An unregulated squatter settlement, Slab City is home to perhaps 150 year-round residents — refugees from mortgages and bill collectors, former hippies, rebels and self-identified misfits — who live in personal camps made from old trailers, truck campers and crude lean-tos, and call themselves Slabbers. From October to April, the population swells to perhaps 2,000 …
The 52-storey Tower of David in Caracas was built in 1990, but the developer went bankrupt and it was never finished. It stood in limbo as a concrete shell until about 10 years ago, when people started to move in and build their own homes on its floors. This is the gym on the balcony …
Frei Otto has received the 2015 Pritzker Architecture Prize, Tom Pritzker announced today. Mr. Pritzker is Chairman and President of The Hyatt Foundation, which sponsors the prize. Mr. Pritzker said: “Our jury was clear that, in their view, Frei Otto’s career is a model for generations of architects and his influence will continue to be …
Twenty miles southwest of Rome, obscured by agricultural fields, woodlands, and the modern infrastructure of one of Europe’s busiest airports, lies what may be ancient Rome’s greatest engineering achievement, and arguably its most important: Portus. Although almost entirely silted in today, at its height, Portus was Rome’s principal maritime harbor, catering to thousands of ships …
The construction of one of the largest and most awaited skyscrapers in Warsaw is to commence soon. Mennica Legacy Tower – a joint investment by Golub GetHouse and Mennica Polska S.A. – comprising a 130-meter high tower and an adjacent 36-meter building, will be located on the junction of Prosta and Å»elazna streets. The complex …
In light of the closure of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, or BAM/PFA, at its old location, I wondered about the fate of UC Berkeley’s other aesthetically displeasing structures on campus, such as Wurster or Evans halls. Most of these buildings are stylistically Brutalist — an architectural trend that was popularized in …
Lined with street after street of low-slung horizontal roofs swept over vanishing walls of granite and plate glass, Palm Springs is one of the most stylistically consistent cities in the U.S. Whether gas station, bank, hotel or home, the architecture in Palm Springs is most often midcentury modern, and it blends seamlessly into the long …
How do you transform the flood plain of a neglected urban waterway into a grand public park and metropolitan gateway? Dallas has been struggling with this challenge for more than 20 years, making incremental progress on the Trinity River corridor while debating whether to burden it with a toll road. Houston, meanwhile, has spent that …
The brief for the new MADE store is to re-evaluate the concept of a ‘showroom’ and incorporate technology in a way that would genuinely add value to the customer experience. Located in one of Europe’s busiest shopping districts, the new store experience begins with the external windows. Rather than display product behind the glass, the …
This mini apartment has been turned into a mini-bar, thanks to bar and club themed décor. At just 323 sq/ft, the property may be cosy, but the price tag certainly isn’t. Costing a cool £625 per week, this fourth floor flat combines the best in luxury living with a distinctive and unique theme. This apartment …
A new-yet-old building material is revolutionizing construction and energy consumption in Mali. Promising to drive down base costs, improve insulation, and keep out heat, this green innovation is great news for one of the world’s poorest and most beleaguered nations, especially since wood, a major component in most hoses and source of fuel, has been …
Bill Haney, who makes documentary films in addition to co-founding the company Blu Homes, likes to conduct a quick experiment at his movie screenings. Once the credits roll, he’ll ask the audience three questions, and ask them to raise their hands whenever the answer is yes. The questions are: If you’re building a new home, …
In 1869, after years of delays and cost overruns, the transcontinental railroad was finally completed. It was the last missing link connecting the American West to the Eastern Seaboard, and a cross-country trip that had once taken six months was cut to around a week. Even better, it produced a commercial flow of grain, lumber …
It’s pretty safe to say that many of today’s younger urban planners have a soft spot for the SimCity franchise. I wrote fondly of my time spent playing the game as a kid when the latest version of the game, SimCity 5, was released nearly two years ago. So too did fellow This Big City …
The Maclean’s article — three words that when spoken anywhere in Winnipeg over the past few weeks would invariably spark a passionate and polarizing conversation. It is not often that a national periodical publishes such a charged condemnation of an entire city, but shining a spotlight on Winnipeg’s racial divide has created an opportunity to …
In Piccadilly Plaza, Manchester, a bunch of brutalists are hanging on to Eddy Rhead’s every word. Concrete to the left of us, concrete to the right, Eddy is in modernist heaven. He introduces us to the concrete wall built by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando to separate the bustle of buses from the serenity of …
