What makes a city habitable for centuries, even millennia? This list of the twelve longest-inhabited cities compiled by the Mother Nature Network, which includes several in ISIS-plagued Syria, one in China, and one in India, unsurprisingly points toward temperate climate, relatively stable water... View full entry
Many school buildings that used to house children now just primarily house debris thanks to a precipitous drop in public school enrollment over several decades. One independent website puts the figure at over 1,000 abandoned schools in states stretching from West Virginia to Indiana. Some... View full entry
Laundromats have recently been closing down in San Francisco, which prompted a Google employee to tweet in response "cost of disruption: washio and others have removed need for laundromat on every block." Who needs laundromats when there's an app for that? Well, people who can't afford to spend... View full entry
The architect behind the new Jack the Ripper museum in east London has said he was duped over the purpose of the project, after what was billed as a museum of women’s history became an attraction about Britain’s most notorious murderer of women. [...]
"We really ran with it. We did it at a bargain-basement fee, at cost price because we thought it was a great thing to do."
"You do rely on the moral fibre of your client but you should also be able to rely on the planning system"
— theguardian.com
“Musings about a Brutalist building’s friendliness quotient are a distraction” - Anthony Carfello, artist — LA Forum Architecture / Urban Design
Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design Summer 2015 Newsletter surveys and critiques LA's own collection of high-quality brutalist buildings in a 'must be collected" issue that grew out of its own google map “Brutalism Los Angeles” and other resources. The Newsletter features a... View full entry
So beginning today and running throughout the August recess, we're turning our Instagram account over to you. Just snap a photo – please do it safely! – of the worn-out infrastructure in your neck of the woods and share it with @USDOT using #ShowUsYourInfraWear. — transportation.gov
Public shaming has long been a tactic of the U.S. criminal justice system – there were the stocks of yore, the scarlet letters, and more recently, the tactics of felony court judge Ted Poe. Nowadays though, we tend to skip all the messiness of the public square and go straight to the internet to... View full entry
The Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth, Taranaki in New Zealand stands as an emblem of the sculptural works and philosophy of acclaimed artist Len Lye, who was a prominent figure in the kinetic sculpture and experimental film movements throughout the 20th century. Celebrating its grand opening late... View full entry
The family hadn’t been in New Jersey long ... and they still missed their previous home, a modernist design that Ms. Wong, in particular, had loved. So Andrew, who was then in eighth grade, suggested commissioning an architect to build a modern house. [...]
“being type-A parents ... we thought maybe it would be an experience for him to work with architects and be intrinsically involved in building a house.” [...]
"He was interested in design, and they empowered him.”
— nytimes.com
More teenaged architecture dreams:Teenager builds tiny home to avoid mortgage trapWork-life balance: how one architect collaborates with his teenage son View full entry
the place where cities get “remade” is in the public rather than private sphere. Part of the problem, then, with privately owned public spaces (“Pops”) ... is that the rights of the citizens using them are severely hemmed in. [...]
[Pops] feel too monitored, too controlled, to allow this communal activity to simply unfold. London, and many other cities, are failing miserably to enable diversity in people’s engagement with such spaces.
— theguardian.com
More news from the public space:Urban design influences how public protests can take rootChristopher Hawthorne on the recovery of public space in Los AngelesLocals welcome The 606, a.k.a. Chicago's "High Line", but anxiety for its future remainsNot all sidewalks are created equal in D.C. View full entry
Luke Iseman, 31, leases a 17,000-square-foot warehouse in Oakland in which he has built 11 micro residences out of cargo containers, Bloomberg reports. He charges $1,000 per months for each of the makeshift homes, which aren’t legal, strictly speaking. [...]
“We have an opportunity here to create a new model for urban development that’s more sustainable, more affordable and more enjoyable.”
— businessinsider.com
More news on shipping containers and the Bay Area's residential market:The Emergence of Container UrbanismForget Big-Box Stores. How About A Big-Box House?Airbnb rentals cut deep into San Francisco housing stock, report saysNo room for affordable housing in SF? Build it in OaklandLooking to buy a... View full entry
This week, the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London announced that “the world’s longest and tallest tunnel slide” will wrap around Anish Kapoor’s “ArcelorMittal Orbit.” When the sculpture went up in 2009 after winning a design challenge, it proceeded to receive mostly scathing reviews — and a spot on the shortlist of the 2012 Carbuncle Cup [...]. Today, Kapoor revealed that the slide is actually a work of art, designed by none other than Carsten Höller at Kapoor’s own invitation. — hyperallergic.com
In other artsy-slide-related news on Archinect:Artist Carsten Höller to install massive slides on London's Hayward GalleryCarsten Höller Is Installing a Slide at New Museum View full entry
Pure House is among a handful of businesses that are renting rooms at a premium in exchange for access to amenities, a dormlike atmosphere and an instant community. For a certain set of New Yorkers, often new arrivals to the city with an income but no rental history, Pure House offers something of a reprieve. [...]
The arrangement is a commercial outgrowth of co-living, taking life with roommates to a different level.
— nytimes.com
More news from the New York City residential market:NYC's public-housing woesMarried Couples Take on Roomies to Adapt to Sky-High NY Rents111 West 57th Street: The World’s Skinniest Tower Will Also Be the Hemisphere’s Tallest Residential BuildingThis New "Steampunk" Luxury Apartment Building... View full entry
The transformative effect of removing cars from a dedicated street or urban center and creating a pedestrian-friendly area isn't a new idea, but it's a popular one. Sydney, Australia has decided to repurpose its relatively trafficky George Street into an elegant shopping and walking area bisected... View full entry
Many [university presses] have a storied history of amplifying voices that were long ignored...The litany is endless, underscoring the audacity of university presses in believing that every city deserves the best ideas possible. We need that. As we make choices about our modern cities, as policymakers, advocates or citizens, we need these books to ground our vision, to help us imagine what is possible. And that’s why the tenuous future of university presses is so alarming. — nextcity.org
More on Archinect:Pump Out the Volumes: 50,000 free books form 1 art installationBradley Garrett on the importance of gonzo journalism for understanding citiesWilkinson Eyre-renovated Weston Library at Oxford now reopenedArchinect's Screen/Print series View full entry
Music venue National Sawdust, formerly OMW workshop, slated to open this fall, hopes to revive, even temporarily, the thrill of ‘90s and early 2000’s Williamsburg, a time when anything felt possible and artistic collaboration ruled supreme. The [13,000 sq.foot] space will offer a rare outlet for musicians of lesser appreciated art forms, from opera to experimental jazz, the opportunity to study, practice, perform, and receive mentorship through an in-venue, non-profit program. — GOOD
Fresh faces for new spaces. Non-profit arts group National Sawdust collaborated with architect Peter Zuspan — founding principal (and classically trained opera singer) of local emerging practice Bureau V — in designing the group's upcoming music performance space. While Brooklyn has become a... View full entry