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Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is back at it again with more outlandish ideas to solve Los Angeles' traffic. Earlier this month, Musk's latest venture–The Boring Company–resuscitated its flawed proposal to dig new car tunnels for Los Angeles, this time to connect the Red Line subway with Dodger Stadium [...] The Chicago tunnel idea is bad enough, but the Dodger Stadium plan is exceptionally poor even if one takes Musk's promises at face value. — urbanize.la
Alon Levy pokes holes in Elon Musk's public transit plans for Los Angeles. Musk's plan involves tunneling under Sunset Boulevard between the Dodger Stadium and one of three Red Line stops: Vermont/Sunset, Vermont/Santa Monica, or Vermont/Beverly. Levy cites major issues with construction... View full entry
This is a painful period of reckoning for our community. While we don’t presume to have all the answers, we believe achieving a more just and accountable professional culture moving forward begins with open dialogue and, above all, an unwavering commitment to respecting the human rights of all individuals. — The Architectural League of New York, via Architect Magazine
In a statement published on Architect Magazine yesterday, The Architectural League of New York announced that they have revoked Richard Meier's status as a Life Trustee of the League, a month after the architect was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women. In the following weeks after news... View full entry
In other words— you ask, will there be a revision of canon? Should we revise the canon? I would say, it’s not so much that we’re going to revise the canon, but that there will certainly be a revised narrative of architects who contributed to the canon. — Blair Kamin in Common Edge
In light of the sexual harassment allegations against Richard Meier, architectural writer Eva Hagberg Fisher interviews Blair Kamin about writing and reporting on architecture's about-time-it-happened #metoo moment. “So the first responsibility, the moral and professional is simply to bear... View full entry
The recently opened Apple store in Chicago has been praised by one of the city’s papers as an “elegantly understated… boon to the city’s riverfront,” but perhaps that perception will change after the discovery of a significant design flaw.The structure’s ultra-thin carbon fiber roof was fashioned in the shape of a MacBook Pro but does not have any gutters to catch water, so melting snow has begun to turn into icicles and sliding snow that can harm pedestrians below. — Fortune
Outside Apple's recent Chicago store signs read: "CAUTION Watch For Falling Snow and Ice" as noted by blogger Matt Maldre. The new design by Foster and Partners was intended as a “town square” experience for the community, and to serve as a flagship design for all future Apple stores... View full entry
Confidence in the future prospects of UK architects falls as 2017 comes to a close. RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) released their Future Trends Workload and Staffing Indexes for the end of 2017 and the numbers are not looking good. The Workload numbers dropped dramatically just over... View full entry
Poverty is largely “a state of mind”, housing secretary Ben Carson has claimed, dismaying observers who had modest hopes for his tenure.
Carson, the neurosurgeon who heads the agency charged with helping low-income Americans gain access to affordable housing, told Sirius XM radio: “You take somebody who has the right mindset, you can take everything from them and put them on the street, and I guarantee in a little while they’ll be right back up there.”
— The Guardian
"And you take somebody with the wrong mindset, you can give them everything in the world, they’ll work their way back down to the bottom," Carson continued. The remarks were widely condemned by experts on poverty and homelessness.As the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban... View full entry
It was designed as an impregnable deep-freeze to protect the world’s most precious seeds from any global disaster and ensure humanity’s food supply forever. But the Global Seed Vault, buried in a mountain deep inside the Arctic circle, has been breached after global warming produced extraordinary temperatures over the winter, sending meltwater gushing into the entrance tunnel. — The Guardian
Containing almost one million packets of seeds, the Global Seed Vault is intended to serve as something of a biological back-up in the era of mass, man-made environmental destruction. It's buried under permafrost, which was thought to ensure that the structure would remain impregnable for... View full entry
For those not already opposed to President Trump’s proposed border wall for ethical reasons, a big hurdle is its (likely) staggering cost. The sheer length of the thing makes it pricey, and the irregular terrain and harsh climate of some of the regions bisected by the US/Mexico border would... View full entry
"Architecture and design can mitigate climate impact while simultaneously reducing operating costs for building owners," says AIA President Thomas Vonier, FAIA, in a recently-released press statement issued in conjunction with Earth Day. ”We need the federal government to keep and even expand... View full entry
Today, the Greater London Authority released a biting investigative report on the Garden Bridge conducted by senior Member of Parliament Margaret Hodge. Last October, Mayor Sadiq Khan formally appointed Hodge to lead the independent review, as part of Khan's promise to investigate the decisions... View full entry
The worst flooding in two decades has struck Peru, causing a death toll of 72 people since the beginning of the year. The floods are caused by a series of “highly unusual rains” produced by the warming of surface waters along the country’s northern coasts. The waters have inundated hospitals... View full entry
Last week, the Trump administration submitted its budget to Congress for the 2018 Fiscal Year. The budget included slashing several programs, many of which will affect community projects.In response, the AIA has issued a statement:"This budget includes many cuts that will have severe long-term... View full entry
The Hill has penned an obituary for the National Endowment of the Arts, following its defunding at the hands of the Trump administration and the current Republican-controlled government. As the obit notes, the NEA has been threatened many times before, notably in the 80’s and 90’s following a... View full entry
Raised as a monument to Dubai’s aspirations as a center of international commerce, the Frame is now a physical manifestation of the crude system that erected it. — The New York Times
Considering the already controversial nature of the Dubai Frame, The New York Times recently published a piece on the project in relation to the city's “entrenched system [that notoriously] leaves outsiders vulnerable to mistreatment — from professionals sketching blueprints to construction... View full entry
The American Society of Civil Engineers releases a report every four years that details the conditions and performance of American infrastructure. The group gives a letter grade—like with a school report card—and this year, America got a failing D+.Some of the dismal findings include:Only 51%... View full entry
