Matt Shaw
China’s economy might be slowing a bit, but it is still in relative boomtimes, growing at a ra te of 7.5% in 2014. The last decade has thus seen development happening at astounding rates, including speculative projects that were never really necessary, or perhaps will not be necessary for many years. In addition to ghost towns,…
Dan Kiley was no ordinary gardener. His landscape designs alongside Mid-century masters such as Eero Saarinen, Louis Kahn, I.M. Pei, and Kevin Roche were, by many accounts, the beginning of Landscape Modernism. His distinct brand of design took the fundamentals of French garden design to new places, giving them a Modernist sensibility, free from the…
Thanks to its density, New York City is the locus of some of the most extreme disparities of the hou sing crisis, with super-tall luxury condos inflating the entire city’s housing prices. Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to change that by adding 200,000 new units of affordable housing, but activists say that he is moving too…
Robert Moses can confirm that elevated highways in urban areas act as a virtual DMZ, dividing sectio ns of a city and creating strong boundaries between neighborhoods — often along socio-economic lines. In the middle of the 20th century, car-friendly cities were seen as futuristic, economically healthy cities, even if roads made them ugly, dirty, noisy,…
With the its local scene gaining momentum, the Chicago Architecture Biennial is threatening to steal some of the Venice Biennale’s thunder. (Please don’t give me concrete shoes!) One of the most exciting things in Chicago — and part of what is fueling the momentum of the Biennial — is the schools there. They have a…
Earlier this year, when the Downey Conservancy announced their efforts to #SaveTacoBell, we took the opportunity to look at how the beloved chain restaurant has reinvented itself over the years. SxSW sees the latest incarnation of their restaurant: Taco Bell is jumping on the shipping-container building trend. Image via Fast Company Shipping containers have long…
In recent news from Kiev, Ukrainian rebels have seized the palace of ousted President Viktor Yanukov ych in a symbolic coup d’etat, opening the enormous five-story estate and surrounding golf course to the public, who expressed outrage that such a private residence even existed. Vice recently toured the grounds and veritable McMansion, and the result is…
Foster + Partners has been awarded the task of designing the main stadium for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The 80,000-seat Lusail Stadium near Doha will house the opening and closing ceremonies for the event, and its forward-thinking design aims to take stadium design to the next level. Instead of creating a free-standing object…
David Chipperfield Architects has been selected to develop a new design for the Southwest Wing for m odern and contemporary art at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The renovation and redesign will enhance the connection between the museum with Central Park, and will double the size of the roof garden. Inside, the galleries will be…