How Public Housing Fails, And Why
There was a time when public housing served a different purpose — that it served fairly well the people who lived in it, that it was safe and decent housing, and that it did help people as a sort of stepping stone. It was a different demographic that it was serving in that way.
How The Architecture Industry Is Reacting To Climate Change
As businesses and governments grapple with how to approach climate change, the field of architecture faces a monumental opportunity—and some might argue an immense responsibility—to make an impact.
Stacked Straw Bales Form Walls For Conceptual School In Malawi By Nudes
Indian architecture office Nudes has developed a concept for a secondary school in Malawi, with a modular wooden structure and curved walls made from straw bales. Nudes, led by architect Nuru Karim, created the concept for the Straw Bale School.
The Case For Making Low-Tech ‘Dumb’ Cities Instead Of ‘Smart’ Ones
There’s no concrete definition of a smart city, but high-tech versions promise to use cameras and sensors to monitor everyone and everything, from bins to bridges, and use the resulting data to help the city run smoothly. But what if we ditched the data and embraced ancient technology instead?
Architects Turn Empty Parking Lot Into Los Angeles’s Densest Urban Forest
SecondHome Hollywood, a Los Angeles workspace, boasts a 50,000-square-foot garden of 6,500 trees and plants and 700 tons of soil and vegetation. It is Los Angeles’s densest urban forest and is also home to 112 native species.
Sustainable Architects And Designers Collaborate On Net-Zero Homes
A joint effort between UK-based, modular, sustainable architects Koto Design and US-based prefabricated design and manufacturing company dedicated to sustainable construction, Plant Prefab, has revealed designs for two net-zero homes.
Motorized Photographs Of Sunset Blvd. And Other L.A. Streets
Commissioned by The Getty Museum to the painter, draftsman, photographer, and bookmaker, Ed Ruscha. Utilizing The Getty Research Institute’s preservation and digitization of over a million images from Ed’s Streets of Los Angeles photo series, and excerpts from Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road.”
How To Borrow Natural Light
With an increasing focus on sustainable design practices, the smart use of natural daylight in our homes is no longer a luxury — it has become a necessity. At the heart of any good daylighting strategy is a concept of “borrowed” light: the capture of light falling on the exterior of a home and transporting it to the spaces where it’s needed.
Kings Of Cocaine: How The Albanian Mafia Seized Control Of The UK Drug Trade
Hellbanianz belong to the “retail game” of the cocaine trade. They are the street dealers and enforcers of the Mafia Shqiptare, the Albanian organised criminal syndicates who, the National Crime Agency believe, are consolidating power within the UK criminal underworld and on their way to a near total takeover of the UK’s £5bn cocaine market.
The Man At The Center Of Brussels Spy Probe
A flamboyant former EU ambassador with a fondness for plaid bow ties and a taste for the finer things in life, Gerhard Sabathil is the man German authorities suspect was at the center of a clandestine Chinese operation aimed at delivering European secrets to Beijing.
The Lonely City: Adventures In The Art Of Being Alone
Loneliness is difficult to confess; difficult too to categorize. Like depression, a state with which it often intersects, it can run deep in the fabric of a person, as much a part of one’s being as laughing easily or having red hair.
What If We Automated Construction?
The rise of technology is a huge opportunity for the construction industry; enabling it to overcome many of its challenges while broadening its appeal to young talent. From predictive design to 3D printing and even autonomous machines on site, this is what the future could look like if we automated construction.
The 737 Max Skyscraper Vertically Stacks Boeing’s Planes To Turn Them Into Residential Complexes
Designed as an entrant for the 2020 eVolo Skyscraper Competition, the 737 Max Tower turns one of the world’s most controversial aircrafts of modern times into housing.
‘Station Of Being’ Is An Interactive Arctic Bus Stop
Architecture studio Rombout Frieling Lab and Research Institutes of Sweden have created the Station of Being as a prototype bus stop. The bus stop in Umeå, Sweden, was designed to improve the waiting conditions for passengers using public transport in cold weather conditions within the Arctic region.
The Law That’s Helping Fuel Delhi’s Deadly Air Pollution
The World Health Organization reported last year that 11 of the 12 cities in the world with the most pollution from PM2.5 were in India. A policy to conserve water resources led to the rise of a major source of air pollution, making breathing Delhi’s air as bad as smoking 50 cigarettes.
The Unraveling Of America
If and when the Chinese are ascendant, with their concentration camps for the Uighurs, the ruthless reach of their military, their 200 million surveillance cameras watching every move and gesture of their people, we will surely long for the best years of the American century.
Why Amazon Is Betting You’ll Buy A Million Dollar Prefab Home
Prefab has long been the unattainable unicorn of architecture, the ideal marriage of high design, efficient building, environmental consciousness, and affordability. Designers have long tried and failed to take modular mainstream. Can this Amazon-backed entrepreneur make prefab more than just a fad?
Three Years Of Misery Inside Google, The Happiest Company In Tech
In the first days of the Trump era, Google’s leaders were desperate to avoid confrontation with the new regime. The company’s history of close ties to the Obama administration left executives feeling especially vulnerable to the reactionary movement.
The Rise And Rise Of New York’s Billionaire’s Row
With breath-taking views, luxurious interiors, endless amenities and eye-watering price tags, this new wave of properties are strictly for those with a 10-figure bank balance. But how did this area come to be? What sparked its growth in this particular district? How were planning controls addressed?
Tiny Houses Look Marvellous But Have A Dark Side
Tiny houses are often put forward as a more sustainable housing option. They are certainly a potential check on the continued pursuit of bigger houses and greater consumption of energy, building materials and so forth. Yet reducing your environmental impact by going tiny is not as simple as some have claimed.
TRS Studio Envisions Shipping Containers As Affordable Housing In Peru
Two shipping containers are joined together and topped by an angular polycarbonate extension in this conceptual design for low-cost housing by Peruvian firm TRS Studio. TRS Studio designed the speculative dwellings for communities that struggle with housing issues and lack resources to devote to buying construction materials.