Follow this tag to curate your own personalized Activity Stream and email alerts.
Stefano Boeri Architetti has unveiled a master plan to enhance the Ramagrama Stupa, one of the most significant places in the Buddhist world. The site is located in Ramagrama, a municipality within the Parasi district in western Nepal. The archaeological destination dates back to the earliest... View full entry
As the Nepalese government continues to face criticism for the slow pace of the country’s reconstruction, Nepal’s prime minister Khadga Prasad Oli announced today that the reconstruction of key heritage sites in Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur is to finally begin, the Associated Press reports. — The Art Newspaper
A year after the devastating quake, there is some good news in Nepal. As this article notes,The World Monuments Fund (WMF) also announced today that it, in collaboration with American Express, was financing the rebuilding of the 16th-century Char Narayan Temple, which was reduced to rubble by the... View full entry
After twin earthquakes in April and May claimed 9,000 lives and left vast swathes of Nepal in ruins, survivors worried if they reused the brick rubble, they would end up with the same vulnerable, seismically unsound structures.
[...] Shigeru Ban - who helped bring global attention to humanitarian architecture and continues to influence fellow architects and disaster-relief workers - devised a solution. [...]
"I'm encouraging people to copy my ideas. No copyrights," Ban said.
— reuters.com
"While Ban said he enjoys working on grand projects commissioned by privileged people, he also wants to help people who have lost their homes, and is encouraged that many architects have followed in his footsteps."Previously in the Archinect news:Shigeru Ban: Beauty as a basic human needShigeru... View full entry
By planning ahead now, while the humanitarian response is underway, this reconstruction program can bring additional resources to those efforts, overlapping the relief phase so as to rebuild communities that feel like home - but in an accelerated manner. This is what we don't see currently happening when disaster strikes, and so this effort presents a unique opportunity to standardize a model that can be followed by others - nationally and internationally - moving forward. — Huffington Post
As Nepal continues to deal with the aftermath of the deadly April 25 earthquake, the American Institute of Architects Foundation — now known as the Architects Foundation — recently announced with relief group All Hands Volunteers a two-year $3 million initiative for the reconstruction of... View full entry
A powerful earthquake shook eastern Nepal on Tuesday, shattering the halting recovery from the earthquake that hit the country less than three weeks ago, and causing loose hillsides and cracked buildings to give way and collapse. By late afternoon, Nepal’s National Emergency Operation Center had reported 42 deaths and 1,117 injuries from Tuesday’s earthquake, which the United States Geological Survey assigned a preliminary magnitude of 7.3... — NY Times
Nepal is still reeling from a devastating, magnitude-7.8 earthquake on April 25, which claimed upwards of 8,159 lives. According to the New York Times report, Tuesday's earthquake happened just as a semblance of normality was returning to the streets of Kathmandu and its environs. Landslides have... View full entry
Pritzker Prize Laureate Shigeru Ban has announced plans to contribute to emergency relief efforts in Nepal after the April 25 earthquake reduced cities to rubble, killed more than 7,000, and left thousands homeless. In the short term, Ban’s firm and his relief organization Voluntary Architects’ Network (VAN) will distribute simple tents—supplemented with plastic sheets donated by contractors to serve as wall partitions—and assemble them onsite as temporary shelter and medical aid stations. — archrecord.construction.com
According to the report, VAN aims to partner with local universities, students and architects in the coming months to work towards create stable housing once conditions have stabilized. This is not the first time that Shigeru Ban, who won the 2014 Pritzker prize, has deployed his architectural... View full entry
Nicholas Korody profiled GRNASFCK, an experimental landscape studio. Therein they explained "We travel to places of material action, geologically leaky locations, where the evidence of disturbance, but also creation, is evident...While we see our narratives as a version of a field report, it... View full entry
Photographer Kevin Kelly shares a collection of beautiful photos he took in 1976. Heart wrenching.Katmandu was an intensely ornate city that is easily damaged. The carvings, details, public spaces were glorious. My heart goes out to its citizens who suffer with their city. As you can see from... View full entry
Last Saturday, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Kathmandu, precipitating catastrophic destruction throughout Nepal and a death toll currently marked at more than 5,000. Reports have been very bleak, with citizens taking to living outside in public spaces, fearful of more damage from aftershocks... View full entry
The powerful temblor measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale on Saturday practically levelled the nation's tangible cultural history, robbing it of its architectural jewels, including the landmark Dharhara Tower, in an eerie reminder of the 1934 quake that claimed over 10,000 lives.
The 19th century nine-storey minaret, a UNESCO World Heritage site, which once offered a panoramic view of the Kathmandu Valley, turned into graveyards for over 200 people.
— ibnlive.in.com
Follow #NepalEarthquake on Twitter for up-to-the minute updates View full entry
... much of the capital's ancient architecture will soon be no more than a memory, according to one of the world's leading authorities, Niels Gotschow, as haphazard urbanisation and a desire for modernity change Kathmandu.
"To put things into a book is an act of preservation because one day this will be the only way to remember," says Gutschow, who has dedicated the last four decades to chronicling and preserving Nepal's architectural treasures.
— mysinchew.com