The ATF national response team, at the end of its investigation, reaches one of three conclusions – incendiary, accidental, or undetermined. Given Thursday’s conclusion that the fire was determined to be "incendiary," or deliberately set, local authorities will probably launch an arson investigation to identify those responsible for the blaze. — latimes.com
Previously: Huge downtown Los Angeles fire burns towering apartment project View full entry
a $25.4 million state grant that, matched with upwards of $30 million in private funds, will allow the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) to renovate another 140,000 square feet into gallery space on its 13-acre campus.
While this expansion will make it the largest contemporary art museum in the U.S., MASS MoCA has also been pioneering new economic models, civic engagement strategies and urban design interventions that are relevant for museums in much larger cities.
— nextcity.org
Ash-har Quraishi reports on why some Chicagoans oppose a plan for a museum for the ‘Star Wars’ creator’s artwork — Al Jazeera
The Provocations: The Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio exhibition presents the design concepts behind the span of projects that British designer Thomas Heatherwick and his London-based studio have created worldwide. Currently at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas until January... View full entry
The United States Olympic Committee board of directors unanimously approved a U.S. bid to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the USOC announced today. Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., remain under consideration, with the selection of a U.S. bid city to be made in early 2015. [...]
“All four cities have presented plans that are part of the long-term visions for their communities,” said USOC CEO Scott Blackmun.
— teamusa.org
In a letter to employees Wednesday, Time Inc. announced that it had sold Sunset’s serene seven-acre Menlo Park, Calif., campus of carefully designed gardens and 1950s ranch-style buildings to Embarcadero Capital Partners, a San Francisco real estate investment and management company. — New York Times
This is so sad, as it very likely means the demolition of Cliff May's beautiful and quintessentially Californian design. I would have loved to have visited the campus.I can easily credit Sunset Magazine with being a major influence on my decision to become an architect: as a pre-teen I pored... View full entry
Architecture, of the capital “A” variety, is exceptionally capable of creating signature pieces, glorious one-offs. We’re brilliant at devising sublime (or bombastic) structures for a global elite who share our values. We seem increasingly incapable, however, of creating artful, harmonious work that resonates with a broad swath of the general population [...]
We’ve taught generations of architects to speak out as artists, but we haven’t taught them how to listen.
— nytimes.com
In light of the above, we are appealing to you in your roles as founder and lead architect of the firm, and as an educator and a public intellectual, to side by us in advocating to your client, but also to planning and urban authorities in Beirut the preservation of a site with unique characteristics, and withdraw services on this project. If such advocacy efforts falter, we urge you to dissociate yourself and your firm from this contentious project. — Jadaliyya
We have recently learned that the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) has been commissioned to develop a design for a projected development on a prime sea-front location in Beirut (Lebanon): the Dalieh of Raoucheh. Proposing a private development over such a prime social, national... View full entry
A two-year, 53.5 million euro makeover, or nearly $67 million, is underway in the vast reception area below I. M. Pei’s glass pyramid, where long lines of waiting visitors stream into a chaotic, open space that [the museum president] [Jean-Luc] Martinez likens to a noisy airport and that leaves many people disoriented and lost. He is also revamping the museum’s basic storytelling tools: almost 40,000 banners, wall text, signs and symbols... — nytimes.com
The first portion she pointed out was a pale ochre wall patterned with thin, perpendicular white lines mimicking mortar between masonry blocks. Looking upward we then saw panels of blue faux marbre, high above them gilded column capitals and bosses (the ornamental knobs where vault ribs intersect), and, nearby, floor-to-ceiling piers covered in glossy yellow trompe l’oeil marbling, like some funeral parlor in Little Italy. — nybooks.com
The suit charges that Google and senior executives stole Eli Attia's invention, which is a technology that shortens and makes significantly cheaper the design and construction process, mainly for high-rise and large buildings. Google estimates that the invention has potential revenue of $120 billion annually. — globes.co.il
Rural Studio, Auburn University's off-campus undergraduate program in Newbern, Alabama, continues to gain recognition for their student-led design/build projects that assist the communities in one of the South's most under-served regions. Rural Studio has won several awards from 1995 until most... View full entry
The Qatari royal family is planning to convert three of London’s most prestigious addresses into a single mega-mansion valued at over £200 million. The family, which already owns famous London landmarks including the Shard, Harrods and the Olympic Park, has submitted plans to convert three properties in Regent’s Park [...] The Qatari royal family now owns more of London than the Crown Estate. — RT
the new [Affordable Requirements Ordinance] would require that at least 25 percent of affordable units be built on site, removing the ability to opt out totally. [...]
Developers would also be allowed to meet the affordable unit requirement by building or rehabbing on other lots within a mile of the main site. The aim is to create affordable units in the neighborhoods where they’re most scarce, rather than to continue to concentrate them in the city’s poorer communities.
— nextcity.org
Sinan’s life was extraordinary, spanning the rule of three sultans, responsible for hundreds of buildings and for shaping the face of Istanbul even to this day, and he was considered on a par with Michelangelo in the West. — The Independent
In Elif Şafak's (pronounced Shafak)new novel The Architect’s Apprentice the city is the real star, the teeming bustle of the streets, the whorehouses and palaces, the markets and mosques, the dungeons and bridges. And as the narrative progresses, the work of Sinan, Jahan, and Chota the... View full entry