A curving, fluid-seeming container made of ombré charcoal glass, Hadid’s design makes for a shape that is distinctly sexy. “The bottle’s dark, translucent qualities offer a sense of mystery that awakens our curiosity,” the Pritzker Prize winner explains. The vessel, whose sensuous lines echo the bottle that Karan’s late husband, sculptor Stephan Weiss, designed for her 1994 scent Cashmere Mist, is sure to awaken many. — architecturaldigest.com
Architecture related to hip-hop is about built ideas inspired of music and dance, drawing in part from artistic ideas like sampling and rapping. Even more to the point, it’s mainly an urban form, one meant to be highly inventive while also addressing issues like poverty and blight — but also the material desires we associate with aspiring DJs and emcees. — smartplanet.com
I went to Vienna earlier this year, and it’s extremely charming and deeply concerned with coffee and cake, both of which I appreciate. But I confess that as I wandered the streets, looking up at graceful churches and palaces, I often thought “what a shame it is that none of these buildings look like a nightmare structure of bare twigs and spider egg sacs.” — Grist.org
A remarkable Frank Lloyd Wright house in Phoenix is under threat of demolition. Wright designed the house for his son David and it is unique among all his residential designs. Your support is needed to urge the City of Phoenix to approve historic preservation designation for the house thereby extending its temporary protection from demolition. — change.org
Via Kevin W. in the Forum View full entry
There is no requirement that architectural drawings contain sufficient detail to support actual construction in order to warrant copyright protection under Section 102(a)(5) of the Copyright Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held Aug. 15 (Scholz Design v. Sard Custom Homes LLC, 2d Cir., No. 11-3298, 8/15/12). — Bloomberg BNA
In a recent legal case issued by architecture firm Scholz Design Co., against builder Sard Custom Homes, it was confirmed that “Copyright protection of a pictorial work, whether depicting a house, or a flower, or a donkey, or an abstract design, does not depend on any degree of... View full entry
Our World Wonders Project is also supported by a broad, connected suite of other Google technologies, bringing wonders of the world within reach of an unprecedented global audience. The project website also provides a window to 3D models, YouTube videos and photography of the famous heritage sites.
Together with partners including UNESCO, the World Monuments Fund and Cyark, the World Wonders Project is preserving the world heritage sites for future generations.
— google.com
A science project of unprecedented scale begins this month in the New Mexico desert, as a technology firm breaks ground for a model metropolis. Washington-based Pegasus Global Holdings will build a town replete with schools, parks and an airport.
But the intended residents are not people, but robots.
— forumforthefuture.org
Everyone, rich or poor, deserves a shelter for the soul. - Samuel Mockbee
Tensions run high when a young female architect moves to a small but uniquely-built rural town and unwittingly falls in love with the son of the man responsible for the town’s misfortune.
— allhalemovie.com
Among facets that critics may seize upon — and, this being N.Y.U., there will certainly be critics — is that the screens express technology’s new primacy, all but obscuring traditional forms of scholarship behind a cascade of random data. Critics may also discern a feeling of defeat in having to undertake such a fundamental alteration in the hope of saving students’ lives. — cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com
Dawson City spent more than $600,000 last year dealing with damage to roads and pipes caused by melting permafrost.
A recently-published report says the shifting ground, a result of climate change, can do a lot of damage to infrastructure such as water and sewer systems.
— cbc.ca
When Mr. Archer, 62, finds something intriguing (and it’s usually a very large something), he often builds a new wing around it.
His house, which he bought 30 years ago for $135,000, was once a 3,000-square-foot, two-story box. Now it is somewhere between 11,000 and 13,000 square feet, with wings flying every which way, a pterodactyl of architectural detritus.
— nytimes.com
Sydney spent three times its original $2 billion Games budget—its Olympics facilities still operate at a loss. Most of Athens’ stadia remain empty, some in graffiti-covered disrepair. — thedailybeast.com
Give Coca-Cola points for architectural originality. It has built what looks like a series of red and white plastic blocks that have just been hit with buckshot and are exploding into shards. What is this thing? It is the Coca-Cola Beat Box, a “building that you can play,” as the company’s many young docents will exuberantly explain. — NYT
David Segal took readers on a tour of the corporate sponsorship pavilions at London's Olympic Park. Mr. Segal found corporate self-promotion run amok. Along with a range of architectural follies. View full entry
Twitter co-founder Evan Williams and his wife were trying to find a nice San Francisco neighborhood for their young family to call home... they found what they were looking for, a 6,300-square-foot lot occupied by an early 1900s home that they now want to demolish to make way for a new house... The planned tear-down has ignited a Page Six controversy, pitting the rights of new tech money against an old community... trying to stop change on one of the city's most idyllic streets. — news.cnet.com
As growth slows, China's huge investment in infrastructure is looking ever harder to sustain, leaving a string of ambitious projects - towns, shopping malls and even a theme park - empty and forlorn. — bbc.co.uk
