Follow this tag to curate your own personalized Activity Stream and email alerts.
A shimmering monolith seemed to appear in the Nevada desert this week, captivating the imaginations of hundreds of thousands and spurring news reports in the U.S. and abroad.
But the object may have been there for years.
According to Monolith Tracker, an online community that maintains a map of monolith appearances across the globe, the monolith spotted by the Metropolitan Police Department over the weekend was first identified in December 2020.
— Las Vegas Review-Journal
Whoever did place the eerily Kubrick-esque mirrored 77-inch-tall object did so deliberately at Gass Peak, one of the highest points in the massive Desert National Wildlife Refuge north of Las Vegas. The police removed it on Thursday without naming a culprit. (I think it resembles the original... View full entry
Saudi Arabia’s NEOM megaproject has announced a new planned luxury resort development called Leyja that features designs from teams led by architects Mario Cucinella, Chris van Duijn, and Shaun Killa. Details on the new aspect of the development are scarce, though the plan is to include three... View full entry
Olafur Eliasson has completed a site-specific piece of public artwork in a northern-Qatari desert. Titled Shadows travelling on the sea of the day, the Icelandic-Danish artist’s work is inspired by the “interplay of human perception and the natural world.” Eliasson’s piece comprises twenty... View full entry
The massive plot of land reserved for renewable energy production by an aging federal policy in Southern California’s Inyo County has finally gotten the go-ahead for development years after its initial announcement by the Obama Administration. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM)... View full entry
Just days after the firm’s extraordinary Super Bowl design fully acquitted itself on the national stage, HKS in collaboration with Narrative Design Studio has taken the SoCal spotlight again under the guise of a new, mid-century-inspired modern clubhouse retreat now completed in Joshua... View full entry
Fans of Bjarke Ingels are in for a treat following an announcement on social media earlier today of a massive new project that would build a city completely from scratch somewhere in the western United States thanks to seed funding from billionaire Jet.com founder Marc Lore. Bloomberg is reporting... View full entry
Cars are crafted to take us on a journey to different places; to travel, to discover, and to explore an exciting adventure. However, automotive exhibitions for far too long have been dwelling cars on the inside within confined and enclosed walls reflecting otherwise. Re-imagining this traditional... View full entry
London-based architecture studio Whitaker Studio designs a three-bedroom, three-bath single-family residence near California's Joshua Tree National Park. While soothing desert views are always a plus, what makes this particular home so appealing is its looks and configuration. The project idea was... View full entry
A result of Yemen’s complex civil war – now in its fifth year – many of the country’s wonders have been damaged or are under threat. While the destruction pales in comparison to the human cost of the conflict, the country’s rich cultural heritage has also been ravaged. — The Guardian
Writing in The Guardian, author Bethan McKernan describes the ways in which Yemen’s ancient cultural heritage has been put at risk by the country’s tragic civil war. Sites that are under threat include the city of Shibam, a 1,700-year-old settlement built from a series of tall... View full entry
Most of the structure that has been added since [Burning Man's 1996 revival] feels invisible to the people who come: the streets that are surveyed to be exactly 40 feet wide, the plazas that steer people together without crowding them, the 430 fire extinguishers around town, each tracked by its own QR code.
The goal now, one planner explained to Mr. Romer, is to make Black Rock City just safe enough that people can joke about dying without actually dying.
— The New York Times
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Romer and The New York Times writer Emily Badger explore the urban economics of Burning Man's Black Rock City while envisioning the potential relevance of the instant-city planning model amid massive, worldwide urbanization. View full entry
Images from this year's Burning Man have emerged! According to the Burning Man official website, "Burning Man is not a festival! It's a city wherein almost everything that happens is created entirely by its citizens, who are active participants in the experience." Whether you plan on... View full entry
Eric Strain, architect and associate professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, shared his goals and perspectives for revitalizing Downtown Las Vegas at the AIA Conference this year. During his presentation, Strain emphasized the developmental momentum Las Vegas has been brewing. Much of... View full entry
Founded in 1991 by Nader Khalili, the California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture has researched and developed solutions, including the SuperAdobe, a structure made with patented, long plastic bags filled with dirt from the building site and held in place with barbed wire. Khalili’s ultimate aim was to empower refugees and the poor to build homes using minimal materials and without the need for highly skilled practitioners such as architects, engineers and contractors. — LA Times
Marissa Gluck of the LA Times writes a thoughtful piece remembering the late Kahili and the influence he's made in the architecture community. Read more about Gluck's coverage of CalEarth and its revival here. Correction 6/13/19: The original article unintentionally used similar language to the... View full entry
The recent Pritzker Prize winner was never shy to show his bold and unapologetic design aesthetic, pulling from various architectural practices. Using large forms and volumes, Arata Isozaki works with his environment to create seamless spaces. During a trip to the desert to visit his long-time... View full entry
Phoenix and its surrounding area is known as the Valley of the Sun, and downtown Phoenix – which in 2017 overtook Philadelphia as America’s fifth-largest city – is easily walkable, with restaurants, bars and an evening buzz. But it is a modern shrine to towering concrete, and gives way to endless sprawl that stretches up to 35 miles away to places like Anthem. The area is still growing – and is dangerously overstretched, experts warn. — The Guardian
With cities in the Desert West, like Las Vegas and Phoenix, rapidly growing in size and population, water is becoming an evermore hot commodity; all while the source of that water, primarily the Colorado River, is becoming increasingly unreliable due to climate change. "And yet despite the federal... View full entry
