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Field Operations has announced they are working with Canadian partners Brook McIlroy on a new public realm rehabilitation project dubbed The Bentway Islands in Toronto. The plan calls for the redevelopment of three traffic islands into a new space that totals 125,000 square feet. Design... View full entry
The bigger picture of RIOS’s massive The 1901 Project proposal on Chicago’s West Side came into focus today as part of a planned $7 billion redevelopment of areas surrounding the United Center. The 55-acre site is set to be transformed into a mix of retail, entertainment, and residential... View full entry
The new Amsterdam Avenue face of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts will be designed by a team that includes Weiss/Manfredi, Hood Design Studio, and Moody Nolan, the beloved New York City cultural institution announced Monday. The revitalization plan entails first a radical overhaul of... View full entry
Two big-name architects are departing from the National Museums Liverpool (NML) scheme to create a new public realm at the city’s Canning Dock, according to a report published earlier today by the Architects’ Journal. David Adjaye and Mariam Kamara are now out of the project team for the... View full entry
Poundbury, Paisley and Perspectives all ultimately failed to conquer the complex commercial and political challenges they faced. Their royal patron’s attempts to create human-centred townscapes have led to car-dominated suburbs. His efforts to uplift grand historic buildings have carved them into dreary flats. Our King is someone who sees the right problems but, ensconced in the very establishment that prevents meaningful solutions, he can only meddle around the edges of effecting real change. — The Guardian
The new British King is memorably the originator of the panned Poundbury estate that has failed to fall in line with its stated goals towards sustainability and car-free pedestrian orientation, according to Phineas Harper. He thinks the scion is hemmed in by a stolid commercial banking system and... View full entry
Following last week’s visit to Los Angeles-based OPEN OFFICE, we are moving our Meet Your Next Employer series east to Providence, Rhode Island, where we find CIVIC. Founded by architect Manuel Cordero, and based in Providence’s Innovation District, CIVIC’s work is defined by an inclusive... View full entry
Bloomberg Philanthropies has announced a European expansion of its Asphalt Art Initiative on the heels of a new study from the organization and Sam Schwartz Consulting that revealed some eye-opening statistics about the improvement of blacktop spaces in urban areas. A total of 20 new cities will... View full entry
A new plan by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership—a consortium of three business improvement districts—seeks to make room for all of those people by curtailing car access and installing protected bike lanes, colorful street furniture, and monumental gathering spaces. — CityLab
Despite rapid population growth, Downtown Brooklyn seems to be missing the appeal for the increasing number of pedestrians and cyclists. The newly unveiled Downtown Brooklyn Public Realm Vision, developed jointly by WXY architecture + urban design and Bjarke Ingels Group in collaboration with... View full entry
"I think the public needs to understand that as an agency, we are exploring what [a fareless system] could look like," [TriMet board member Kathy Wai] said. "These conversations are happening at a high level. … I think we are further along in 2019 on the conversation about the funding, what that could look like, and what those mechanisms could be." — Portland Mercury
Officials with the TriMet regional transit agency in Portland, Oregon have begun to discuss the possibility of embracing free public transit for area residents. The move comes after Kansas City, Missouri announced it would make its public transit free to ride. Running alongside the push... View full entry
The city grid, which once served to organize the development of private real estate by providing access to land parcels, now has a more pressing role to play in making cities livable. Our reimagining of the grid starts from the premise that how we use public rights of way no longer meets the city’s needs, so we should transform the streets radically, dedicating them to pedestrians. — citylab.com
Jonathan Cohn and Yunyue Chen propose a new pedestrian plan for Manhattan's grid grouping blocks into larger neighborhoods and organizing streets into either thoroughfares or local streets. Cohn leads the transportation and public infrastructure studio of Perkins Eastman, while Chen received... View full entry
Since they founded Duvall Decker nearly 20 years ago, the Deckers, as they’re known, have focused mostly on neglected corners in and around Jackson, Mississippi’s capital. To pay the bills, the two have redefined for themselves the ambit of a small architectural practice. They have become developers and even branched into building maintenance: a soup-to-nuts strategy that has allowed them more than just financial breathing room. — The New York Times
Helping impoverished Mississippi communities? Check. Making money while creating a business model that empowers you with the decision-making powers of developers? Check. Being notable and effective enough to earn your own profile in The New York Times by Michael Kimmelman? Done, done, and done for... View full entry
Over at the Los Angeles Times, Christopher Hawthorne eloquently pans the new addition to the 405 freeway, noting that "The expanded 405 might be the first L.A. freeway project to look haggard and disjointed the day it opened." His review comes at a time when infrastructure, especially in... View full entry
[...] British architect Sir David Chipperfield has said that he regards private investment’s hold over new architecture in London as an “absolutely terrible” means of building a city.
In Berlin, where he employs an office of 90, “there is still an idea of the public realm. We have given that up in London. We have declared the public realm dead; the question is how to get stuff out of the private sector. We are unbelievably sophisticated at that.”
— theguardian.com
Ediciones Vibok has been awarded with FAD Thought & Criticism 2011 prize for the book Collective Architectures, edited by the architect Paula Alvarez
FAD Awards (Promoting Architecture and Design) were created in Barcelona in 1958 with the aim of promoting cutting-edge trends and recognize the quality of new approaches and open researches in contrast with traditional languages.
— ARQUINFAD
We are pleased to share with you very good news.Ediciones Vibok has been awarded with FAD Thought & Criticism 2011 prize for the book Collective Architectures, edited by the architect Paula Alvarez Collective Architectures, Vibok first title, has its starting point in an initiative by... View full entry
