I’m a quiet fan of these urban explorers, people who devote time to poking around abandoned buildings or “haikyo”.... And because I’ve spent so much time inhabiting digital rooms myself, I often think about how time decays digital structures. I imagine all of the strings of text that have come before or after mine that similarly disappeared into the void. But what happens when those spaces stick around, as in a virtual world—when they can’t physically decay? — theatlantic.com

Artist Julien F. Thomas and architecture office Hughes Condon Marler have designed a coffee bar in Vancouver that disconnects you from all wireless networks once you’re inside.

The Faraday Café in Vancouver got its name from the Faraday Cage, a material shield around the bar’s interior that was built by the designers to block all electromagnetic signals. By creating a place without any digital connections the owners [...] hope to restore non-digital, social interaction between people. — popupcity.net

Some have already joked about the city's future three million square foot "wellness district,” saying it is being designed for those who shop not only for new outfits, but also for new bodies.

According to the project's press release, the domed wellness area "will offer a holistic experience to medical tourists and their families, ensuring access to quality healthcare, specialized surgical procedures and cosmetic treatments." — RT

A life-size maze like the one BIG installed in partnership with the National Building Museum will attract plenty of attention, regardless if people know who BIG is or not. Constructed in the museum's iconic Great Hall, the maze was set up as an interactive sneakpeek for BIG's exhibition scheduled to open at the museum in January 2015. — bustler.net

I put out a call via twitter and facebook for quick drawings of the ISS from memory. Asking my social media friends for sketches wasn't some kind of contest about accuracy or skill, it was more an investigation into what sorts of visual responses come up when people think about the space station. The (totally unscientific) results reveal much about how we see and understand the built environment in outer space. — 765.blogspot.com

Buildings perform a variety of functions: They shelter, illuminate, and obscure surrounding people and landscapes. The fundamentally pragmatic purpose of architecture endows edifices with a wide range of functions, but rarely does architecture speak. Curator Joanna Warsza, however, organizes performances and interventions that implore architecture to speak back. — blouinartinfo.com

"Buildings in paintings have too often been viewed as background or as space fillers which play a passive or at best supporting role, propping up the figures that carry the main message of the picture. By looking afresh at buildings within paintings, treating them as active protagonists, it becomes clear that they performed a series of crucial roles." — online.wsj.com

Architects are the highest paid group of designers, and they are also generally the most highly educated. Architects employed in firms earned median hourly wages of $35.30, while their self-employed counterparts earned $22.90. But, when looking in terms of concentration, the nation’s leading clusters for architects may not be what you think. — citylab.com

San Francisco today has the second-highest median income in the United States, but, even using that peg, middle-income San Franciscans can afford less than a sixth of the homes available in town. Every city on the up-and-up must contend with a gap between rich and poor. Yet few have also, like San Francisco, managed to immiserate a relatively well-heeled middle class. — the New Yorker

"Louis Kahn: The Power of Architecture" is a multi-themed exploration behind legendary architect Louis Kahn that will be showcased at the Design Museum in London starting Wednesday, July 9. Until Oct. 12, 2014, the exhibition will feature architectural models, original drawings, travel sketches, photographs, and films – including interviews with famous architects like Renzo Piano, Frank Gehry, Sou Fujimoto, and Peter Zumthor who each describe how Kahn has influenced his own work. — bustler.net

Zaatari is becoming an informal city: a sudden, do-it-yourself metropolis of roughly 85,000 with the emergence of neighborhoods, gentrification, a growing economy and, under the circumstances, something approaching normalcy, though every refugee longs to return home. [...]

The change, accelerated by regional chaos and enterprising Syrians, illustrates a basic civilizing push toward urbanization that clearly happens even in desperate places. — nytimes.com

If you're on the hunt for some Fourth of July plans, the Museum of Modern Art in New York will celebrate the opening of its "Conceptions of Space: Recent Acquisitions in Contemporary Architecture" exhibition tomorrow. Featuring recently acquired projects from international and emerging architects and artists, the exhibition highlights the evolving role of space through the context of architecture as an art form, and how it serves as a response to broader cultural issues. — bustler.net

The museum teamed up with international architecture firm BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group to construct a maze right in the Great Hall. [...]

The museum’s “ubergoal is that people walk out of here looking at their built world differently,” Frankel says. “We think this is sort of on the microlevel of that — forcing people to look up [as they navigate the maze] will make them look at our building differently.” — washingtonpost.com