problems trying to get officials to think about their city in the long run. Climate change and sea level rise is a very crystalline example of the way city officials get in their own way and set themselves up for larger obstacles later on [...]
Playing SimCity 2000 nowadays is a strange but wonderful way to realize what defines a city is not what it currently is, but what it could be.
— inverse.com
More on simulations and gameplay for city planning:SimCity and beyond: the history of city-building gamesThree guiding principles for a fine fake metropolis"Cards Against Urbanity," the hilarious and surreal urban planning gameCalifornia Water Crisis? Now there's a board game for that!As It Lays... View full entry
With a floor plan designed around the concept of petals furling outward from a flower's stem the anodized bronze-toned aluminum and glass tower known as Bryggeblomstem ("the Brygge Flower"), has been granted the "Best Residential Building" award by the Copenhagen Municipality. The... View full entry
For decades, state neglect forced a pace of progress that was slow and painful in Rio’s favelas, which – unlike many other informal settlements around the world – have a largely stable population. While some residents express satisfaction that state involvement has brought new income streams and improved security, there is anger that changes are imposed from outside, without consultation with residents. — the Guardian
For more on the upcoming Rio Olympic Games, check out these links:11 workers have died so far during Rio Olympic construction, audit findsWith the Rio Olympics opening in less than four months, sports federation concerned over problem with venuesRio cancels construction contract for unfinished... View full entry
On a recent afternoon, the historian Robert Jan van Pelt was standing in a quiet room at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale, explaining the significance of an unassuming steel-mesh column that visitors to this sprawling survey of global design might walk right past.
“This is one of the most deadly things so far created,” Mr. van Pelt said. And it was the handiwork, he noted, of an architect.
— the New York Times
"The column — painted, like everything else in the room, a pristine white — is a reproduction of one of the eight chutes used to lower Zyklon B poison pellets into gas chambers at Auschwitz."For more from the 2016 Venice Biennale, check out these links:Dispatch from the Venice Biennale: a... View full entry
As rents spiral in London, one company is proposing a solution. The Collective is a new block of apartments that acts like a giant shared house: small private bedrooms with communal laundry, kitchens, spa, cinema and workspaces … and some covert matchmaking by the managers. Our series on the global revolution in urban living goes inside the modern-day boarding house — theguardian.com
Read related articles here:Manchester's economic boom threatens its cultural identityTo live in London you can't be a LondonerLondon fails to achieve any targets for affordable housing View full entry
In a new paper, economists and public health researchers have found that not even working indoors in an office can protect people from the deleterious impacts of polluted air and particularly fine particulate pollution — defined as tiny particles that can travel deep into our lungs and even get into the bloodstream and eventually reach the central nervous system. — the Washington Post
Cities around the world are choking from polluted skies. Find out more:Is biking good for you even if the air is heavily polluted?These are the most-polluted cities in the USDelhi’s air pollution is worse than Beijing's. A new app measures the air quality in real timeBillions exposed to... View full entry
In particular, La Brea to Fairfax, which parallels Miracle Mile on Wilshire, was a hotbed of dispensaries with some areas having up to 3 on the same block, making it “the Green Mile.” [...]
I began noticing how the dispensaries branded themselves through signage and typography, and what these choices might convey to their prospective clientele. Second, the fleeting nature of these businesses was such that the green paint hardly dried before a “For Lease” sign would appear
— lataco.com
Related on Archinect:Architects Smoking Marijuana: Grown and Sexy? Immature and Repulsive?Unequal Scenes: drone images reveal Cape Town's "architecture of apartheid"Artist catalogs the drab architecture of America's megachurchesFeast your eyes on these sci fi-inspired photos of Belgrade's... View full entry
While architects and urbanists should definitely try to learn from the complex urban conditions behind these cases, this optimism surrounding their presentation is a tad naive. From Manila to Kumasi, these are all precarious places where life is exceptionally harsh, short and insecure. — Failed Architecture
"At the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale, Urban Think Tank presented Gran Horizonte, a ‘pop-up restaurant’ mimicking life in the infamous squatted Torre de David-skyscraper in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. This skyscraper was abandoned halfway through construction and subsequently... View full entry
In the glorious luxury of Venice, without discomfort or guilt, you are “slumming it,” setting the world to rights. What you miss, mostly, is art’s perversity, its eccentricity, even its sense for evil. Culture condemned to being morally elevating is culture with feet of clay. — art agenda
I must admit that I avoided the Biennale and its reportings as they have served to the conformity of the buzzwords and romancing with the rather superficial "care."Nick Currie for art agenda tears into the Venice Architecture Biennale vis a vis its older cousin, the art biennale. "What kind of... View full entry