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The V&A Dundee is facing mounting pressure to return philanthropic donations tainted by opioid profits. The museum has reportedly received a £500,000 grant linked to the Sackler family, who, as the owners of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, have been embroiled in controversy for their role in... View full entry
Over the weekend, a group of more than 100 protestors demanded that the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum refuse further funding from the Sackler Family. Led by the American photographer Nan Goldin and her organization PAIN (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), the activists have been targeting... View full entry
The New York Construction Alliance is urging City Council to consider mandatory drug and alcohol testing on all New York City construction sites. NYCA president Kenneth Thomas recently made the following statement:“New York Construction Alliance (NYCA) is committed to worksite safety and our... View full entry
project managers at a building site in North Korea’s capital Pyongyang are openly supplying their exhausted work force with powerful methamphetamines called “ice,” North Korean sources say. [...]
Officials in charge of the project are pushing workers hard to finish frame construction on the buildings, which include a 70-story high-rise apartment building and at least 60 other structures, before the weather gets too cold, sources said.
— Radio Free Asia
The construction project in question appears to be Ryomyong Street, a so-called "Pyonghattan" for its giant scope and reportedly the country's tallest apartments. According to a report in Foreign Policy, the spread of methamphetamine (aka "ice") first began in North Korea during the 1990s, when... View full entry
A group of fourth-year Ball State architecture students are refurbishing a former meth house in the Thomas Park-Avondale neighborhood in Muncie as a studio project.
The studio class is working with ecoREHAB, a local nonprofit that provides sustainable rehabilitation of housing and neighborhoods. “The whole goal is to revitalize the community more so than to earn money,” said Taylor Sheppard, a senior architecture major.
— The Ball State Daily
For more on drugs in architecture:Narquitectura: Inside the Fortified Palaces of Mexico's Drug LordsPowering Mumbai with Magic Mushroomsa new memorial to the victims of [drug war] violence View full entry
A gangster lives a fast, dangerous life — especially Mexico's brutal narco-chieftains. Just look at their houses. With the prospect of death never far away and plenty of money to burn, it makes sense to spend lavishly on a mansion — especially a fortified one. The locals have a term for the style: narquitectura. — wired.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
