HALF A CENTURY AGO, a group of 20-something architecture students from Florence decided to assume the small task of conceiving an alternative model for life on earth. Contemptuous of the long reign of Modernism, which they felt had sold itself as a cure to society’s ills and never delivered, they were jazzed by American science-fiction novels and the political foment of the 1960s. They gave themselves the colorfully assured name Superstudio... — the New York Times

Home-rental company Airbnb has “acqui-hired” the majority of the team behind ChangeCoin, a startup that runs a bitcoin-based micropayments service, according to four people with knowledge of the deal.

The alternative lodging site has been looking at a few bitcoin and blockchain startups, according to two sources, to study what the technology could do for its services. — Quartz

On March 31, [Elon Musk's] Tesla Motors unveiled its long-promised Model 3, a $35,000 electric car that will go 215 miles per charge. The market response suggests to some the potential as a category killer, not just in electric vehicles, but mainstream cars in general: in the week since, more than 325,000 Model 3s have been pre-ordered by people putting down $1,000 per reservation, the company said April 7.

Even deep Tesla skeptics call this demand unprecedented. — qz.com

Rikers Island looms large in New York’s imagination. It is home to a notorious complex of prisons, one whose excesses are still being discovered by the media and the courts. Many would like to see the Rikers Island closed forever, or barring that, to at least change the name to something that does not honor a slaveowner.

One group of designers has a different goal for Rikers Island—one that is within reach and, in fact, already at hand. — CityLab

Boring architecture may take an emotional toll on the people forced to live in and around it.

A growing body of research in cognitive science illuminates the physical and mental toll bland cityscapes exact on residents. Generally, these researchers argue that humans are healthier when they live among variety — a cacophony of bars, bodegas, and independent shops — or work in well-designed, unique spaces, rather than unattractive, generic ones. — nymag.com

”...it might be that loneliness is often due to circumstance.

The thing with cities is we are absolutely surrounded by people...We can see other people living richer, more populated lives than our own. At the same time, we can feel very exposed … there are lots of eyes on everyone. That is why the loneliness of the city has a particularly distinct tang to it.

Loneliness, however, is often like bad weather, “it passes through our lives”. — The Guardian

He seems hungry for a serious discussion on everything from the refugee crisis – “a really bad combination of European arrogance and North African ignorance” – to the state of contemporary architecture – “the vast majority of architects are just filling up our society with trash” – and has a habit of speaking about his art in overwhelmingly conceptual terms. “Are we consumers of space?” he asks himself at one point. “Or are we in fact producers of space?” — telegraph.co.uk

Who the fuck cares what Banksy’s real name is. You should care about his art instead, what he’s given you, and stop trying to take more than what’s to be had. Don’t deny yourself great artistic creativity simply to satisfy the curiosity of some blip of an itch that will deny him his anonymity to create. Doing that will make you less than the worst, you wouldn’t even be a super villain scientist, but a spectator searching for a sport to watch that you’re too inept to participate in. — davidchoe.com

the firm founded by Harvard-trained David Mizan Hashim has made a name over three decades as a stalwart of the Malaysian architecture scene [...]

It is now the country’s second-largest architecture firm, with 330 staffers led by 14 architect principals; 5 of them head Veritas offices overseas. [...]

“I purposely don’t want all decisions to come from me,” [Hashim] says ... “My strategy is planned obsolescence.” — forbes.com

Amid Cairo's brick buildings and heaping piles of trash is a sprawling work of art, which, at first, looks messy and incoherent. 

But when you stand on the nearby hillside and read the spray-painted Arabic "calligraffiti," as its creator Tunisian-French artist eL Seed calls it, the message reads loud and clear: "If one wants to see the light of the sun, he must wipe his eyes."

[...] in total secrecy from the Egyptian government due to the country's strict laws forbidding artistic expression. — techinsider.io

This month marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. On April 26, 1986, technicians conducting a test inadvertently caused reactor number four to explode...

Reuters reports that a huge recently-completed enclosure called the New Safe Confinement—the world's largest land-based moving structure—will be “pulled slowly over the site later this year to create a steel-clad casement to block radiation and allow the remains of the reactor to be dismantled safely.” — The Atlantic

A group of fourth-year Ball State architecture students are refurbishing a former meth house in the Thomas Park-Avondale neighborhood in Muncie as a studio project.

The studio class is working with ecoREHAB, a local nonprofit that provides sustainable rehabilitation of housing and neighborhoods. “The whole goal is to revitalize the community more so than to earn money,” said Taylor Sheppard, a senior architecture major. — The Ball State Daily

The Information notes that building a city could allow Sidewalk Labs to “rethink government, social policy, and data-driven management.” [CEO Dan] Doctoroff explained that “thinking about a city from the Internet up is really compelling,” while also noting that “cities are hard. You have people with vested interest, politics, physical space…But the technology ultimately cannot be stopped.” — 9 to 5 Google