“It took multiple spacecraft over several years to solve this mystery, and now we know there is liquid water on the surface of this cold, desert planet,” said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program at the agency’s headquarters in Washington.
“It seems that the more we study Mars, the more we learn how life could be supported and where there are resources to support life in the future.”
— NASA
In an announcement made this morning, NASA stated that the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has detected "the strongest evidence yet" of liquid water on the fourth planet from the Sun. The new evidence emerged from data collected by an imaging spectrometer mounted on the spacecraft, which was... View full entry
Over the past five weeks, more than 150,000 people have visited the subversive theme park in a derelict seafront lido, which had been shut since 2000 and reopened in a blaze of publicity on 20 August. [...]
But, it is the town's tourist businesses that have reaped the benefit - to the tune of £20m, says Visit Somerset, more than three times what the trade body initially suggested. [...]
Everyone has noted the irony of the anti-capitalist art show boosting business.
— bbc.com
Previously: Banksy about to open "Dismaland" pop-up exhibition in British seaside resort View full entry
Music ensemble Third Angle will team up with choir group Cappella Romana for a new project, “Frozen,” on Oct. 3-4. They’re giving a voice to one of Oregon’s most famous buildings...the Mount Angel Abbey library in St. Benedict, Oregon [...]
“We’re going down into a stairwell and we started singing, and we found a pitch that really resonated the hell out of the building...We want this to be, in effect, a harmony of the building. We want to reimagine the building as an instrument.”
— opb.org
No two people, let alone architects, perceive even the most frequented cities in the same way. How do designers experience their cities as locals? Archinect got in touch with Scott Durst, owner of Chicago-based seDURST, who shared a snappy list of go-to places where he likes to spend his... View full entry
For the past seven years, Ewan has been painstakingly researching London's pubs, both past and present, cataloguing them and taking photos before uploading details to his online database Pubology...his mission is to photograph every pub in London – although, as he tells me, it's difficult to know just how close he is to that goal. — Vice
Estimating the total number of pubs in London at somewhere around 5,000, photographer Ewan Munro has tried to draw some distinctions to limit the scope of his massive project. For example, how does one define London, and how does one define a pub versus a bar?From historic, centuries-old... View full entry
The London garden bridge project has been placed in jeopardy after a London council withdrew its support because of public costs and the Labour mayoral candidate, Sadiq Khan, said he would ditch the proposed horticultural Thames river crossing if he took office. — The Guardian
Thomas Heatherwick's proposed Garden Bridge, which recently inspired a satirical contest of unpalatable entries, may be doomed to remain a hotly contested rendering. The £30 million of public funds needed to fund the bridge has temporarily been withdrawn because Lambeth council leader Lib Peck... View full entry
Elizabeth II is the first major British monarch who will not have an architectural style named after her [...]
The present Elizabethan era includes as many as a dozen architectural highlights and at least two broad architectural styles. “I cannot imagine a term or an argument that would tie all of this together,” says Stanford Anderson, a professor emeritus of history and architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “'New Elizabethan architecture’ just ducks the question.”
— economist.com
On September 27th, the MASS Design Group will officially present their idea for a Bauhaus-type school for Sub-Saharan Africa at the United Nations Solutions Summit. The proposed program would be based in Kigali, Rwanda and would purposefully "incubate local innovation towards tackling the biggest... View full entry
While the LACMA's retrospective of Frank Gehry is based off a previous show organized last year at the Centre Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne, its Los Angeles locale (plus an additional gallery not present at the Paris show) provides a different context. Some critics took a fawning... View full entry
From a super-sized cheese grater, to a contraceptive sponge, to an inadvertent fun house ride, the critics have thoroughly analogized the new Broad museum in mostly positive (if occasionally biting) reviews. To follow up with Amelia's review, published earlier today, we offer some other critical... View full entry
While you’re hypertensive in traffic listening to NPR, I have seen dolphins frolicking (and homeless men fighting over a shopping cart); I’ve smelled the taco trucks and heard all the languages of kids playing at morning recess. I sweat and shiver; I feel elation and real fear. In short, I feel alive. And so I ride. — Los Angeles Magazine
Despite its annoyances, difficulties, and outright dangers, Peter Flax's take on bicycle riding in L.A.—prompted in part by the city's recent decision "to create hundreds of miles of new protected bike lanes, shrinking some streets in the process"—combines a reporter's clear-eyed sensibility... View full entry
Mia Lehrer, a Los Angeles landscape architect who helped prepare a master plan for the river in 2007, said Mr. Gehry’s involvement had distressed people wary of top-down directives, and raised fears that he would derail the plan by the Army Corps of Engineers just as it was gaining momentum.
Still, she said Mr. Gehry was welcome to join the fray. “He’s a creative dude,” Ms. Lehrer said. “So the answer is, ‘Why not?’”
— The New York Times
Perhaps to escape the local ire which his involvement with the L.A. River redevelopment has drawn, Frank Gehry talked to The New York Times about his hopes for the project and for his relationship with the community. "I’m doing something that’s going to be good and trying to be inclusive, and... View full entry
In past experiments, [neuroscientist Colin Ellard] monitored sweat glands with special wristbands to measure stress levels. In Toronto, he has added special headbands that measure brain waves. [...]
“I think this kind of research, by showing how people respond to the places that are here, can highlight some of the key principles that can be useful in designing better public places.”
— thestar.com
More on the intersection of brain sciences and cities:AfterShock #4: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Neuroscientific Architecture ResearchAfterShock #3: Brains and the CityFurther strides made in Nobel-winning research on the neuroscience of navigationThe Brain on ArchitectureDeveloping an... View full entry
Los Angeles elected leaders announced Tuesday that they will declare a “state of emergency” on the growing homelessness problem in the city and commit $100 million toward housing and other services for homeless people. [...]
"If we want to be a great city that hosts the Olympics and shows itself off to the world,” Cedillo said, “we shouldn't have 25,000 to 50,000 people sleeping on the streets.”
— scpr.org
Related on Archinect:Los Angeles funds $213M policy to end chronic homelessnessLow-income housing in Los Angeles: A look at the past, present and futureIn Los Angeles, homelessness is becoming more visible View full entry
As the fast pace of technology calls for innovative, out-of-the-box thinking, corporations are looking for more unusual approaches to meet the challenges they face, often with “hands-on” or “unplugged” approaches. If LEGO is about anything, it’s the use of one’s hands while the mind is in an unplugged state. LEGO Serious Play capitalizes on this by asking the hands to find a solution that the mind hasn’t been able to on its own. — qz.com
More on the many uses of LEGO: LEGO Architecture launches new student acoustic-design challenge to restore a destroyed music theaterOlafur Eliasson Wants You to Design Utopia (Out of Legos)Could Lego Architecture Studio actually be useful for architects?Learning From Legos View full entry
