Two giant, translucent canopies spanning several lanes of roadway and sidewalks outside the domestic terminal will be among the most visible aspects of a $6 billion expansion and renovation project at the world’s busiest airport during the next 20 years, officials announced last week.

Among other goals for the coming year: improving wait times for passenger security screenings...'Americans will not tolerate a one-hour wait as normal.' — The Post and Courier

“[Directors are] projecting a future by imagining how it would look in ruins,” said Michael Hays, a professor of architectural theory at Harvard. “All the flesh has been removed and you just see the architectural bones. I’ve always thought Portman’s buildings would make very beautiful ruins, because the essence of them is so powerful and so direct.” — The Atlantic

The massive Beltline and an impressive grid of protected lanes that will connect the trail system to key urban destinations are poised to remake transportation in the city that anchors the country's ninth-largest metro area. [...]

As the video above shows, Atlanta's embrace of active space is part of a psychic shift in a city that's shaking off its old Sprawlville USA image with a combination of bike, transit and affordable housing infrastructure. — peopleforbikes.org

“It’s not rare for us to go and try to make sure that no one buys the house of someone who’s facing foreclosure,” says Rob Call, an organizer for Occupy Our Homes Atlanta (OOHA). In Georgia, houses are publicly auctioned every first Tuesday of the month on each county courthouse’s steps. "[...] these auctions were mostly vacant. No one was really trying to go after these homes, but then they were [suddenly] swamped with people bidding up houses with quick access to sizable cashier’s checks.” — nextcity.org

Urban densities are not trivial, they severely limit the transport mode choice and change only very slowly. Because of the large differences in densities between Atlanta and Barcelona about the same length of metro line is accessible to 60% of the population in Barcelona but only 4% in Atlanta. The low density of Atlanta render this city improper for rail transit. — usa.streetsblog.org

Central Atlanta Progress, a nonprofit corporation of Atlanta business leaders, has released the documents from a recent assessment of Downtown Atlanta parking. They include reports on the existing parking situation and recommendations for “improving the customer parking experience in Downtown Atlanta.” [...]

The first sting was felt when I read this nugget from the report:

A person’s first and last impression of a city begins and ends with parking.

Ouch! I beg to differ. — ATL Urbanist

For most of the 20th century, Atlanta was known for its public housing. The city had pioneered the concept in the 1930s [...]

Two decades later, that proportion has fallen all the way to zero. [...]

Looking at these two decades of rapid residential change, Atlanta native and filmmaker King Williams is looking for an answer to a seemingly obvious question. With his in-production documentary The Atlanta Way, Williams asks: Where did all of these people end up? — theatlanticcities.com

Over the next few years, two professional sports teams are in a position to radically reshape much of the fringe of Atlanta's downtown core. [...]

Neither stadium deal has been the public relations coup that Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed surely hoped for. [...]

There's an inherent messiness to these dual, competing narratives – one of downtown reinvestment, the other a triumph of the suburbs. — theatlanticcities.com

There is nothing that joins mathematics and art more easily than the line. For something that looks so simple, there are plenty of complexities that come with it. In this case, architect and designer Joseph Choma of Design Topology Lab challenges the perception and drawing process of the line with his recent installation "Line 01" at the Promenade Building in Atlanta, Georgia.

The installation will be on display at the fifth floor of the Promenade Building until the end of October. — bustler.net

In Georgia, one school with an eye-popping price tag opened its doors today. $147 million buys North Atlanta High School a 600-seat theater, a food-court-style cafeteria with a smoothie bar and more than 50 acres of athletic fields.

But here's another ... less impressive... number: North Atlanta has a graduation rate of only 60 percent.

School leaders hope this investment will help turn things around. Is that too much to ask of a building? — marketplace.org

Atlanta and Rio are but two chapters in the long history of displacement that has accompanied mega-events like the Olympics. Similar dynamics reshaped London’s Clays Lane Estate, Beijing’s hutongs, the Marousi Roma settlement in Athens, Barcelona’s Poblenou and Seoul’s hanoks. . . . Today the people of Vila Autódromo are struggling for what housing scholar-activist Chester Hartman has aptly called “the right to stay put.” — Places Journal

If you're in Atlanta in the next few weeks, make sure to see Joseph Choma's solo-exhibition, Object to Atmosphere, as part of the Young Architects Forum Atlanta Emerging Voices 13 exhibition. Choma is this year's recipient of the AIA Atlanta 2013 Emerging Voices Citation for his research and experimentation in architecture. — bustler.net