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According to its satirical official website, BLUE CHECK HOMES offers clients a verified blue badge on their homes. "The blue verified badge on your house lets people outside know that you're an authentic public figure. To receive the blue check crest, there must be someone authentic and... View full entry
Homelessness in America has reached crisis levels and I am determined to do everything in my power to fix the problem as long as it doesn’t involve changing zoning laws or my ability to drive alone to work or, well, changing anything, really. I’m more than happy to give a hungry man a sandwich once a year and then brag to my friends about it as long as he doesn’t sit down anywhere in my line of sight to eat it. Same goes for hungry women because I’m also a feminist. — mcsweeneys.net
A superb piece satirizing the homelessness and housing crises by McSweeney's writer Homa Mojtabai. From a privileged and entitled point of view, Mojtabai highlights extreme issues on how problems are being "solved". This is of course an exaggeration—but by how much? View full entry
This post is brought to you by Reality Cues. Architecture is historically complicit with the policies of those in power, both symbolically and functionally. It offers not only representations of power, but also vehicles for enacting power in its most grandiose, oppressive, and physically enduring... View full entry
When a couple sets out to build their dream house, they enlist the services of a visionary modernist architect, whose soaring ideas are matched by only his ego. The woman is swept away by the uncompromising creative artist whose personality provides a stark contrast to her practical husband's. She is so taken she hardly notices the Architect is building HIS dream house. — the Architect
The latest film to satirize the profession, the Architect stars Parker Posey, James Frain, and Eric McCormack and was written and directed by Jonathan Parker.It's not immediately clear if the architect is modeled after anyone in particular. The character's appearance resembles a... View full entry
“a barbershop, a beautiful barbershop formed by curves of alabaster stone. It would resemble an albino slug that’s eating a pile of white towels. Instead of sitting on swivel chairs during your haircut, you’d rest on a big egg that rises out of an indoor reflecting pool. [...]
Every day, I open the phone book and call a handful of random barbershops to see if anyone is interested, but I have yet to find a barber with the vision and bravery required.” – Zaha Hadid
— clickhole.com
I had dreamed of the day when the visionary and hysterical ClickHole would lampoon starchitects. Now that day has come, and the resulting listicle does not disappoint.Here's Frank Gehry's lost project for the "Evil Concert Hall":"Instead of holding music, the evil hall would just house endless... View full entry
As controversy carries on over the notorious Garden Bridge by Heatherwick Studio proposed for London's South Bank, some opposers of the project are expressing their discontent with good ol' British satire in the soon-to-be-launched "Folly for London" competition. If you have a cheeky sense of humor, you'll have fun in this one. — bustler.net
Previously on ArchinectUPDATE, June 15, 2015: Will Jennings, artist and initiator of the "Folly for London" competition, sent us this statement to further explain the cause until the design ideas contest officially opens for entries.Details of the competition will be announced in due course and we... View full entry
The new design for One Van Ness, which will rise 37 stories at the intersection of Van Ness Avenue and Market Street, is the work of Snøhetta [...].
A journalist and illustrator, Susie Cagle tells me in an email that she covered San Francisco real estate in 2008, and the Snøhetta project reminds her of ambitious residential projects planned for Market Street that never happened. "I think it's a place where dense construction makes sense," she says.
— citylab.com
Previously: Snøhetta to take over SF development project near Civic Center View full entry
“Where do you get your ideas for buildings?”
“Oh, I could never do what you do — you know, get up in the morning and go to my job and do my job there.”
“Sometimes I feel like I have a building in me.”
“What’s your favorite building to re-look at?”
“Oh, I’d love to design an office complex, but I’m just so busy.”
— the-toast.net
Crank the A/C in the office just to stay awake,
Espresso and Red Bull till I got a stomach ache.
With our cotton blazers high, we have a sense of style,
But to the rest of the world we just point and smile
I read code books, while I'm on vacation
Take pictures of, my latest creation
We wear black and gray, with no logos on our threads
So many sleepless nights we're like the walking dead
— youtube.com
Do you know what I love more? My children. And that is why I will never live in my MCM dream home. Because mid-century modern architecture is designed to KILL YOUR CHILDREN. (Also, moderately clumsy or drunk adults). — projectophile.wordpress.com
Red arrows show the direction of travel of children’s bodies It is pretty certain that none of these children reached adulthood intact. View full entry
Architecture (insofar as architecture is an art) should contain within it the potential for the revelation of that which is unknown. Changes in our physical environment, particularly in the structure of our cities following the Second World War, have resulted in a loss of a sense of place, as well as a subsequent "empty space" within our perceived experience of our world. This can only be remedied by a renewed sense of human settlements as urban foci... — theonion.com
The Onion has an advice columnist! Found via Archinect member The Great Northern in this discussion thread. View full entry