Mr. Pichler was a sculptor and illustrator whose ... architectural drawings were not just plans; they were also works of art in and of themselves. Other images — “dream drawings,” as he called them — were dark and psychologically loaded. His figures were often skeletal or robotic. — New York Times
The Sound of Buildings is an audio exploration of Melbourne’s most architecturally significant buildings. Available free as an interactive iPhone and iPad app, The Sound of Buildings provides listeners with a deeper level of understanding and context for the selected buildings, as well highlighting Melbourne’s diverse architecture and urban spaces through an exploration of cultural, monuments, government, residential, commercial, transport, education, health and sporting projects. — soundofbuildings.com
"Regional governments enjoy the possibility of spending and inaugurating public works but they don't run the political risk or cost of raising taxes. — BBC News
Pascale Harter visits Spain where regions are clamouring for money from central government - and one of the reasons for this is their lavish spending on white elephant building projects, such as the airport at Ciudad Real, south of Madrid. View full entry
Outside of Paris lies a “Truman Show like über-replica of a French village from the last century, which seems to have sprung up overnight.” — fastcodesign.com
It was International Olympic Committee founder Pierre de Coubertin's great dream to marry the aesthetic with the athletic—thus, every Olympics between 1912 and 1948 awarded gold, silver, and bronze medals to artists. There were five categories of individual competition: Architecture, painting, sculpture, literature, and music. — theatlantic.com
Charles Downing Lay was the only American to win a medal in 1936, taking home silver in the Municipal Planning division of the Architecture category for his design titled "Marine Park in Brooklyn." View full entry
The 600 seats in question only concern 10-meter platform events, which start Monday. Small portions of the dives may not be visible. The Zaha Hadid-designed Aquatics Centre features a dipping roof that limits viewing from the highest seats. — sfgate.com
Max Steiner's Cement Cinder Block Necklaces are actually cast from poured concrete and cured for a month before being sold. At 3/4" tall, they're the cutest construction materials with which you can adorn yourself. — boingboing.net
Could the entire mood of a neighborhood depend on something as simple as street width? That was the question David Yoon, a writer, designer, photographer, and self-confessed urban planning geek living in Los Angeles, asked himself after returning from a trip to Paris. He started documenting existing streets of Los Angeles and narrowing them to see the effects that his manipulations had on the city. — mascontext.com
Though little known outside the art world, this surprisingly drab series of buildings is renowned by dealers and collectors as the premier place to stash their most valuable works. — nytimes.com
the city-as-a-system approach described earlier can be applied as a methodology to identify how complex problems that may appear unrelated...interact with each other in the context of a given city or threat network. Taking this approach may allow planners to identify emergent patterns within the complex adaptive system of a relevant city, make sense of the system logic, and thus begin to design tailored interventions. — Global Trends 2030
David J. Kilcullen (former Senior Advisor to General David Petraeus in Iraq in 2007 and author of the bestselling books The Accidental Guerrilla and Counterinsurgency) analyzes three megatrends; urbanization, littoralization and connectedness as well as their implications for future conflict. View full entry
Wired shares images of executive board rooms for some of the world's most powerful groups. Most of these look just like my grandparents dining room. View full entry
The cycle superhighway, which opened in April, is the first of 26 routes scheduled to be built to encourage more people to commute to and from Copenhagen by bicycle. More bike path than the Interstate its name suggests, it is the brainchild of city planners who were looking for ways to increase bicycle use in a place where half of the residents already bike to work or to school every day. — nytimes.com
Less than a fifth know architects prepare construction drawings, and only nine per cent understand that they control site budgets; 15 per cent don’t even know that architects design buildings. — architectsjournal.co.uk
Autodesk is known for architectural and design software, but in recent years has started offering products aimed at ordinary consumers. Besides $60m for Socialcam, which makes video authoring and publishing software, Autodesk paid $32 million for Instructables... And it purchased a company called Pixlr, which is an online photo editor, for an undisclosed sum. Autodesk also developed consumer software for drawing and painting online, which it calls SketchBook. — bits.blogs.nytimes.com
... a cache of biological samples appeared through the criminal networks of Mumbai, in the vain hope that it might provide new marketable narcotic opportunities. The collective drive and expertise of the refugees managed to turn theses genetically-engineered fungal samples into a new type of infrastructure - providing heat, light and building material for the refugees. Dharavi rapidly evolved it's own micro-economy based around the mushrooms. — tobiasrevell.com
