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Green Light is an artistic workshops that responds to the current situation in Europe, in which countless refugees are caught up in legal and political limbo. Together with TBA21 in Vienna, Olafur Eliasson has invited people from different backgrounds – refugees and locals – to take part in... View full entry
Thanks to in situ artist Daniel Buren, the white glassy curved sails of the Gehry-designed Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris have received a generous splash of vibrant color — or 13 colors, to be exact...Developed in collaboration with Frank Gehry, Buren's temporary piece, titled “The Observatory of Light“, made its official debut this past Wednesday. It took 29 nights over a period of five weeks to apply the dyed filters and white 8.7 cm-wide strips throughout the building's 3,528 glass panes. — Bustler
Read more about Buren's intervention on Bustler. View full entry
Nestled within an industrial patch of warehouses in the Danish city of Roskilde stands the golden-studded, newly inaugurated Ragnarock, a museum where rock, pop, and youth culture are housed under one roof. COBE and MVRDV joined forces to design the new museum, which is part of the larger ROCKmagneten masterplan that the architects won in 2011. — Bustler
Head over to Bustler for more details.Previously:ROCKmagneten: MVRDV and COBE Win Danish Rock Museum Competition in Roskilde View full entry
Germany has announced new legal measures requiring migrants and refugees to integrate into society in return for being allowed to live and work in the country.
Under the coalition government’s measures, announced on Thursday morning, asylum seekers face cuts to support if they reject mandatory integration measures such as language classes or lessons in German laws or cultural basics.
— the Guardian
"According to the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the aim of Germany’s first ever integration law is to make it easier for asylum seekers to gain access to the German labour market, with the government promising 100,000 new 'working opportunities', expected to include low-paid... View full entry
The Venice Lagoon is the most endangered heritage site in Europe, declared the pan-European heritage organisation Europa Nostra at an event today [...].
Rising sea levels, swelling number of tourists, large cruise ships in the lagoon, the erosion of the sea bed, dredging deeper channels and the lack of an agreed management plan for Venice has created a perfect storm of threats to the city’s preservation.
— theartnewspaper.com
Previously in the Archinect news: Unesco threatens to put Venice on its Heritage at Risk listLeading museum directors, artists and architects call on Italian government to ban giant ships from VeniceHow We Picture a City: Venice and Google Maps View full entry
In a joint statement yesterday the Playa Vista, California-based Hyperloop Transport Technologies (HTT) and the Slovak Republic’s economy minister held out the future vision of the Hyperloop whisking passengers at 760 mph between Vienna in Austria, Budapest in Hungary and the Slovakian capital of Bratislava. A Bratislava-to-Vienna route would take just 8 minutes at full speed, while a Bratislava-to-Budapest route would take 10 minutes. — globalconstructionreview.com
Hyperloop previously in the Archinect news:MIT and TU Delft emerge victorious at Hyperloop competition; Elon Musk drops hint about "electric jets"Hyperloop, brought to you by AecomUnpacking the Hyperloop's lofty promises View full entry
Amnesty International and the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, recently presented reports on the vulnerable position of women refugees and the dangers they face.
Europe is failing to provide basic protection for them, the Amnesty report stated.
This problem is now all the more critical because the percentage of women among the refugees who travel through Europe has risen dramatically.
— Al Jazeera
"All the women interviewed for the Amnesty report said that they felt unsafe and threatened during the various stages of their journey. Women are at greater risk of becoming victims of violence, robbery and extortion... There is also the threat of rape and sexual assault by smugglers, security... View full entry
Over the last few years, we’ve all finally admitted that hospitals are depressing, sometimes toxic places...[But] what if the solution is to redesign the building itself?...Since the late 1980’s, hotels—not hospitals—specifically designed for sick people have been popping up throughout Scandinavia. In [some countries,] a patient’s stay is free, covered by national insurance...Accommodations at patient hotels resemble most traditional 3-star hotel properties. — Quartz
More about health-related design on Archinect:Jason Danziger heals psychosis with designHow urban designers can better address mental health in their work, according to a new think tankPreventing disease and upholding public health through architectureConstruction kicks off for Steven... View full entry
Developer Greenland Group has submitted plans for a 67-storey tower that would provide 869 new homes on West India Quay. If approved, the building will be western Europe’s tallest residential building at 241m. — The Wharf
Designed by HOK, the yet-to-be-approved tower would feature a west wing of affordable units, retail on the ground floor, and according to the rendering below, an incredible amount of sunshine: View full entry
Europe will soon have more physical barriers on its national borders than it did during the Cold War. This year’s refugee crisis, combined with Ukraine's ongoing conflict with Russia, has seen governments plan and construct border walls and security fences across Mediterranean and eastern Europe... Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, 40 countries around the world have built fences against 64 of their neighbours. — the Economist
The Economist takes a look at the world's borders, (mostly) new and old. Of the 40 countries that have built physical border walls since the fall of the Berlin Wall, 30 of those happened after 9/11, and 15 this year alone. Check it out the interactive graphic here.Related coverage:Passage: an... View full entry
Last year, the group 1W1P – 1Week1Project – created the memorable speculative project "The Qatar World Cup Memorial," a "scalable building that raises awareness about the number of workers who died during the construction of the stadiums for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar."Now, the... View full entry
A German group which matchmakes citizens willing to share their homes with refugees said it had been overwhelmed by offers of support, with plans in the works for similar schemes in other European countries.
The Berlin-based Refugees Welcome, which has been described as an “Airbnb for refugees”, has helped people fleeing from Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria.
More than 780 Germans have signed up to the Refugees Welcome website...
— the Guardian
The dust is yet to settle in Greece, as the pronounced “No!” of yesterday’s referendum reverberates across Europe. The vote marked a clear rejection by the Greek people of enforced austerity as the price for staying in the Eurozone. It also signaled continued confidence in Alexis Tsipras and... View full entry
During a ceremony recently held at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona, the European Commission and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe officially announced the Philharmonic Hall of Szczecin as the 2015 recipient of the biennial European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van... View full entry
In the 1960s and '70s, like many of his contemporaries, Piano was involved in the battle to revive forlorn and decaying historic centers of cities. Now he's fighting to save their often desolate outskirts.
Unlike the suburbs of U.S. cities, which are often well off, the suburbs of many European cities tend to be the poorest parts of the metropolitan area. [...]
Piano believes "the suburbs are the place where energy is in the city — in the good, in the bad."
— npr.org
