But I’ve seen aerial photographs of this place taken by the Philippine navy. They show the massive land reclamation work China has been doing here since January.
Millions of tonnes of rock and sand have been dredged up from the sea floor and pumped into the reef to form new land.
— BBC News
Rupert Wingfield-Hayes travels to the South China Sea, where the Chinese state is building islands. View full entry
Qatari authorities have confirmed they are holding two British researchers who are investigating the 2022 World Cup facilities, which is linked with a scandal over poor working conditions and dozens of deaths of foreign workers.
...
"All of the actions that have been taken against the two Britons are consistent with principles of human rights enshrined in the constitution," read the statement released by the Qatari QNA news agency on Sunday.
— RT
The silence from Zaha is deafening. View full entry
“The first thing is to find the identity of Seoul,” he says. “Seoul was created very differently from western cities, with special theories of feng shui and Confucianism, and we kept that for 600 years. We didn’t change anything – even under Japanese colonialism, that was kept. But since the 1960s, under American influence, it has changed very much.”
If Seung has his way, the days of skyscrapers springing up in central Seoul would come to an end.
— ft.com
When Ground Zero was finally cleared after the fall of the twin towers, New Yorkers trusted that thoughtful, ambitious urban design could make the city whole again. Why have they been so badly let down? — theguardian.com
One index of human impact is the extinction of species, now estimated to be at about the same rate as it was 65 million years ago when an asteroid hit the Earth. That is the presumed cause for the ending of the age of the dinosaurs, which opened the way for small mammals to proliferate, and ultimately modern humans. Today, it is humans who are the asteroid, condemning much of life to extinction. — In These Times
Probably one of the most prompt and tell it the way it is style of Noam Chomsky, 'where we are going account' of recent history and our as a matter of factly demise depicted. Enjoy your last milleniums.., humans! View full entry
Our world "classic" will not be destroyed by barbarians. He is destroyed by us every day, eroded, imploded, sabotaged. And the aesthetic result is something that is far short of what art history calls "picturesque" . — ZUM
Powerfully penned by Guilherme Wisnik. Original text is in Portuguese. The ruins of CongonhasWilliam WisnikIn the foreground of the ground, an uneven and cracked asphalt, taken by waste accumulated adrift, as boxes, bags, newspaper sheets, clothes and debris of fallen walls destroyed themselves... View full entry
I really like it. I don't get the hate for the sphere. I think it will be a cool space to enjoy in person, vs. just looking at drawings. - reader comment (NeutraFilmmaker67) — Curbed
Not that LA is so pristine with its architecture, mainly disliked and condemned by the form gendarmerie, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is looking better. It might be the ever so missing link which will tie-in all the disparate parts of LACMA from Fairfax eastward, even Zumthor's blot if... View full entry
the Integratron is a sort of time machine, or at least a time capsule. It is an immaculately preserved artifact of midcentury modernist design, and a totem of 1950s U.F.O.-ology culture — the mixture of Cold War paranoia and occult spirituality that drew true believers to remote reaches of the Desert Southwest in search of flying saucers and free-floating enlightenment. — NYT - T Magazine
Judy Rosen reports on a visit to Landers, California in the southeastern corner of the Mojave Desert. There she finds a place of spiritual healing and musical sound baths, designed by an extraterrestrial architectural patron. View full entry
... post-conflict response often disregards the potential of shared spaces to foster reconciliation, the importance of urban plans in managing turbulent population dynamics, and the need for a public realm that enables normal life to continue. "The absence of any architect or planner or designer in the negotiating room is something that has to change,"... — foreignpolicy.com
Newson, who will continue to be based in the United Kingdom, will be an employee of Apple, and will be frequently traveling to the company’s Cupertino, California, headquarters. The industrial designer has had his work archived by MoMA, and has been commissioned by Ford, Nike, and Qantas Airways, among others.
Ive and Newson, who have been close friends for years, have been spending time together over the past year. During that time, they have also worked on some designs for Apple.
— vanityfair.com
Residents of Beijing can use one of the city’s 34 newly installed recycling machines to trade empty bottles for phone card rebates or free public transit passes.
Those who choose the phone card rebate just need to type in their phone numbers or scan their cards and the rebate will be automatically applied.
The value of the rebate will correspond to the value of the type of bottle that was recycled.
— pangeatoday.com
Read the original Chinese language report here. View full entry
“This is a mistake,” said David Rothman, 55, who moved to Crested Butte 20 years ago, of the decision to let Anheuser-Busch take over the town to film a beer commercial. “Frankly, it’s vulgar and it’s cheap.”
On Friday, the company will fly in 1,000 young adults for a weekend of spring-break-style revelry, a stunt designed to publicize Bud Light. [...]
“This town is already built for this exact type of event,” said Nick Kelly, a spokesman for Anheuser-Busch.
— nytimes.com
A couple remarkable gems from the story:Party participants were selected from a pool of more than 150,000 people who submitted videos to Anheuser-Busch demonstrating that they were “up for whatever.”A bridge welcoming visitors to “Whatever, U.S.A.” went up over Elk Avenue, right next to... View full entry
The Holocaust museum planned for Rome since 2005 could open next year in a new, bigger location at EUR, named after the Esposizione Universale Roma, in time to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
After almost a decade of delay and €15m spent to acquire a plot of land, the first Museo della Shoah quietly stalled before construction even started.
— theartnewspaper.com
The National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) convened its new Future Title Task Force, which is comprised of interns and architects from across the country, to discuss the profession’s title debate. The task force is charged with discussing the terminology used for those who are candidates for licensure and those who are architects. — NCARB
The word "intern" contains a minefield of professional connotations. The job-title is often associated with a position that is unpaid, undervalued, or disposable, flying in the face of employment laws and professional ethics. And in some ways, it's no different in the architecture industry: it's... View full entry
The time has come for The Architectural League of New York's annual Beaux Arts Ball, taking place at Weylin B. Seymour's in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on Saturday, September 20. The 2014 theme, "Craft", celebrates the value of artisanship in architecture and multi-disciplinary collaboration in... View full entry
