For Lovecraft, the ubiquitous angle between two walls is a dark gateway to the screaming abyss of the outer cosmos; for Ballard, it’s an entry point to our own anxious psyche. — Places Journal
H.P. Lovecraft and J.G. Ballard both put architecture at the heart of their fiction, and both made the humble corner into a place of nightmares. Will Wiles delves into the malign interiors of their imagined worlds and the secret history of the spaces where walls meet. View full entry
Heather Woofter, co-director of the St. Louis-based firm Axi:Ome llc, has been promoted to director of the College of Architecture and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design, both part of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. Woofter... View full entry
First-name-only architects Chris and Ian of Skyline Chess have already rendered landmark buildings of London into chess pieces, and now they're trying to create a similar set of New York City, provided they receive enough funding via their Kickstarter. Each building has been carefully chosen to... View full entry
Ever wondered when the high-rises in downtown Los Angeles were built? This two-minute video of animated renderings by Commercial Cafe provides a brief history and date for most of the skyscrapers downtown, from City Hall to the Wilshire Grand, concluding with a color-coded erection sequence by... View full entry
There are tens of thousands of buildings in more than 87 tower blocks across the United Kingdom clad in the same aluminum composite that experts claim was largely responsible for the severity of the blaze that erupted on Grenfell Tower in Kensington and claimed at least 79 lives. The material... View full entry
How can architects create livable, breathable spaces that not only honor the history of a region, but anticipate the global population increase? This is partly the mission of MVRDV's 300-unit residential apartment/mixed use Ilot Queyries, which is located adjacent to the ZAC Bastide-Niel... View full entry
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.(Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect... View full entry
Reports indicate that a cladding, banned in the United States, added to the Grenfell Tower was largely responsible for the intensity of the fire that claimed at least 30 lives earlier this week in North Kensington. It was just £2 cheaper per square meter than an alternative, fire resistant... View full entry
At the turn of the century, women were rare in the field of architecture—something that, while certainly improved, remains a deeply unfortunate reality of the profession that urgently requires attention and remediation.A notable exception was Ethel Mary Charles, the first women to join the Royal... View full entry
The dark, quasi-Victorian corridors of ODA's 31-unit apartment building on New York City's Renwick Street are a purposeful nod toward British-born James Renwick, 19th century scientist and engineer, after which the street is named. The contrast between the portrait-clad hallways and the light... View full entry
Twelve people have died in a west London tower block fire and the number of deaths are expected to rise, police have said. [...]
Grenfell Tower underwent a two-year £10m refurbishment as part of a wider transformation of the estate, that was completed last year. [...]
Before and during the refurbishment, the local Grenfell Action Group claimed that the block constituted a fire risk and residents warned that site access for emergency vehicles was "severely restricted".
— BBC
While it's still too early to determine the cause of the fire, the BBC reports that "before and during the refurbishment, the local Grenfell Action Group claimed that the block constituted a fire risk and residents warned that site access for emergency vehicles was "severely restricted"." Latest... View full entry
The Global Seed Vault, built in the Arctic as an impregnable deep freeze for the world’s most precious food seeds, is to undergo a multi-million dollar upgrade after water from melting permafrost flooded its access tunnel.
No seeds were damaged but the incident undermined the original belief that the vault would be a “failsafe” facility, securing the world’s food supply forever. Now the Norwegian government, which owns the vault, has committed $4.4m (NOK37m) to improvements.
— The Guardian
It took six years, but every subway station in the Washington, D.C. area is now immortalized in song. For musician Jason Mendelson, it’s his magnum opus. — Washington Post
The Magentic Fields wrote 69 songs about love; professional tax manager and sometime musician Jason Mendelson has managed to record 91 songs about the Washington, D.C. Metro system, with one song for each subway stop. Map of the Washington, D.C. Metro.While music critics will not be equating... View full entry
Recently I’ve come to the reluctant conclusion that architectural education does some very specific things to its students, and in remarkably short order:
1.) It disconnects them from their bodies....2.) It brainwashes them.
— Common Edge
In a brief article on Common Edge, the University of Texas San Antonio's Dr. Nikos A. Salingaros lists five effects he's witnessed as a teacher on students, and they include disasociation from one's body, a certain brainwashing through abstraction, and an emphasis on insularity and novelty over... View full entry
Others are concerned the demolition of its famed French architectural gems will render Ho Chi Minh City indistinguishable from other Asian megacities. "In the 1960s and 1970s it was very much French, but now it's very Americanized, McDonald's on every corner," said Hiep Nguyen, born in Ho City Minh City and author of several books on its architectural history. "A streetscape without a story has no value," he added. — dw.com
"City officials are now writing a nine-point plan to classify buildings and mark some for protection," DW writes, "but admit such a huge task could take years to be implemented." View full entry
