When the symposium “The Sound of Architecture” kicks off this evening at the Yale School of Architecture, designers in skinny jeans and square black glasses may well be outnumbered by a cast of artists, musicologists, engineers, and even an archeoacoustician for good measure. Though Friday’s keynote will be delivered by architectural luminary Elizabeth Diller of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the…
Big doings in New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward last night. Hometown rapper Lil Wayne—who in recent years has incurred the wrath of locals by moving to Miami and then (in an unpardonable offense) openly rooting against the Saints during their march to the Super Bowl in 2009—made an appearance at the Lower Ninth Ward Village for the opening of…
We talk, endlessly, it seems, about the impact of technology on our lives, our relationships, our work, and workspaces and we worry about what it’s doing to our physiologies. Now the inimitable writer, Diane Ackerman offers, in her blog in The New York Times, a characteristically elegant and pointed commentary on this topic; it’s been on my mind ever since…
Valencia’s Green River, Photography by Brian Phelps. Bold ideas are easy, implementing them is hard. This is particularly true as cities around the world want to use their landscape infrastructure to address the issues they face. How can interventions be woven into the existing urban fabric? Beyond simply mustering the financial resources or political will, one must seek opportunities…
Cianfrani Park is a small, scruffy but much loved park in Philadelphia – small enough that you can sometimes take in a multi-stage theater of human activity. The Cianfrani name has a connection to Henry “Buddy” Cianfrani, the late ex-state senator, who was convicted and served time on federal racketeering and mail-fraud charges. He had also scandalized the community…
1 World Trade Center rendering Courtesy SOM/dbox studio Heroic. Contemplative. Grieving. Victorious. The rebirth of the former World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan has engendered significant public reaction and reflection. With implications as complex as they are profound, it is not surprising that it has taken more than a decade to heal the urban scars of September 11, 2001….
Oyster-tecture envisions a network of oyster reefs: a continental-scale storm water management system that would spur tourism, aid public health, and create a biologically-rich living laboratory.
At the University of Minnesota College of Design graduation ceremonies, on Saturday, May 12, John Cary, who received his BA in 1999 from the same school, delivered the 2012 commencement address. After thanking dean Thomas Fisher and the faculty of the educational institution that “has given me so much,” Cary started with his inauspicious beginnings and launched into the story…
The college experience, a quintessential right of passage, has always been about camaraderie, experiences, and learning. Whether your experience was full of all-nighters, hair-pulling group projects, or last page computer crashes; in the end college prepares us for the “real world” and all its challenges. On some campuses, learning to deal with real world challenges includes tackling issues surrounding sustainable…
Bold Move Although Erick van Egeraat’s flashy Chess Club may seem a bit out of place in Khanty-Mansiysk, Siberia has a reputation for attracting eccentric architecture. Take, for example, the World Mammoth and Permafrost Museum in Yakutsk. We wrote about the unique structure, designed by New York–based Leeser Architects, in 2007 (www.metropolismag.com/story/20071121/woolly-headed). The museum is perched on 20-foot-tall concrete pylons,…
From Susan B. Komen to Kony, public discourse is the art “Happening,” taking to the streets and Twitter to affect global change and re-invention. Fortified with OWS, riots, performances, street art and viral social media campaigns, our public policy as well as our public lives are shaped by this expanding discourse. Art for social exchange and change is vital to…
Empire State Building Photo: Joseph G. Brin © 2012 Have you ever seen someone do a bad impression? It’s kind of embarrassing. You either have the gift or you don’t. Philadelphia should just give it up, stop trying to be New York City or wishing it was New York City. We already have two fake Chrysler Buildings (Liberty Place I…
We love the waterfront. It’s a great place to walk the dog, stroll with your love, and work up a sweat. And for about as long as New Yorkers have lived on the water’s edge, there have been ideas on how to make ours a city of the sea. This past Wednesday evening, the 2012 ONE PRIZE design competition, organized…
A documentary on the Eames team missed out on their most integral collaboration.
This October 5, Project Haiti was announced at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre to an audience of 15,000 during the keynote at Greenbuild 2011. HOK is the USGBC’s official design partner for the project, the redesign of an orphanage and children’s center badly damaged in the 2010 earthquake in Port au Prince. The importance of this project was stressed by both…
Interactive software conveys the richness of today’s online experience to the visually impaired.
Portable Spot Cleaner, designed by Adrian Mankovecky, Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava, Slovakia If the Electrolux Design Lab competition were given charge of the future of our home appliances, all our gadgets would be monochrome, have oversize back-lit interfaces, and be either rounded or flexible. Since its inception in 2003, the competition has been asking industrial design students to…
Six students and one professor from the University of Minnesota Architecture School head to Haiti to help design and create an urban infrastructure for a town.
Beth Terry shared these nurdles and plastic fragments found on Marin, Calif.’s Kehoe Beach in March 2010. Photo: Becca Harsch. Manuel Maqueda says we’re stuck midway. We understand plastic pollution issues, but we don’t have the solutions. The voice of the Earth is not being heard, Maqueda, co-founder of Plastic Pollution Coalition, says. He was driven to seek plastic pollution…
Last month, attendees at the annual Interior Design Educators Council (IDEC) conference, were shown the best films chosen from this year’s Interior Design Education Video Competition. Aiming to change the public perception of the profession, the competition asked students to demonstrate the quality of interior design education and industry standards. This year’s theme: “How is the public’s health, safety and…
