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The Norman Foster Foundation has unveiled details of its new Essential Homes prototype design with Holcim that will deliver low-cost options for emergency shelter in Latin America using low-carbon concrete and cement products in demonstration of the principles of a circular economy. Image... View full entry
In Toronto's central Summerhill neighborhood sits a steady line-up of typical 19th century workers' row houses. Nestled among them, between the colored brick facades and conventional front porches, is Twelve Tacoma, designed by the Toronto-based Aleph-Bau. Drawing on the surrounding vernacular... View full entry
The houses in Ben Marcin’s project ‘Last House Standing’ seem oddly misplaced, lost and forgotten. The series reads like a homage to the forgotten solo row house. The Baltimore based self-taught photographers interest ‘in these solitary buildings is not only in their ghostly beauty but in their odd placement in the urban landscape. Often three stories high, they were clearly not designed to stand alone like this’. — ignant.de
Over at the LA Times, Christopher Hawthorne reported on LACMA Director Michael Govan’s plan’s for $650-million new building by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor...Eric Chavkin commented "New construction has always been fundraising tail that wags the museum dog. Big names to draw bigger money...Now that AMPAS is leveraging it's Oscar prestige to be a part of LACMA, a new name to entice donor dollars is Zumthor, a name that means absolutely nothing to most.
NewsMichael Z Wise reviewed the newest edition of Albert Speer, Architecture by Léon Krier for the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Wise concluded his review "Though he is again bemoaning a contemporary inability to regard classicism in a detached manner, it is Léon Krier who is in a... View full entry
"A block of row houses -- narrow, tall, brick- or stone-faced homes, connected side-by-side -- is my shorthand for city perfection....Blocks of row houses generate a perfect urban scale: large enough to support neighborhood groceries, bars, and shops, but not so dense as to create parking crunches or attract huge stores" — the Stranger
Eric Fredericksen examines how Sesame Street was his first experience of urban living. He then draws parallels between Sesame Street and his current living situation, his preference for row houses and stoop-life and the comings and goings of his neighborhood. H/T toasteroven who notes "I... View full entry