London is ready to join the design biennale club as it begins working toward launching its very first international design biennale at the Somerset House on September 7-27, 2016**. Modeled after the biannual Venice architecture and art events, London plans to gather up to 40 countries that will... View full entry
Start sharpening those pencils – the US Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale is now open for submissions. The Pavilion's theme of "The Architectural Imagination", curated by Monica Ponce de Leon and Cynthia Davidson, is looking for projects sited particularly in Detroit, while still having... View full entry
Sometimes, the inspiration for a single design element can be hard to pin down. Other times, it’s coming straight out of your hammy fourteen year-old kid. This is something of a regular occurrence for Hector M. Perez, a San Diego-based architect who often collaborates with his son Adrian on... View full entry
The spaciocide against homeless occupation is a landscape designed to strip bare the homeless right where they stand. It amounts to a complete negation of homeless rights, infrastructure, and ability to acquire jobs and services that exist outside of designated shelters and providers where the homeless can be tracked. — Design Observer
Bryan Finoki describes the nature of spaciocide against homeless occupation. View full entry
World-famous architect Tadao Ando was astonished to learn that the design he chose for the new National Stadium would cost ¥252 billion to build, he said at a press conference Thursday, where he spoke for the first time since the swelling cost became an issue. — The Japan News
According to Reuters, the massive ballooning in the construction costs of Zaha Hadid's relatively unpopular proposed design for Japan's National Stadium are not the fault of the chairman of the design committee, Tadao Ando: "Soaring construction and labor costs, along with a rise in Japan's... View full entry
an administrative judge recommended that the ride-sharing giant be fined $7.3 million and be suspended from operating in California. [...]
Uber has not complied with state laws designed to ensure that drivers are doling out rides fairly to all passengers, regardless of where they live or who they are.
— latimes.com
According to the Los Angeles Times, the crux of this decision comes not from questions of the ride-sharing app's legality in general, but its ethical practices in actual transit. In 2013, "ride-hailing firms" were made legal in California, with the requirement that companies like Uber provide... View full entry
License plates: the last bastion of self-expression. No longer simply for l33t puns or your stance on abortion, the whole streetscape can now know if you're an architect (at least in New York).The New York State Department of Motor Vehicles lumps Registered Architects in the illustrious... View full entry
Many people have been in the frustrating position of waiting in line for a single-stall restroom while the restroom designated for the other gender sits empty. In establishments that have two single-user restrooms, making those restrooms inclusive of all genders will double the options for everyone. — Public Comment on Changing Gender Neutral Bathroom Code
The Transgender Law Center, along with numerous educational institutions, lawyers, architects, and building code experts, are petitioning the International Building Code to make all single-occupancy restrooms unisex. The petition will be submitted to the International Code Council by noon PDT... View full entry
Making sandcastles was my training in fantasy. Now, as an architect constructing buildings like the Shard, I have to think about the final result, but as a child making castles of sand I didn’t, they were ephemeral. — theguardian.com
Imagine the architect responsible for such momentous projects as the new Whitney Museum, The Shard in London, and reunified Berlin's Potsdamer Platz, on his hands and knees on a sandy beach. Imagine him digging a trench and piling buckets of wet sand into a mound with concerted precision, only to... View full entry
Telephone poles, scaffoldings, abandoned utility plants: like taxpayer-sponsored dark matter, these elements form the largely ignored visual majority of our daily urban experience. K O S M O S, a self-described "virtual firm," whose four partners occasionally physically convene in New York, Basel... View full entry
To the amateur eye it can be puzzling, but with some education about its juxtaposition of traditional design against more complex forms, its status as a groundbreaking residential design becomes clear. — Realtor.com
Naturally paired, but too quickly equated. Photographer Robin Hill takes on the iconic and somewhat contending Farnsworth House and Glass House in his photo series, "Side by Side: The Glass Houses of Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson". With eighteen magazine-ready spreads, Hill matches shots of... View full entry
In his Untimely Meditations, Friedrich Nietzsche asserts, “…We must seriously despise instruction without vitality, knowledge which enervates activity, and history as an expensive surplus of knowledge and a luxury…” History must be at the service of living, he advocates, not the other way... View full entry
Rotterdam recently welcomed The Luchtsingel, a communal endeavor to spruce up the long-neglected Hofplein neighborhood in the heart of the city. Locally based architecture practice Zones Urbaines Sensibles (ZUS) devised The Luchtsingel in 2011. The focal point of the emerging "three-dimensional... View full entry
The price tag for 2020 Tokyo Olympic stadium is now a whopping $2.1 billion. That’s more than the stadiums for the past three summer Olympic stadiums combined. That’s pretty silly! So is the stadium’s new Photoshop meme. — kotaku.com
With the current estimated cost for Zaha Hadid 's stadium design clocking in at more than $2 billion (that's $700 million more than the initial estimate), a recent poll by Japanese news network NHK found that "81 percent of respondents say they disapprove of the plan to build the stadium without... View full entry