The letters are written to Aline Bernstein Louchheim, who became Saarinen's second wife in 1954. The Archives of American Art have an impressive collection of photos and letters from Eero and Aline, which you can view here. View full entry
dying online is open to anyone willing to share his or her end with the blogosphere. [...]
This dissolving of the barriers between the public and the intimate is death’s vital new upgrade... death has acquired a “neurotic separation” from daily life, and this separation has been identified as part of the “malaise of the late twentieth century.”
But thanks to the internet, death might be losing some of its pariah status.
— designobserver.com
Prompted by the recent mass internet-public mourning of David Bowie, as well as a few agencies that offer post-death social media updates to perpetuate the online persona of your late loved-ones, Adrian Shaughnessy (graphic designer at the Royal College of Art) reflects on how a death shared... View full entry
The NYPD has used cell-site simulators, commonly known as Stingrays, more than 1,000 times since 2008, according to documents turned over to the [NYCLU]. The documents represent the first time the department has acknowledged using the devices.
The NYPD also disclosed that it does not get a warrant before using a Stingray, which sweeps up massive amounts of data. Instead, the police obtain a “pen register order” from a court... [which] do not require the police to establish probable cause...
— theintercept.com
Stingrays operate by imitating cell phone towers, sweeping up massive amounts of user data without their knowledge or permission. They force cell phones to connect to them and then track the user's location. Originally a military technology, they have been increasingly bought and used by local... View full entry
What can architects learn from an award-winning producer and actor whose Netflix Original Series made appointment TV obsolete?
A lot.
— AIA Convention 2016 Press Announcement
Kevin Spacey will be the keynote speaker for the upcoming 2016 AIA Convention in Philadelphia, partly because he is described on the AIA's website as having a "talent for disruption and drive to challenge the status quo." Disruption seems to be trendy in the architectural community of late... View full entry
Until recently, though, Mr. Meier had never broken ground in South Korea. He checked that off his list with the newly opened Seamarq Hotel, a towering white complex overlooking the East Sea in the city of Gang-neung. “Our client chose a really magnificent site,” Mr. Meier said from his New York office. — The Wall Street Journal
When asked why the company chose not to commission Rem Koolhaas' OMA, who are already involved with designing the department store’s art foundation, Costa says that the decision to select BIG was based on the firm’s disruptive thinking and that OMA was already working with German department store KaDeWe in Berlin. “We were confident to work with new architects,” he says. — Business of Fashion
Tune in to tomorrow's Archinect Sessions to listen to a fuller discussion of what this disruptive design choice means for BIG, for Paris, and for flagship stores everywhere. In the meantime, here's a window display from Galeries Lafayette, circa 2007:And here's a quick refresher on what Bjarke's... View full entry
In a fresh bid to confront a problem that has confounded lawmakers for decades, Los Angeles city and county officials approved sweeping plans Tuesday aimed at getting thousands of homeless people off the streets.
But one crucial question remains unanswered: Where will most of the money come from? [...]
The renewed government attention to homelessness was spurred in part by a 12% surge in people living on the streets [...] pushing the total to more than 44,000 homeless people countywide.
— latimes.com
Previously in the Archinect news:"It’s about recognizing someone as existing": Photo exhibit depicts L.A.'s homelessness crisisLA's freeway system is becoming an increasingly crowded 'neighborhood' for the city's homelessLos Angeles to declare homelessness in the city an 'emergency' and pledge... View full entry
Judged by a five-member jury including Architect's Newspaper editor-in-chief William Menking and Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at MOMA Martino Stierli, the 2016 New Practices New York winners are MODU, SCHAUM/SHIEH, stpmj, Studio Cadena, Taller KEN, and the suitably-named... View full entry
After Feb. 29, when he packs the plywood portraits back into the truck and heads back to Texas, the house will be demolished and replaced by a pair of three-story condos. "It's not going to be fun when I drive off," he says, "but this is always going to be my hometown." — LA WEEKLY
"Six years ago, when developers offered artist Gary Sweeney "an armored truck full of money" for his childhood home in Manhattan Beach, he turned them down. Sweeney, who currently lives in San Antonio, Texas, was content renting out the old wood-paneled beach house to surfers and letting a... View full entry
Graham Fink has been documenting the demolition sites of Shanghai for five years, trying to capture the state of flux during this period of rapid urbanisation. His Ballads of Shanghai exhibition is at London’s Riflemaker gallery until Sunday. — the Guardian
With an eye for the juxtaposition of graphic imagery and demolition sites, Graham Fink takes fascinating images of a city under the midst of mass transformations. His camera is drawn, in particular, to remnants of street art and commercial advertisements. For other depictions of the built... View full entry
[Aaron] Jacobson [of FAAN], now 31, spent “a lot of time imagining space” as a child in Cleveland, Ohio, and remembers being ecstatic when his parents gave him graph paper, which he’d fill with blueprints for dream houses. He studied architecture at Washington University in St. Louis and received his master’s degree from University of Toronto before moving to Beijing to work for a small Chinese firm. A half-year later...he first tried his hand at garments... — New York Times
"Jacobson’s early sketches were more architectural drawings, the only visual language he spoke. (“I was even cutting sections through them, and blowing up details to try to explain the construction,” to the bewilderment of his pattern-makers, he says.)"Interested in other architectural... View full entry
The inequity built into The Lyric Theatre's very architecture is a painful reminder of [Birmingham's] ugly past as one of the most segregated places in America. But it also serves as a living history lesson [...]
Across the South, people are struggling with similar questions: What does a changing region do with the vestiges of back-alley service windows, segregated waiting rooms, dual water fountains and abandoned schools that once formed the skeleton of a society built on oppression?
— abcnews.go.com
Wait long enough, and anywhere can become a dark tourism site. More from the tricky territory of architectural preservation:"Too old to be hip but too young to be venerated" – say good-bye to the brutalist Fogarty building in downtown ProvidencePreserving a Home in All Its Marred Glory"Never the... View full entry
Stephen Lund considers the Canadian city of Victoria his canvas and a bicycle his brush. And the paint? Strava, a GPS tracking system which marks his routes with crimson lines.
So far, he has pedaled around in the shapes of critters such as an angler fish, giraffe, giant anteater, and nine-banded armadillo; mythical and interplanetary creatures such as the Siren of the Salish Sea, the Sea Serpent of Haro Strait, and the Dark Lord of the Sith.
— atlasobscura.com
Take a look at some of Lund's intricate "GPS Doodles," also known as "Strava art:"Head over to Stephen Lund's blog gpsdoodles.com to find way more of this goodness and watch him explain his approach in the video from the recent TEDxVictoria below.Related stories in the Archinect news:Cut away... View full entry
Young children read books and watch videos about doctors, builders, chefs, mechanics, pilots, and businesspeople. But not urban planners. Why? [...]
why is urban planning so under-celebrated, and why doesn’t it emerge as a field of study prior to the college level?
— planetizen.com
Pete Sullivan, a planner in Chapel Hill, NC, shares his experience explaining his job to his son's preschool class. Initially worried about communicating a profession as abstract and complex as planning to an audience of squirming five year-olds, Sullivan finds a simple engagement strategy –... View full entry
If we can protect the old city walls for architectural and historical reasons, then the gardens that have existed ever since the walls were built also deserve to be protected. They are a unique, intangible heritage. — THE OBSERVERS
"While urban farming gains in popularity in many capitals around the world, Istanbul is struggling to keep its centuries-old farming plots due to the drive for modernisation. Dozens of farmers face being kicked off the land they have cultivated for generations." View full entry
