The cost to turn 42 acres of contaminated railroad property on the border of Cypress Park and Glassell Park into a "crown jewel" of riverfront revitalization could top $1 billion. That's according to an updated study by the Bureau of Engineering that will be reviewed today by a City Council committee. — The Eastsider
In March 2017, the City of Los Angeles purchased the land, known as the G2 Parcel, for $60 million with the aim to develop a combination of park space, walking trails, wetlands, wildlife habitat, river access, public recreation, and other amenities. The undertaking, known as the Taylor Yard... View full entry
The Architectural League of New York has announced the winners of the 41st edition of its annual Prize for Young Architects + Designers portfolio competition. Each contestant is an early-career architect with no more than ten years out of a B.Arch or Master’s program. The 2022 winners now join a... View full entry
The Minnesota Zoo is to begin construction on its Treetop Trail, which will see 1.25 miles of former monorail track repurposed as a pedestrian walkway. Scheduled for completion in summer 2023, the trail will see guests explore hundreds of acres of hardwood forest, wildlife, and wetlands from... View full entry
NYC-based architecture and design studio Marc Thorpe Design has launched a design & build agency in New York’s West Catskills dedicated to the development of affordable solar-powered homes. Called Edifice Upstate, the agency was formed in collaboration with local builders... View full entry
Niall Patrick Walsh explains how multiple fatal fires earlier this year (in the Bronx and Philadelphia) are but the latest examples in an ongoing national failure "to adhere to existing regulations and unsatisfactory explanations from city officials responsible for enforcing" standards and safety... View full entry
This post is brought to you by UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design The College of Environmental Design (CED) at UC Berkeley was the first college to combine architecture, landscape architecture, and city planning in one entity. This happened in the 1950s, and throughout the years... View full entry
Part of the W Awards program, the annual MJ Long Prize for Excellence in Practice recognizes UK-based architects excelling in practice. Last year's prize was awarded to Alice Brownfield of Peter Barber Architects. Now in its third iteration, this year's award recipient is Fiona... View full entry
The W Awards, formerly known as the Women in Architecture awards, announce this year's Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture winner. The awards program was created to recognize the work and achievements of female and non-binary designers in professional practice under the... View full entry
Sasaki Associates will be branching out and adding a new component after an announcement this week that they are acquiring Brooklyn-based DLANDstudio and opening a new office in New York City for the first time. The 70-year-old firm has traditionally operated out of offices in Denver, Shanghai... View full entry
Henning Larsen has revealed their design for a new experience center called World of Volvo in the Swedish automaker’s hometown of Gothenburg. Touting a “deep connection” to the design heritage and rich natural landscape of Scandinavia, the massive 236,800-square-foot new facility offers... View full entry
Unlike the toxic culture of open international competitions, which see countless architects waste days of unpaid labour to compete in a beauty contest of novelty forms, the Open Call is focused – and paid. The democratic process has seen Pritzker prize winners drawn alongside recent graduates, unheard-of elsewhere. Unlikely as it may seem, the scheme has made this small part of northern Belgium home to some of the best new public buildings in the world. — The Guardian
The Guardian critic used Florian Heilmeyer’s new book, Celebrating Public Architecture: Buildings from the Open Call in Flanders 2000–2021, as a means of introduction to the system that was first enacted in 2000. Heilmeyer’s aim is to advance the notion that it “prove[s] that... View full entry
The U.S. Census Bureau has changed its definition of an urban area, which will cause hundreds of existing urban areas to be reclassified as rural. The change is centered on a new methodology for how urban areas are calculated, with the number of housing units being used as the key metric, rather... View full entry
A national museum of Asian Pacific American history and culture is one major step closer to reality after the US House of Representatives unanimously approved on 26 April a bill to create an eight-person commission to study the feasibility of establishing such an institution in Washington, DC. The bill now heads to the Senate. — The Art Newspaper
The bill was sponsored by Congresswoman Grace Meng, who represents the sixth congressional district of New York, and was passed by the House just days ahead of the beginning of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. “Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have been pivotal in... View full entry
Harry Lennix’s Lillian Marcie Center for the Performing Arts, a project located at 4343 S. Cottage Grove Ave. on Chicago’s South Side and designed to aid in the renaissance of Bronzeville, will receive capital funding from the State of Illinois to the tune of $26 million, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Tuesday. — Chicago Tribune
The Chicago-born actor describes the project as “the Black version of the Lincoln Center.” It will house a 350-seat multi-level auditorium, flexible performance stage, a second smaller 100-seat theater, and related areas, such as rehearsal spaces, dressing rooms, offices, and outdoor gathering... View full entry
I’ll pass by the abuse of metaphors (do milestones have hearts?) but not of trees, this being another case of certain designers’ mania for picking them up, moving them around and putting them where they don’t want to be.
Those words from the studio also take liberties with the idea of art. They call the Tree of Trees a “sculpture”. Boris Johnson may once have compared Heatherwick to Michelangelo, but David it is not.
— The Guardian
The Observer critic joined a plethora of online commentators that picked apart Heatherwick Studio’s “Tree Of Trees” Earth Day announcement by comparing it to last year’s fiasco surrounding the MVRDV-designed Marble Arch Mound, which he described as a “cartoon version of nature is... View full entry