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While Saarinen’s groundbreaking works gave him international prominence, many people don’t realize that his earliest architectural and design laboratory was in Michigan. — New York Times
John L. Dorman, for the travel section of the New York Times explored Michigan's modern architecture, and more specifically, buildings by modern architect Eliel Saarinen and his son Eero. He reports visiting the Saarinen's house designed by Eliel and the first buildings realized by Eero, such as... View full entry
By now, it’s a relatively familiar narrative: over the course of the last few decades, there's been a mass return to urban centers from their outskirts, resulting in a field of abandoned strip malls and big box stores. What to do with these contemporary “ruins,” however, remains an open... View full entry
Autonomous aerial vehicles have a host of applications, researchers say. Large ones can be used for commercial transport and national security. Small drones could survey disaster sites, inspect infrastructures like bridges and wind turbines, gather environmental and atmospheric data, and deliver packages, for example. Package delivery goes beyond Amazon orders. — The Michigan Engineer News Center
University of Michigan’s College of Engineering is adding an outdoor fly lab for testing autonomous aerial vehicles to the university’s spate of advanced robotics facilities. Designed by Harley Ellis Deveraux, M-Air will be a netted, four-story complex situated next to the site where the Ford... View full entry
Gearing up for another eventful school year this fall? Archinect's Get Lectured is back in session. Get Lectured is an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back frequently to keep track of any upcoming lectures you... View full entry
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has announced criminal charges against six more people—including the state's former water quality chief—in connection with lead-contaminated water in the city of Flint. [...]
All six people are current or former state employees in the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services or the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. [...]
"these individuals concealed the truth. They were criminally wrong to do so, and the victims are real people."
— npr.org
Get situated with Flint's water crisis here:Dispatch from Flint: How architects can help, on Archinect Sessions #54Should the children of Flint be resettled?The crisis in Flint and why architects should care about decentralizing our water systems View full entry
Nearly 40 percent of Detroit residents live below the poverty line. In many cities, poor people rent — but the home ownership rate here is high. After the 2008 housing crash, it took the city of Detroit five years to start reappraising homes — and poor homeowners like Hicks, who lives on disability, struggled to pay their taxes. Over the past decade, there have been more than 100,000 tax foreclosures in Detroit. — Marketplace
For more news from the Motor City, check out these links:Previewing the 2016 Venice Biennale: the United States' "Architectural Imagination"Dispatch from the Venice Biennale: a healthy dose of dissent from Detroit Resists, The Architecture Lobby and more"Bleeding Rainbow"... View full entry
The 2016 U.S. Venice Biennale Pavilion is one step closer to becoming a reality with today's reveal of the 'My Detroit' postcard photo competition winners...[Out of 463 entries, the winning photos] were considered as unique individual depictions of Detroit that could also collectively tell a larger story about the present-day city. The photographs will then be printed as postcards and distributed to visitors when the Biennale opens in May. — Bustler
See more of the photos over on Bustler. View full entry
The tragedy of Flint, Michigan's water crisis seems to worsen with every newly uncovered detail. As a manmade public health crisis provoked by willful denial and compromised safety standards, the entirely preventable poisoning of Flint's water supply with lead stands not only as a failure to care... View full entry
Given the threat of ongoing lead exposure and the community’s well-founded mistrust of government, should families be offered at least temporary resettlement while upgrades, repairs and enhancements are made to Flint’s badly contaminated water infrastructure?
I ask this fully aware of how unprecedented and complex such a policy would be. After all, some 9,000 young children may have been exposed to contaminated water.
— Washington Post
For more articles on urban health issues like the ongoing crisis in Flint, check out these links:America has an infrastructure problem – and it's getting criticalThe crisis in Flint and why architects should care about decentralizing our water systemsMore and more people are dying as a result of... View full entry
...centralized urban water systems throughout the world are now under significant stress from increasing population density, water-resource competition, changing precipitation patterns, and new sources of pollutants, such as endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Even without these pressures, centralized water is, by design, a fracture-critical system—one that is susceptible “to complete and sudden collapse should any part of it fail,” writes Thomas Fisher, Assoc. AIA... — Architect Magazine
"Faced with an excessive price tag, municipalities may welcome decentralized water as the only feasible choice for future water delivery. Architects should therefore develop more expertise related to these net-zero water systems, as they will have direct implications for building design... View full entry
In Detroit, there were 3,500 sales of single-family homes in 2014. Only 462 of them received a mortgage. That means that nearly 87 percent of sales were in cash — and that doesn’t include homes sold in foreclosure auction. Comparatively, the overall metro area saw only 53 percent in cash sales the same year. Nationwide, it was 43 percent.
“The number one issue that we, in the end, identified in Detroit is that it’s incredibly hard for homebuyers to get a mortgage right now,” say Svenja Gudell..
— Next City
Related coverage:U.S. Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale, "The Architectural Imagination", now open for submissionsParticipating architects announced for the US Pavilion of the 2016 Venice BiennaleHow Detroit can learn to revive its derelict industrial sites from other citiesDetroit issues... View full entry
Archinect's Architecture School Lecture Guide for Fall 2015Archinect's Get Lectured is ready for another school year. Get Lectured is an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back frequently to keep track of any... View full entry
He donated millions to the University of Michigan’s health care center, medical school library and college of architecture and urban planning; to Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government; and to Brown University’s public policy and American institutions program. He led a $75 million expansion of the Detroit Institute of Arts, and was a director of the Detroit Symphony and other cultural organizations. — nytimes.com
Just last week, Taubman was still attending the groundbreaking of the new wing of the Art & Architecture building at University of Michigan's Taubman College Architecture and Urban Planning. View full entry
Most people would probably be envious of the lucky DJs that got to spin tunes in The Mothership (I know I am). Ann Arbor-based practice Anya Sirota + AKOAKI looked to legendary funk collective P-Funk and their iconic album Mothership Connection to design the swanky modular DJ and broadcast booth... View full entry
Archinect's Architecture School Lecture Guide for Winter-Spring 2015Archinect's Get Lectured is back in session! Get Lectured is an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back frequently to keep track of any upcoming... View full entry
