These public pools, or sundlaugs, serve as the communal heart of Iceland, sacred places whose affordability and ubiquity are viewed as a kind of civil right....The pool is Iceland’s social space: where families meet neighbors, where newcomers first receive welcome, where rivals can’t avoid one another. — NYT
Dan Kois considers how communal pools and the sociability of soaking, are "a key to Icelandic well-being." On a related note, Dan Hill recently published an essay reflecting on ‘The Pool’, a book published as part of The Australian pavilion for the 2016 Venice... View full entry
Set to open on 17 June, the Tate Modern Switch House – named after the part of the power station that the new galleries occupy – expands the museum by 60% to accommodate the surging numbers of visitors, which reached 5.7 million last year, well over double the number the building was designed to cope with when it opened in 2000. But the arresting brick ziggurat is also a physical symbol of the effect the Tate has had on its surroundings. — theguardian.com
Read more relating article here:Future sustainable skyscrapers will be made of...wood?Fabricated robot installation at the V&A unveiled as part of their first Engineering SeasonHerzog and de Meuron in conversation with Rowan Moore View full entry
The museum is planning to move from its present landlocked home within the Barbican with no entrance at street level, into a cathedral-sized space, using the abandoned Victorian general market at Smithfield, next door to the famous meat market.
“Our job is to make this the best museum in the world,” Ament said, carefully stepping around pigeon droppings and pools of water in the old market, which has been empty for the last 30 years while developers and conservationists fought over its fate.
— theguardian.com
The Museum of London have high expectations and high hopes for this monumental space, set to open it's doors in 2021. There is even a working train line running through the central space, a feature Ament is desperately keen to keep. Read more on London projects here:Shortlist for new Museum of... View full entry
In conjunction with this years Clerkenwell Design Week, we are giving away two free tickets to Reimagining a design icon: The transformation of the Commonwealth Institute into the new Design Museum talk as part of Conversations at Clerkenwell. The new Design Museum will reopen its doors on the... View full entry
The $1.5-billion second leg of the Expo Line, which opened Friday from Culver City to Santa Monica, adds seven light-rail stations and more than six miles of track to the growing Los Angeles County transit network. [...]
In the immediate context of L.A.'s attempts to turn its public-transit network from national punch line to something that increasingly resembles a mature system, 13 new Metro stations in less than three months qualifies as a pretty dramatic upgrade.
— latimes.com
The aggressively expanding LA Metro system in recent Archinect news stories:How LA is changing, one rail line at a timeWill LA's new metro extension bring growth to the city's peripheries?L.A. seeks to accelerate infrastructure projects in advance of potential Olympics View full entry
The other day, Aris Janigian described his latest work to me, “the book is deeply rooted, both thematically and philosophically, in the meaning of architecture for making a home in the world.”After attending to his first reading in Los Angeles and relating to my own complexity I replied... View full entry
Some Pyongyang-watchers believe the changes are merely skin deep, and do not portend or reflect deeper political or economic changes. ‘There is still all this state influence. There is no free development [...] The production of the city has not yet changed. Only the shapes of the buildings have changed.’
‘There is this thing among North Koreans about developing...an architecture that is reflective of their society. So what is an architecture that reflects their society?‘
— Los Angeles Times
More on Archinect: ‘Pyongyang Speed:’ North Korea miraculously cranks out massive residential development for scientists in only one year Pyongyang's inner Wes Anderson shines through in its architecture, then and now As bicycle ownership in North Korea rises, Pyongyang introduces bike lanes View full entry
Benoy has been shortlisted along with three other British design firms including HOK, Grimshaw and Zaha Hadid to create a a new concept for the country's global gateway. The architects were asked by Heathrow to consider the purpose and potential of an airport with the resulting designs... View full entry
The Los Angeles Business Journal reports in this week's issue that the filmmaker, Steven Slomkowski, sought to get out of the project after the suicide of Mark Stahl, one of three siblings who control the property, also renowned in architecture lore as Case Study Home #22. Slomkowski sued in 2014, alleging that the surviving siblings, Bruce and Shari Stahl, got cold feet over depictions of Mark and their late father, Buck. The Stahls countersued... — LA Observed
When it's not involved in documentary-driven legal feuds, the iconic Stahl House frequently serves as a backdrop for a variety of fictional films, including Atom Egoyan's "Where The Truth Lies," and "Galaxy Quest:"For more on the intersection between architecture and cinema:"The Dessau Bauhaus"... View full entry
A spokeswoman for San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin confirmed that the city and museum representatives are in early discussions about a site on Treasure Island, a destination in San Francisco Bay famous for a naval base.
Los Angeles is also trying to stay in the game, with Mayor Eric Garcetti saying that Lucas' project would find a good home in the heart of the movie industry.
— The L.A. Times
The lawsuit averse Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which is openly courting other cities after Chicago's Friends of the Park filed legal action to prevent the project from building on its chosen Chicago lakefront site, may wind up in San Francisco, although Los Angeles (and Waukegan, IL) have... View full entry
The grade-separated pedestrian systems built in the 20th century have a variety of names: skyways, skywalks, pedways, footbridges, the +15, and the Ville Souteraine. But they have one thing in common — they have radically altered the form and spatial logic of cities around the world. — Places Journal
Despite its fundamental role in the production of urban space, the skyway has received scant critical attention. In their article on Places, and new Walker Arts Center book Parallel Cities: The Multilevel Metropolis, Jennifer Yoos and Vincent James take a closer look at the history of urban... View full entry
When Amazon donated an empty South Lake Union hotel for use as a homeless shelter, it was investing in a model that Mary’s Place, the service provider, has perfected: turning vacant or transitioning buildings into temporary shelter. — Crosscut.com
According to decades of research conducted on real-life case studies, providing housing for the homeless is actually cheaper than not doing so. Thriving real estate markets also make it easier to provide permanent shelter, as noted in the article:It’s perhaps counterintuitive, but Executive... View full entry
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) invited six contemporary architecture practices to create speculative responses to the UK’s housing crisis for the exhibition, At Home in Britain: Designing the House of Tomorrow.
Drawing on materials from the RIBA archives, the studios from the UK, France and the Netherlands produced designs that re-examine the familiar housing typologies of the cottage, terrace and flat.
— thespaces.com
Read relating article here:Architects advice to London's new mayor Sadiq Khan£950 for a mouldy 'central' flat? Welcome to London.The root of London's housing crisis lies beyond its bordersLondon's Bleak Housing View full entry
To mark the beginning of it's first ever Engineering Season, the V&A has revealed a new large-scale installation in the John Madjeski Garden; Elytra Filament Pavilion. The pavilion's components have been fabricated by a robot at the University of Stuttgart and then assembled on site... View full entry
OMA’s design for the National Art Museum of China in 2011 was planned as a city, revolutionizing the way in which museum’s work today.
Like any city, circulation can be efficient and direct – for larger groups – or meandering and individual. The story of Chinese art can be told, or discovered. The main circulation of the city is based on a five-pointed star that leads from the multiple entry points on the periphery to the centre.- OMA on Instagram
— instagram
I had to think twice or more, but I think my title for this plan works. View full entry
