Former ArchDaily's Managing Editor. BA in Architecture from Newcastle University, and interested in how overlooked elements of architectural culture —from the media to competitions to procurement processes can alter the designs we end up with.
Despite 20 years of government promises to improve the quality of housing following the end of apartheid, for many in South Africa's townships there has been little noticeable change. This is not to say that the South African government has not been working to meet these goals; however, the scale of the problem is so large, and with population growth and migration, the challenge is only getting greater.
20 years ago, Greg Girard and Ian Lambot published "City of Darkness", a book which documented life inside the notorious Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong during its peak in the late 1980s. When the high-rise slum was cleared and demolished soon after in 1993, this collection of photographs, interviews and essays became a eulogy of sorts, becoming one of the key texts on the most densely populated place the world has ever seen.
Two decades later, Girard and Lambot have revisited the book - and to fund this new edition, they have turned to Kickstarter.
Read on after the break to find out what's new in this edition and how you can help fund the book.
Melbourne newspapers are reporting on an argument breaking out over the preservation of the city's postwar modernist buildings, centering (as ever) on the dispute between their value as cultural heritage vs their 'ugliness' (you can see all the contested buildings in a neat graphic at The Age). While many are in favor of preservation, Alan Davies, in anarticle for Crikey, warns that the cultural benefit in protecting these buildings should always be weighed against the cost of preventing the developments that would have taken their place. Read the full article here.
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall this autumn, Germany planned two memorials, one in Berlin and one in Leipzig. However, as Der Spiegel reports, not only are they almost certainly not going to be complete in time for the anniversary, they have both proven highly controversial with the local people. Will these designs turn out to be monuments to German reunification, or just monumental failures? Read the article on Der Spiegel to find out more.
Central London as it will look when all current projects are completed.. Image Courtesy of CPAT / Hayes Davidson / Jason Hawkes
In a study of all development plans in London, the think tank New London Architecture has found that at least 236 buildings over 20 stories are currently either under construction, approved or awaiting approval in the capital - with over 80% of these projects yet to break ground.
The study, created to support an exhibition by NLA called "London's Growing... Up!," found that 80% of the new towers will be residential, and that the areas of greatest activity were in Central and Eastern areas of London, with 77% of these tall buildings in the City of London or the Boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Lambeth, Greenwich, Newham and Southwark.
Read on for more results of, and reactions to, the study...
As part of his strategy to solidify the "Olympic Legacy" of East London, Mayor Boris Johnson has recently been focusing on providing the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park with a little more diversity in its buildings, placing an emphasis on bringing cultural institutions alongside the sports buildings. Now, alongside the V&A's plans for new galleries and University College London's proposed design school and cultural centre, The Art Newspaper reports that Johnson is out to grab a headline attraction: London's own Guggenheim.
Brown is critical of OMA's entry for 425 Park Avenue, believing that the pressure of the competition meant it was lacking in OMA's usual sophistication. Image Courtesy of OMA
In an interesting article for the Architects' Newspaper, Marshall Brown explains why competitions are bad for architecture (both the business and design) and challenges his fellow architects to kick the habit. While competitions used to drive architectural innovation, he says they have become little more than "fantastic and relatively affordable publicity" for the developers who commission them, with competition masters such as BIG driving "an arms race of gigantic object-scape." You can read the full article here.
Pitsunda, Abkhazia. Image Courtesy of herwigphoto.com
Over a decade ago on a cycling trip across Europe, photographer Christopher Herwig stumbled upon a curious phenomenon that would become his obsession for years: bus stops. Curiously for a regime usually associated - both architecturally and otherwise - with uniformity and with sameness, the bus stops built by the Soviet Republic display remarkable diversity and creativity. Herwig made it his mission to photograph as many of these remarkable structures as possible, travelling through Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Russia; Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan; Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and Abkhazia.
Now complete, Herwig has launched a Kickstarter to turn this remarkable collection of photographs into a limited edition book, which he describes as "the most mind-blowing collection of creative bus stop design from the Soviet era ever assembled." Check out some of the images after the break.
The New City of Songdo in South Korea. Image Courtesy of Cisco
Originally published by Metropolis Magazine as "Big Data, Big Questions", this article by Alex Marshall examines what is arguably the most important aspect of smart city design: not how they will be created, but who will create them. He finds that, though an apparently new phenomenon, smart cities are just like their forebears in that they are built primarily by political will, not microprocessors.
Not long ago, I bought a beetle-shaped piece of silicone and metal that slips into my pocket and keeps track of how much I walk. Called a Fitbit One, it’s essentially a glorified pedometer. The device’s shell is jammed with hard- and software that lets it talk to my computer and iPhone. It sends me attaboys! on its tiny screen and, most importantly, the gadget talks with my spouse’s Fitbit, which allows us to compete with each other.
The Fitbit is not on anyone’s list of smart-city phenomena, but I would argue for including it, because it’s changing my relationship with the streets I walk in New York City. It also illustrates the pervasiveness of smart technology, and its limitations. For all its coolness—and it is cool—my device is doing something digitally that had already been done well mechanically, and at a lower price. A lot of the smart-cities technology is like this—it’s changing how we do things, but often not what we do.
Read on for more about the changes brought about - or not brought about - by smart cities after the break
In a public interview, director Mary McGuckian speaks with Shane O'Toole of DoCoMoMo Ireland about her soon-to-be-released film, "The Price of Desire," a biopic about the influential Irish modernist Eileen Gray - narrated from the perspective of Le Corbusier, no less. McGuckian explains how the film and the extensive research behind it went far beyond the usual remit of a biopic. Indeed, not only did it spawn an accompanying documentary ("Gray Matters", directed by Marco Orsini) and book, it even played a pivotal role in the restoration of E1027, Gray's seminal house design, to a point where it was possible to film on location.
In his talk at TEDx Vilnius, Koen Olthuis compares the cities of today with those at the turn of the 20th century: "cities are not full, we just have to search for new space... they made elevators and built a vertical city. We have to do exactly the same, but our generation has to look at water." With that in mind he looks at the top 10 reasons that floating cities are becoming a more popular idea, including: they provide solutions for topical issues such as flooding and sustainability; they can be used as 'plug in' travelling global amenities, useful for things like Olympic Stadiums; or could even allow us to rearrange urban areas.
Videos
Doonamoe, County Mayo Ireland. Town of Belmullet. The Thin Places are Irish places where time past, present, and future converge. This project envelops a 100 ft deep blowhole by the Atlantic Ocean. The waves are thrusting up over a 100 ft into the air and the thin place walk is aligned to the equinox. Image
Originally published by The Huffington Post as "The Problem With Architecture Today (and the Solution)", Monica Gray documents the work of Travis Price, an architect and professor who works with his students to produce singular works all over the world which fight against the soulless architecture of our age.
According to Travis Price, an award-winning architect and philosopher whose work is rooted in ecology and mythology, most architecture today is just plain soulless. "You go into malls and they float all kinds of Roman columns and fake images. It's Disney. It's superficial. It's mass produced. It's empty."
Price, a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, focuses on restoring the "spirit of place" to modern design by providing an alternative to the "sprawl, mall and tall" trend of generic suburban architecture today, or, as he puts it, "a slow moving Pompeii blanketing us with the pursuit of loneliness and homogeneity."
Read on after the break to find out how Price is in his own way combating this problem
In Brazil, the offshore oil mining industry is expanding. Unfortunately for oil companies though, it's expanding away from the coast, as new oil deposits are found further and further from land - so far, in fact, that they're outside the range of the helicopters that usually transport workers to and from the rigs. That's why Rice University students took on the challenge of designing "Drift & Drive," a floating community where workers and their families could stay for extended periods of time, eliminating the inconvenience of the usual "two weeks on, two weeks off" cycle.
The project won the Odebrecht Award last year, and now one of the largest petrochemical companies in Brazil, Petrobras, is working on a plan to implement elements of the design.
Read on after the break for more about how the project functions
In this Financial Times article, Will Hunter reacts to another FT article which brands architects as "cling-ons": "middle class but only by the skin of our teeth". Hunter's article looks at the reasons why our profession has suffered so badly, as doctors' and bankers' fortunes have improved dramatically. You can read the full article here.
The IceHotel, a hotel in Jukkasjärvi in Northern Sweden that melts back into the Torne River and is rebuilt each year, is currently in the design phase for next winter. But there's a new twist: next year guests are able to collaborate with artists to design a suite that is bespoke to their individual tastes. The price tag is admittedly rather steep, and those going for this option can expect "one of the most expensive hotel rooms in the world", according to the press release.
Is it worth it? Why don't you decide for yourself - images from this winter's hotel are after the break!
Tahrir Square during the Egyptian revolution of 2011. Image
In this tongue-in-cheek "Dictator's Guide to Urban Planning", the Atlantic explores the various ways that public spaces, and cities as a whole, have been used to suppress uprisings and bolster the control of authoritarian governments. Covering everything from Baron Haussmann's 19th Century Paris to the recent revolution in the Ukraine, the article reveals the fundamental relationship between public space and democracy. You can read the full article here.
Street view of Amsterdam Ave. in northern Manhattan featuring a mix of traditional and advanced agricultural growing techniques. Image Courtesy of Terreform
"In an era of incompetent nation states and predatory transnationals, we must ratchet up local self-reliance, and the most logical increment of organisation (and resistance) is the city." This is how Michael Sorkin, writing in Aeon Magazine, explains his hypothetical plan to radically change the landscape of New York City, bringing a green landscape and urban farming into the former concrete jungle.
The plan, called "New York City (Steady) State", produced over six years by Sorkin's Terreform Research Group, is not designed simply for aesthetic pleasure; it's not even an attempt to make the city more sustainable (although sustainability is the key motivation behind the project). The project is in fact a "thought-experiment" to design a version of New York that is completely self reliant, creating its own food, energy and everything else within its own borders.
Read on after the break to find out how New York could achieve self-reliance
The design for the 17 John Cotel in Manhattan. Image Courtesy of Prodigy Network
Building off of the success of their crowdfundedBD Bacatá building in Colombia, the real estate group Prodigy Network has announced a plan to bring this same funding method to New York, with an apartment hotel in Manhattan named 17 John.
The project, a glassy rooftop extension to the existing art deco building at 17 John Street, has much in common with Prodigy Network's past projects: the same funding method as their skyscraper in Bogotá as well as the same designer, Winka Dubbeldam, head of the New York practice Archi-Techtonics. Dubbeldam also previously helped them to crowdsource ideas for the future development of Bogotá in the "My Ideal City" project.
However, when applied to the USA, this funding paradigm - which is so promising in Colombia - becomes twisted beyond recognition. Upon close inspection, 17 John more resembles the standard developer's model than anything else - and the claims of ethical superiority begin to melt away.
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_Vertical_Farm_Midtown_Manhattan.jpg?1393236960 "Bird’s-eye view of Midtown Manhattan’s neighborhood food hubs in New York City (Steady) State. Image Courtesy of Terreform")
