Follow this tag to curate your own personalized Activity Stream and email alerts.
There has never been a more important time in society to celebrate what unites us rather than divides us, and that can be through culture and, more simply, through the creation of public spaces where people can come together. — CNN Style
Amanda Levete reflects on the Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump. She argues for the responsibility of architects to create spaces of intersections and conversations across thresholds in the contemporary political climate. View full entry
Students sent each other memes and other images mocking sexual assault, the Holocaust, and the deaths of children, according to screenshots of the chat obtained by The Crimson. Some of the messages joked that abusing children was sexually arousing, while others had punchlines directed at specific ethnic or racial groups. One called the hypothetical hanging of a Mexican child “piñata time.” — The Harvard Crimson
Ten students who managed to beat out nearly 38,000 others to gain admission to Harvard lost their chance to attend the university after sharing offensive online memes in a private Facebook chat. After discovering the memes, which ironically were traded over a platform designed by a former alumnus... View full entry
For those not already opposed to President Trump’s proposed border wall for ethical reasons, a big hurdle is its (likely) staggering cost. The sheer length of the thing makes it pricey, and the irregular terrain and harsh climate of some of the regions bisected by the US/Mexico border would... View full entry
Rael writes that one of the most devastating consequences of the wall is “the division of communities, cities, neighborhoods and families, resulting in the erosion of social infrastructure.” When we talked, he wondered how we might create something positive from something so horrible: “Can reform happen through borderland investment? If you build 150 libraries along the border, you’d get a very different outcome.” — The New York Times
The RFP for the border wall is out, but the conscience-bearing architectural community is staying in (and trying to imagine alternatives to this xenophobic concrete smear job). In particular, in this New York Times article they're suggesting building anything but walls, suggesting that perhaps... View full entry
Since they founded Duvall Decker nearly 20 years ago, the Deckers, as they’re known, have focused mostly on neglected corners in and around Jackson, Mississippi’s capital. To pay the bills, the two have redefined for themselves the ambit of a small architectural practice. They have become developers and even branched into building maintenance: a soup-to-nuts strategy that has allowed them more than just financial breathing room. — The New York Times
Helping impoverished Mississippi communities? Check. Making money while creating a business model that empowers you with the decision-making powers of developers? Check. Being notable and effective enough to earn your own profile in The New York Times by Michael Kimmelman? Done, done, and done for... View full entry
Philosopher Jason Millar claims to have originated the idea of the ethically challenged self-driving car in a 2014 paper on robotics...
In the “The Tunnel Problem,” Millar’s driverless car (let’s call her Porsche again) is fast approaching a narrow tunnel, the entrance of which is blocked by a child who has fallen in the roadway. The car can either kill the kid or hit the wall of the tunnel, killing the driver (who is really just a passenger).
— Daniel Albert | N+1
"Millar insists programmers need to build such scenarios into their code. I imagine them writing something like this:if (kid_in_tunnel > 16) { kill kid_in_tunnel;lp “We are sorry for your loss.”;} else { kill ass_in_Porsche;lp “Serves you right... View full entry
To understand how strange this pairing of client and architect is, you have to contemplate two things: the deeply embedded social progressivism that has become the standard worldview of international architectural firms such as BIG; and organizations such as the NFL, a private club for 1 percenters that bullies municipalities and treats its own players’ health with indifference. Can this marriage last? Is BIG motivated by naivete or cynicism? — The Washington Post
WaPo's art and architecture critic Philip Kennicott discusses the oddities of BIG's recent commission to design a new stadium for the Washington Redskins — and the team's problematic name is just the tip of the iceberg.More on Archinect: Bjarke Ingels Group, BIG, tackles NFL stadium design for... View full entry
An independent investigation into the construction of New York University’s Abu Dhabi campus has found that despite the school’s best intentions and efforts, about one third of the workforce at the site — roughly 10,000 workers — was not covered by the school’s labor guidelines, and thus faced unfair and exploitative practices [that were reported in previous allegations]. — Hyperallergic
To add to that, construction of the NYUAD main campus is nearly complete and the workers have already moved on to other jobs.Related:Abu Dhabi: Saadiyat Guggenheim StallsHigh Culture and Hard LaborA Memorial for the Workers Dying While Constructing the Qatar World Cup Stadium View full entry
The technology of supertall buildings is a bit like genetic testing or nuclear energy: a volatile form of power. Technological capacities have outpaced our judgment. We know we can do it, but we don’t know when not to do it. And so some endlessly wealthy mogul [...] will eventually move into a preposterously expensive penthouse so far above the Earth’s crust that the air is thin and gales hammer at the glass. A mile’s not science fiction. It’s not even an outer limit. — nymag.com
Faced with lawsuits and a growing mountain of damning research, New York City officials decided last month to ban solitary confinement for prison inmates 21 and younger. Just a few weeks earlier, the American Institute of Architects rejected a petition to censure members who design solitary-confinement cells and death chambers. [...]
What are the ethical boundaries for architecture?
— nytimes.com
Previously:Should Architects Design for Solitary Confinement?ADPSP and the Architecture of IncarcerationPrison design faces judgment View full entry
Friday, September 12:Vincent Scully Prize 2014 awarded to journalist and TV host Charlie Rose: The prize was established by the National Building Museum in 1999, and is named after the famed Yale art history and architecture professor who helped establish Louis Kahn and Robert Venturi. Rose was... View full entry
For the latest edition of Student Works: Justine Testado spoke with project architect, Duncan Baker-Brown, about The Waste House, designed/built by faculty and students from the Faculty of Arts and City College Brighton & Hove. Olaf Design Ninja_ did some quick math "The numbers tell... View full entry
Zaha Hadid says it's not her job to pay attention to how many migrant workers die in the construction of her World Cup stadium. We asked four top architects--Bjarke Ingels, Liz Diller, Clive Wilkinson, and Curtis Fentress--how morality fits into the process of accepting or rejecting a commission. — fastcodesign.com
As reported last week by Archinectors Ayesha Ghosh and Alex Stewart, a discussion regarding MoMA's expansion plan and the intended demolition of the American Folk Art Museum took place at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, an appropriate venue for a conversation rife with implications for... View full entry
And just as prisons in the U.S. are now designed to look not just secure and largely windowless but so nondescript that they practically disappear, architecture firms often coat their prison-design work in several layers of euphemism.
Prisons and jails become "correctional facilities." On the website of the large corporate firm HOK Architects, which designed the 1997 Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown L.A., they are tucked into a broader portfolio of "justice buildings."
— latimes.com