"OpenStreetMap is not about crowdsourcing, OpenStreetMap is about community collaboration. This is not you being a mindless crowd adding data to some big company’s map. This is about you putting in data in your own neighborhood, working with your neighbors, working with a larger community to refine and make a really cohesive map. That's the kind of experience that was so successful with Wikipedia." — Atlantic Cities
Get to know your world and not just the restaurants. Somewhat related: Constellations of Los Angeles View full entry
Architecture and journalism, like politics, sometimes make strange bedfellows. — Los Angeles Times
"Pedro Ramirez Vazquez, the great Mexican builder who died April 16 at age 94, was responsible for many of the monumental public works that defined the Modernist look and aspirations of his country in the post-World War II era. Among his projects were the stunning Museum of Anthropology in... View full entry
The Modernism worth pursuing — worth protecting — is the one where Gregor Samsa wakes up transformed into a large insect, and ends up with an apple embedded in his carapace, which is exactly what the Folk Art Museum is to the Museum of Modern Art, right now, right where it is. — Places Journal
On Places, David Heymann presents an incisive critique of MoMA's decision to raze the Folk Art Museum building, by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects. From a quiet beginning — "Here is why I think the American Folk Art Museum is a great Modernist building" — Heymann works his way to... View full entry
The shape of the new headquarters of the People's Daily, the Communist Party's main propaganda machine, has sparked heated discussion online for looking a bit too phallic.
Most photos posted on Sina Weibo, the mainland's most popular microblogging site, were removed by censors, and attempts to search for " People's Daily building" in Chinese were met with a message that read: "According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, search results cannot be displayed."
— scmp.com
If you're in Berlin this May, make sure to swing by the Opernwerkstätten Berlin: Swiss artist, Zimoun, known for his "architecturally-minded platforms of sound," exhibits 318 prepared dc-motors, cork balls, cardboard boxes 100x100x100cm, one of the artist's two current European exhibitions. The piece will be on view until May 24th. — bustler.net
If all the various proposals come to fruition, Major League Soccer will plunk a 35,000-seat stadium on top of the Pool of Industry; the Related Companies and Sterling Equities will jointly build a 1.4 million–square–foot shopping center on parkland turned parking lot next to Citi Field, and the National Tennis Center will creep beyond its current borders — NY Magazine
Justin Davidson reviews the Bloomberg administration's recently announced plans for Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Mr. Davidson is "skeptical of the new sugarplum visions" which would transfer about 40 acres of public land into the hands of private capital for various "goodies". View full entry
It's been a while since we rounded up our selections from Archinect's curated Kickstarter page... so here we go... STEAM Carnival by Two Bit CircusThe carnival reimagined with robots, fire, and lasers to inspire young inventors in science, technology, engineering, art, and math Siteseekr!... View full entry
This Brooklyn Heights playground is named for Adam Yauch, an artist, a filmmaker, an activist, and one of Brooklyn’s most influential musicians. Most famous as ‘MCA’ of the legendary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees the Beastie Boys, Yauch grew up playing in this playground, then named State Street Park and later Palmetto Playground, as a child. — nycgovparks.org
“Born and bred in Brooklyn the U.S.A./ They call me Adam Yauch but I’m M.C.A.” - “No Sleep Til Brooklyn,” The Beastie Boys NYC Parks & Rec. announced today that Adam Yauch Park, named after the Beastie Boys' late MCA, is now open. View full entry
Henry Hope Reed, an architecture critic and historian whose ardent opposition to modernism was purveyed in books, walking tours of New York City and a host of curmudgeonly barbs directed at advocates of the austere, the functional and unornamented in public buildings and spaces, died Wednesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 97. — nytimes.com
Staples, the world’s largest office products company and second largest e-commerce company, today became the first major U.S. retailer to announce the availability of 3D printers. The Cube® 3D Printer from 3D Systems, a leading global provider of 3D content-to-print solutions, is immediately available on Staples.com for $1299.99 and will be available in a limited number of Staples stores by the end of June. — businesswire.com
Winning design schemes have just been announced in the international competition Borderless: Designing Future ASEAN Borders. The competition brings attention to the spaces along the borders of the 10 members of ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, with the aim of improving their existing conditions. — bustler.net
Women make up almost half the graduating architecture classes, but only 17 percent of architecture-firm leadership. Even as women have made great strides in the field over the last several decades, that disconnect hasn’t gone away. — csmonitor.com
Construction crews at the World Trade Center hoisted a flag-bedecked spire to the top of the site's signature One World Trade Center building Thursday.
Workers raised the spire to a temporary work platform atop the structure's roof, where ironworkers can later permanently attach it.
When fully installed, One World Trade Center will stand a symbolic 1,776 feet high, making it the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. The 408-foot spire will serve as a broadcast antenna.
— usatoday.com
One expert in the UAE has estimated that 70% of the high-rise buildings there have panel facade cladding made of a combustible thermoplastic core held between two sheets of aluminium. — BBC News
Bill Law, a BBC Gulf news analyst, writes about how fears of a "towering inferno" disaster in the Gulf are growing after fires left residential buildings heavily damaged in the United Arab Emirates cities of Sharjah and Dubai. The panels have been prohibited in the UK and USA for some time and... View full entry
For the next round of discussion I’d like to shift the subject to the physical environment, posing the question, Is architecture rational? — guggenheim.org
The conversation, "The Aestheticization of Everyday Life", an installment of the Guggenheim Forum series, is held in conjunction with the Guggenheim's current exhibition, Gutai: Splendid Playground. The panel, moderated by critic and Metropolis contributing editor Karrie Jacobs, examines how... View full entry
