On today’s show Donna and I are joined by Cruz Garcia and Nathalie Frankowski of WAI Architecture Think Tank. The last time we had Cruz and Nathalie on the podcast was for our Next Up series at the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial. We’ve since also had Cruz on the podcast to... View full entry
The United States House of Representatives has passed the National Museum of the American Latino Act, a bill that paves the way for the creation of a new Smithsonian Institute-affiliated museum celebrating the histories and achievements of Latinos in the United States. The bill's text... View full entry
“I would be disgusted if we had to drive through downtown Los Angeles for generations and see buildings marking the city skyline that were achieved through bribery and corruption,” said Councilman Paul Krekorian, who has also proposed barring developers implicated in criminal conduct from getting any future approvals. — The Los Angeles Times
Emily Alpert Reyes of The Los Angeles Times takes a look at the handful of projects that have been tied to an ongoing federal corruption investigation targeting Los Angeles City Council member Jose Huizar and investigates how planning approvals for some those projects may be impacted by their... View full entry
First Lady Melania Trump has announced plans to spruce up the grounds of the White House Rose Garden. According to a report from The New York Times, the project will bring electrical upgrades, a new walkway, and new flowers and shrubs to the garden, which is situated between the West Wing... View full entry
As universities and colleges across the country have seen renewed calls for racial equity and social justice within their curricula, faculty, and programs, the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) has announced a series of initiatives as part of effort to focus the school's pedagogy on anti-racist... View full entry
The American Academy in Rome has announced the winners of the 2020-1 Rome Prize and Italian Fellowships. Selected from a pool of 1,031 applications from 46 US states and territories, including Puerto Rico and the District of Colombia, and 15 different countries, those selected consist of... View full entry
You can’t overstate the importance of City of Quartz...it remains the best socio-political critique of modern L.A, the first book you’d recommend to someone seeking to understand the dark nativist currents and unyielding avarice that still shape a city so easily stereotyped but rarely understood. It is noir to the core...Even Vince Staples insisted that I read City of Quartz had I not already. — the LAnd
On the 30th anniversary of the dystopian L.A. touchstone, Jeff Weiss talks to the prophetic author and oft-misunderstood activist about political uprisings, the pandemic, and what gives him hope for the future. In related news, back in 2015 Julia Ingalls reported on the third installment of The... View full entry
Australian actor-producer and entrepreneur Dustin Clare is launching Shelter, a new streaming platform for architecture enthusiasts. The platform is targeting a global audience and will carry a mixture of films, TV shows as well as its own originals. — Variety
Shelter's "Inspired Architecture" series will include six fifteen-minute episodes that explore six Australian structures including JR's Hut in Gundagai, Permanent Camping in Mudgee, and Hart House at Great Mackerel Beach. The series explores the narrative of the buildings and their creators... View full entry
The Harvard University Graduate School of Design's Design Nexus group has launched a new podcast, The Nexus, meant to highlight the work and roles of Black architects and designers. Created in collaboration between the school's African American Student Union and the Frances Loeb Library, the... View full entry
Thirty years on, the A.D.A. has reshaped American architecture and the way designers and the public have come to think about civil rights and the built world. We take for granted the ubiquity of entry ramps, Braille signage, push buttons at front doors, lever handles in lieu of doorknobs, widened public toilets, and warning tiles on street corners and subway platforms. [...] The A.D.A. has baked a more egalitarian aesthetic of forms and spaces into the civic DNA. — The New York Times
Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic for The New York Times highlights how public discourse surrounding designing for people with disabilities has changed in the three decades that have passed since the creation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Highlighting the tensions that exist... View full entry
Students of the Princeton University School of Architecture have published a letter advocating for widespread changes to how the school operates in order to pursue an anti-racist agenda. The open letter, published as an Op-Ed in The Daily Princetonian, offers a nine point plan for beginning... View full entry
The new sculpture, called Obolin, uses cross laminated timber (CLT) to create three cutouts subtracted from a spherical geometry to mark the location of the sun's vector based on its Hudson Valley location at noon on the Summer and Winter Solstices, and at 2:00pm on the Equinox. Obolin was... View full entry
The National Building Museum has announced that Brent D. Glass, Director Emeritus of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, will serve as the institution's Interim Executive Director. Glass takes up the interim position after former Executive Director Chase W. Rynd, Hon. ASLA... View full entry
A stunning 3D virtual tour from the Egyptian Tourism Authority takes viewers deep into the heavily detailed tomb of Pharaoh Ramesses VI. Named Tomb KV9, the underground structure has a long corridor leading down to the now-broken sarcophagus, and both walls and the ceiling are inscribed with writings from ancient Egyptian texts and astronomical renderings. — Colossal
If you're ready for some archaeological adventure but find yourself pandemic-trapped at home and unable to make it to Egypt's ancient Valley of the Kings right now, try the virtual tomb tour of Pharaoh Ramses VI who reigned in the 12th century BC. Take a look at some screenshots of the ruler's... View full entry
A bill introduced on July 13th by Nevada Representative Dina Titus aims to write the General Services Administration's "Guiding Principles" for federal architecture into federal law. The bill, titled the "Democracy in Design Act," represents an effort to stop the implementation the... View full entry