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For the latest entry in the ShowCase series Archinect published the Shrine of the Virgin of "La Antigua" by Otxotorena Arquitectos. The project is located in Alberite, La Rioja, Spain and the architects main constraint was the need to "incorporate a preexisting stone archway in the design. This... View full entry
![Left: Paul Rudolph, Oriental Masonic Gardens, New Haven, Connecticut, 1968-71. [Photo via Claire T. Carney Library, University of Massachusetts] Right: Biergarten at Proxy, designed by Envelope A+D, San Francisco, 2012. [Photo by Scott Beale, Laughing Squid]](https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/l7/l7dsed1e1yot2o9o.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=514 "Left: Paul Rudolph, Oriental Masonic Gardens, New Haven, Connecticut, 1968-71. [Photo via Claire T. Carney Library, University of Massachusetts] Right: Biergarten at Proxy, designed by Envelope A+D, San Francisco, 2012. [Photo by Scott Beale, Laughing Squid]")
In its most far-reaching aspects, container urbanism proposes to take the fundamental organic/architectural condition of containment further by exploring how a boundary might be better coordinated, even merged with the flow of material/ideas. Can containment equate more closely with transmission and, in so doing, position architecture and urbanism more in line with societal mobility and change? — Places Journal
The repurposed shipping container has become a fixture of urban architecture — part of a movement, as Mitchell Schwarzer argues, toward an "urban design as flexible, responsive and electric as the currents that feed it." On Places, Schwarzer examines the rise of container urbanism from the... View full entry
Interdisciplinary teams will focus on the planning, design, construction and retrofitting of urban environments for the 21st century. — cau.mit.edu
Already, the world is becoming predominantly urban. However, the dominant form of urban living will be very similar to our older suburban regions in the U.S. This places substantial pressure on American suburban models, the dominant model of urban development copied worldwide, to set a better... View full entry
RE-IMAGINING THE CIVIC A profound breakdown in trust between publics and institutions is one of the defining hallmarks of our time. Cultural organizations can respond to this crisis by acting as mediating agencies and imaginatively bridging and building interfaces across divided constituencies... View full entry
WAI Architecture Think Tank has released the video narrative “Généalogie d'un collage”. The video displays the creation of the collage ‘Cities of the Avant-Garde’ as well as one of the poems that were developed with the iconic image. Music: Asap Rocky... View full entry
Cities Without Ground: A Hong Kong Guidebook is a new book that maps 32 networks of interconnected above- and below-ground pedestrian walkways in Hong Kong. Written by a team of architects (Jonathan D Solomon, Clara Wong, and Adam Frampton) and recently published by ORO Editions, the book... View full entry
because they (NPR) always seem to believe they are saying something really fresh and profound about a place or a “scene” when they tag it thus. But the real force behind our mania for the vibrant is the nation’s charitable foundations. For organized philanthropy, “vibrant” seems to have become the one-stop solution for all that ails the American polis. — The Baffler
Thomas Frank comments on "vibrant cities" and on their fallacy in an article for the Baffler. The role of arts and creative class in most recent euphoric city makings are closely analyzed and exposed. "Vibrant" equaling to "thriving" and hollow? Somewhat related "Gin Fizz Urbanism" View full entry
It has been so popular that other cities are following suit, with plans to replicate the formula in London. What is the secret of its success? — BBC News
Following the success of NYC High Line park/project, cities around the world from: London, Chicago, Philadelphia and Rotterdam are looking to replicate their own versions. Robin Banerji reports that some are even hoping to use "more besides disused railways". She also touches on some of the... View full entry
It's not that I'm disappointed in New York, not at all. I love walking Manhattan's grid system, but now that I've seen Armelle Caron's bottom-up version of Istanbul, all those crooked, lopsided, curvaceous streets, going off in so many directions, I can't help wondering, what would it be like to wander there? Would I be constantly lost? Would every turn be an adventure?
Suddenly I can't help it. I want to go.
— npr.org
Urbanism is one of those malleable concepts that defy definition. A flexible subject where, by trying to lock it within a specific scope, its validity sometimes gets undermined and its potential spoiled. But when a magazine develops and maintains its own way to portray the multiple faces, forms... View full entry
From the eroded optimism of the heroic building-monuments in east-Europe, to the monochromatic banality of housing developments in the Canary Islands, the photographs of Simona Rota appear to be talking to us about the aspirations and shortcomings of architecture in both its megalomaniac and its... View full entry
Another bigger picture repercussion of the Act is the cognitive and cartographic dissonance that occurs in Los Angeles where the Jeffersonian city grid abuts a pre-existing Spanish or French grid. — KCET/Departures
KCET's Jeremy Rosenberg continues his column Departures with a running theme "Laws That Shaped LA" with Rhett Beavers, ASLA, who elaborates on the conjunction of several grid types as they have influenced the way Los Angeles constructed and experienced. View full entry
California has grabbed a golden opportunity to build the nation’s first high-speed rail system, create the backbone of a new, clean 21st century transportation system and support our future economic growth. — Washington Post
After a tough quarrels and special interest maneuvers, the State of California cleared the hurdles to lead the nation for a faster and more connected future. The high speed rail will have major impact on California's economy and its future urban developments. It could very well be the end of... View full entry
What people said concerned them the most was a growing sense of isolation and disconnection. They said we live increasingly in silos, separated by ethnicity, culture, language, income, age and even geography. They lamented what they saw as a deepening civic malaise that has resulted in more people retreating from community activities. They said this corrosion of caring and social isolation hurts them personally and hurts their community. — Vancouver Foundation
Regardless of its textbook urban success with its new buildings, neighborhoods, geography and living standards, Vancouver also faces some disturbing truths about creeping isolation, loneliness, racial and ethnic intolerance and other psychosocial urban perils. Perhaps these... View full entry
Looking at the city through the lens of landscape architecture allows us a clear view of the situation. There is just one course of action available to us: if we are to resolve the world’s ecological problems we first need to resolve the problems facing our cities. And the only way we can reach these solutions is by naming and researching them in terms of the metabolism of the city. — IABR
-Dirk Sijmons, renowned landscape architect and former Governmental Advisor on Landscape, has been appointed curator of the next edition of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam. The 6th IABR has the working title “URBAN by NATURE” and opens in May 2014. It focuses on the... View full entry
