“Ultimately people can’t get around conveniently because they are far away from everything.” And it is this observation that for me epitomizes the problem of the driverless car — it’s the worst kind of solutionism. By becoming so enamored with how technology might transform the car, we’ve neglected to adequately explore how getting rid of cars might transform how and where we live. We’d do well to heed Gorz’s exhortation to “never make transportation an issue by itself.” — opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com
It's a given that America continues to be a car-obsessed society despite the more painstaking reality of driving a car in many major cities of today. In The New York Times, editor Allison Arieff of SPUR points out that the U.S. is still fixated on selling, using and enhancing the car when... View full entry
Keeping up-to-date with your favorite architects, firms and schools has just become WAY easier! As you know, Archinect delivers a lot of news and information, every day, reflecting the activity of the architecture community at large. For some people, this can be too much information! So... View full entry
Antiterrorist paraphernalia litter parts of nine square blocks, or at least a dozen acres -- all to protect the New York Stock Exchange from attacks.
Where Broadway opens to Wall Street, jaw-like truck barriers and a plastic-tent guard booth block the street. A fence squeezes pedestrians into one narrowed sidewalk.
Concrete Jersey barriers posing as planters are particularly hideous, part of a new antiterrorist aesthetic that afflicts courthouses and City Hall.
— bloomberg.com
I was amazed at the sort of uncanny way in which his work tracks the arc of gay liberation, like early 60s pavillions that provided refuge from a hostile world and then as you go through the 60s and into the Stonewall period the houses become literally open and voyeuristic. Full glass facades facing the ocean - Christopher Rawlins — BBC News Magazine
Leigh Paterson visited Fire Island and talked with Christopher Rawlins author of a new book, Fire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Architecture of Seduction. The two discussed the culture of this gay community and the work of this relatively unknown modernist architect, who helped... View full entry
When driving through the streets of Los Angeles, one would expect the urban structures of a dynamic city to be as unique as its inhabitants. But that's not entirely the case, and why is that? The Architecture and Design Museum, Los Angeles poses that question--and what could have been--with their... View full entry
Richard Meier is the last of the New York Five architects to keep working in minimalist white. Now that theme will be towering over Tel Aviv - the American's luxury high-rise is almost finished. — Haaretz
Here’s what’s holding back 3D printing, the technology that’s supposed to revolutionize manufacturing and countless other industries: patents. In February 2014, key patents that currently prevent competition in the market for the most advanced and functional 3D printers will expire, says Duann Scott, design evangelist at 3D printing company Shapeways. — qz.com
Engineers from Microsoft have made a new operating system which could enhance the control of the smart home. The new software will become a platform for making apps for “installation” to flats and houses which are furnished with different electronics and household appliances. — architechnologist.com
This software is available at lab-of-things.com. View full entry
PSFK, the popular creative think-tank that runs PSFK.com, will be hosting its Future of Home Living Experience in the new 101 building in Chelsea, New York beginning on July 23, 2013. Carefully curated by the PSFK team, this free interactive exhibit invites everyone who wants to explore the... View full entry
New York-based Turkish architect Selim Vural, founder of architecture and interior design firm Studio Vural, has shared with us his design for a Gezi Park Monument. The memorial commemorates the recent protests on Istanbul's Taksim Square against the planned construction of a shopping mall in... View full entry
Far from being anchored in the local context, the project (the disastrous City of Culture of Galicia outside Santiago de Compostela, designed by Peter Eisenman) has decapitated Monte de Gaias and replaced it with a phony landscape with curves like those of a fun-fair roller coaster. These cynical intellectual manipulations cannot mask the reality of structures resembling supermarkets twisted about with algorithms and camouflaged with a thin veneer of granite (imported from Brasil!). — Uncube
In a short sweet and illustrated article writer historian William J.R. Curtis puts several Bilbao effect projects in the trash can. It might as well be called "f..k content." View full entry
In a letter accompanying Thursday's filing, Michigan's Governor Rick Snyder...said...residents needed a clear exit from the "cycle of ever decreasing services".
"The only way to do those things is to radically restructure the city"
— BBC News
Jonny Dymond analyzes the news that Detroit has become the largest American city ever to file for bankruptcy, with debts of at least $15bn. View full entry
"To some degree, the very characteristics that promised to make the bubble easier to build ultimately handicapped its fund-raising ability. Because the structure was temporary — Mr. Koshalek envisioned inflating the pavilion designed by the New York firm Diller Scofidio & Renfro in May and October — the museum was able to avoid the layers of approval usually required for any structure destined for the National Mall." — The New York Times
In the words of Woody Allen, "What we have on our hands is a dead shark." As has been previously reported, the DS+R project for the Hirshhorn Museum in D.C. will not be moving forward. The reason for this failure is purportedly due to fundraising deficiencies and not aesthetics as the... View full entry
We have received news that the administration, Board of Trustees of The Cooper Union and those who have occupied the Office of the President since May have reached an agreement that ended the occupation on Friday, July 12. A "working group", as described in more detail below, consisting of Board... View full entry
“My hopes are that greed for knowledge, art, self-determination and expression go a long way. It is a true honor to have my name attached to so much hard work, alongside great names like Henry Louis Gates Jr. and W.E.B. Du Bois and to such a prestigious and historical institution, and all in the name of the music I grew to be a part of.” — latimes.com
