Follow this tag to curate your own personalized Activity Stream and email alerts.
Thanks to the Friendly Airports for Mothers Act (FAM) passed in 2018, the number of private breastfeeding pods available to the general public has steadily increased over the last year. Passed as part of a comprehensive Federal Aviation Administration funding package, the FAM Act requires the... View full entry
RCH Studios recently completed a $41 million renovation of the public plaza that unifies the Music Center arts complex in Downtown Los Angeles. Flanked on either side by the Welton Becket-designed Mark Taper Forum and Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the plaza has been revamped with an eye... View full entry
Detroit natives can recall the neighborhood of Fitzgerald and its transition from a lively community to a vacant and foreclosed part of town. Today, the neighborhood is poised for change again, as landscape architects Spackman Mossop Michaels (SSM) work to help revitalize the community... View full entry
As New York grapples with its constant demand for public spaces, some residents are objecting to the restrictive and exclusionary designs and policies that they say reflect an increasingly hostile city. And as more developers build amenities in exchange for greater density, there is increased scrutiny on what passes for free and open public spaces. — Gothamist
The implications for hostile architecture are often presented as subtle design solutions that can aide the public from unwanted city disturbances. However, many individuals are beginning to notice these design efforts to become politically driven initiatives for controlling people... View full entry
There is the vision of parks, and public space more generally, as space free from institutional control or coercion—from police, or parks ambassadors, and encroaching privatization. And then there is the vision of public space as controlled and orderly, for passive use, or for recreation and entertainment. 'Users of this space must be made to feel comfortable, and they should not be driven away by unsightly homeless people or unsolicited political activity...' — The Local
With the privatization of spaces steadily increasing the idea of a genuine public space seems to be an ideal of the past. The importance of public space, specifically public parks is an integral part of a thriving city and community. However, laws and new policies are being re-configured to... View full entry
The Maison de l'Économie Créative et de la Culture or MÉCA is Bordeaux's newest cultural hub. Costing €60m, the site will house a performing arts center, a creative agency for books, cinema, and audiovisual media as well as housing three prestigious French associations the ALCA, OARA... View full entry
Q: How would you describe our particular time, architecturally speaking?
Elizabeth Diller: It’s more a time of collaboration, and a deeper contemplation about what buildings can mean and how they can have more social value. I think it’s a time where you have to make a case for architecture to still be relevant.
— Interview Magazine
Interview Magazine sits down to talk with OMA partner Ellen van Loon and Elizabeth Diller of DSRNY. Both are currently working on projects for long-awaited cultural spaces—van Loon on the Factory Manchester, a £110 million theater and arts venue, and Diller with the Shed, a major new arts... View full entry
Snøhetta has announced their new project proposal for the Museum Quarter in Bolzano. Nestled within Bolzano's capital in Northern Italy the building's location is set to be on top of Virgolo/Virgil Mountain. In conjunction with Bolzano's new cable car structure, also designed by Snøhetta, the... View full entry
Kungsträdgården is the most important park in Sweden, [...] It is the thread that pulls together the historical power of the monarchy with the commercial blocks of Hamngatan and the working-class districts of Södermalm. This is very important for democracy because it has to do with power, symbolically and spatially.
Stockholm, Sweden's beloved capitol is home to stunning landscapes that keep residence and visitors mesmerized. Its cobblestoned streets are lined with amazingly preserved buildings, beautiful open water views, and public spaces. Nestled in the heart of Stockholm is Kungsträdgården, one of the... View full entry
Enter the Illuminator, a New York-based art activist collective, whose shifting membership has mastered the legal grey zone that regulates projection in public.
[...] the Illuminator takes the normally stationary technology out of the classroom and onto the streets, affixing a high-powered, 12,000-lumens projector atop a van — or, when special nimbleness is required, a trolley — to ignite urban façades with political statements that are as bold as they are temporary.
— Urban Omnibus
Image: The Illuminator Collective.For this recent Urban Omnibus feature, digital media scholar Eli Horwatt interviews art-activist collective The Illuminator. Since capturing the public attention with their Occupy-inspired 99% Bat Signal projection in 2011, the collective has been, quite... View full entry
SHED Architecture & Design's Ghost Cabin isn't exactly a haunted house like its name suggests. The new courtyard art installation pays tribute to a site dubbed “Grandma's House” in the Chophouse Row development in Seattle's Capitol Hill. While building the Chophouse Row in... View full entry
Over the past couple of decades, artists and designers have developed augmented realities that propose vastly different, and often more radical perspectives of what a digitally enhanced public realm could look like. [...] many actually existing AR projects instead ask critical questions about the implementation of this novel technology and its potential to shift both the everyday experiences and political economies of architecture and cities. — Failed Architecture
In his latest Failed Architecture piece, Joshua McWhirter offers an insightful history of noteworthy augmented reality-powered works of art, activism, game design, and simulation while also issuing a warning call about the impending privatization and commodification of the virtual public space... View full entry
The space under elevated highways are often dark, industrial, and empty. With so much capacity to create a vibrant public space, organizations and cities are exploring ways for creative development in the otherwise unused area. — PopUpCity
Underpasses are often overlooked for their building potential, but cities like Toronto and Zurich are redefining the creative opportunity of these spaces. Underpass design is a great way for cities to enrich these often vacant industrial spaces and create areas for community engagement and... View full entry
A recent thesis project from three students explores adaptable architecture using drones and "smart" materials. The project, Cyber Physical Macro Material, uses lightweight carbon fiber building blocks with integrated sensing communication to create dynamic public spaces. Cyber Physical Macro... View full entry
The city grid, which once served to organize the development of private real estate by providing access to land parcels, now has a more pressing role to play in making cities livable. Our reimagining of the grid starts from the premise that how we use public rights of way no longer meets the city’s needs, so we should transform the streets radically, dedicating them to pedestrians. — citylab.com
Jonathan Cohn and Yunyue Chen propose a new pedestrian plan for Manhattan's grid grouping blocks into larger neighborhoods and organizing streets into either thoroughfares or local streets. Cohn leads the transportation and public infrastructure studio of Perkins Eastman, while Chen received... View full entry