The story of Boyle Heights reminds us that urban highway teardowns don't always end in victory. [...]
"What we don't know, however, is the story of the losers, the urban men and women who fought the freeway, unsuccessfully, on the conventional terms of political struggle, who weren't able to pack up and move on, and who channeled expressive cultural traditions to register their grievances against the presence of unwanted infrastructure."
— citylab.com
A unique collaborative project has been launched, bringing a constant stream of live river level data to anyone who needs to stay up-to-date with environmental conditions. Shoothill GaugeMap brings the real-time status of England and Wales’ rivers and tides from Environment Agency monitoring stations, to people in an accessible and user-friendly manner. It works via the web and Twitter, and is available on all major desktop browsers, tablets and smartphones. — shoothill.com
Damien Hirst’s art complex in south London, which was initially due to open this year, will take a little longer to complete. A spokeswoman for Science Ltd, Hirst’s company, says that it is now due to open “in May or June” next year. The centre, which is designed by Caruso St John architects, runs the length of Newport Street in Vauxhall. The former theatre carpentry and scenery production workshops will become six galleries. Office space and a restaurant are also planned. — theartnewspaper.com
"The people of Glasgow and many people far beyond were horrified when a few weeks ago fire ripped through the Art School, gutting its priceless library.
The UK government has already made a £5m contribution to the Mackintosh Appeal to help ensure that the building is restored to its former glory.
And we are today making an additional £5m contribution to support the School's new Graduate and Research Centre." — UK Chancellor George Osborne
— bbc.com
This past May, a fire destroyed much of the historic Mackintosh library at the Glasgow School of Art, a modern masterpiece by Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Now, as part of an increase in the UK's funding of Glasgow's life sciences, business and arts sectors, the School has the... View full entry
As the number of homeless people in America’s major cities has increased, so have ordinances criminalizing homelessness and pushing homeless families and individuals into the criminal justice system. Criminalization has become a tactic with which politicians have reconfigured cities to serve wealthier citizens and tourists, at the considerable expense of the poor. — Al Jazeera
Of course, urban spaces are often "cleansed" of homelessness through design. Recently in London, metal spikes were set into the ground of an alcove of a new apartment complex to prevent people from sleeping there. After almost 130,000 people signed a petition, they were removed. This followed a... View full entry
For the last few weeks, the AA Visiting School has been chopping and stirring and slicing in San Juan, Puerto Rico, for their "Play With Your Food" workshop. Participants are put through the rigorous paces that chefs face when designing new foods, and compare the methodology of cooking to... View full entry
New York City is moving forward with a proposal that calls for a new high-rise apartment complex to feature separate doors for wealthy tenants and those living in the building’s affordable housing unit.
While wealthy residents will be able to enter the building from its designated front entrance, affordable housing tenants will be required to go in through a back alley.
A mandatory affordable housing plan is not license to segregate lower-income tenants from those who are well-off.
— RT
Maybe the higher-ups will employ the low-income folk as maids and janitors? Built-in servants quarters, subsidized by the city. View full entry
A woman rented her 600-square-foot Palm Springs, California, condo to someone for a little over a month, and now she says the guy won't leave and is threatening to sue her.
She's had to hire a lawyer and go through the entire eviction process, which could take 3-6 months, the same as if he were a long-term tenant.
It's "been a nightmare," the host, Cory Tschogl, told Business Insider.
— Business Insider
Since construction began in 2011, Populous just announced the opening of the Philippine Arena in Manila, Philippines. Commissioned by Iglesia Ni Cristo (the Church of Christ), the structure is described to be the world's largest indoor arena and will be able to accommodate up to 50,000 people. The arena was also designed to host a variety of church gatherings and major entertainment events. — bustler.net
Read more about it on Bustler. View full entry
Goldsmiths, which is part of the University of London and home to one of the UK’s leading art schools, plans to build a public art gallery behind the art department’s home, in an early 20th-century former public baths. To help raise the £2m needed to convert the old water tanks of the Laurie Grove Baths into an art space, the institution is asking its star alumni and emeritus professors [...] to donate works that will be auctioned by Christie’s, possibly next year. — The Art Newspaper
Rather than laying out exactly what it wants to buy (say, bike lockers), Barcelona is laying out six problems it wants to fix (such as reducing bike theft). Responses could involve buying things, but they might also suggest new services, regulatory changes or any other means of accomplishing the goal. Anyone around the world with a creative idea, including startup companies or even individuals, has a shot at a contract and all the market legitimacy that comes with that. — citylab.com
[Helsinki] has announced plans to transform its existing public transport network into a comprehensive, point-to-point "mobility on demand" system by 2025 ... allowing people to purchase mobility in real time, straight from their smartphones. [...]
Subscribers would specify an origin and a destination, and ... the app would then function as both journey planner and universal payment platform, knitting everything from driverless cars and nimble little buses to shared bikes and ferries
— theguardian.com
Where apps and mass transit collide, commuters struggle most with coordination. Now, with so many different forms of transit, both public and privately mediated, commuters (and cities) need navigation tools that compare all options for them. Making this as accessible as possible, as Helsinki is... View full entry
He said the property that he had inherited from his parents who had built it in 1986 had also been fully furnished with a brand-new fitted kitchen and bathroom.
He added: 'I had been worried about thieves maybe breaking in and stealing the television or something, and so I put a barbed wire fence up around the house for added security. But they stole that as well.'
— dailymail.co.uk
US museums are teaming up with the Syrian Interim Government’s Heritage Task Force to help protect Syrian museum collections and stem the loss of cultural heritage amid the country’s ongoing civil war.
Late last month, experts from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and the Pennsylvania Museum’s Penn Cultural Heritage Center quietly organised a three-day training session for curators, heritage experts and civilians in an undisclosed location outside of Syria.
— theartnewspaper.com
Herman Miller, the manufacturer of classic midcentury designs, will buy the contemporary retailer Design Within Reach (DWR) for $154 million in a bid to establish itself as a “premier lifestyle brand.” — businessweek.com
