Canstruction is a design/build competition currently held in cities throughout North America. Teams of architects, engineers, and students compete to design and build giant structures made entirely from full cans of food. [more inside]
posted by netbros on Mar 9, 2009 - 10 comments

We need a way to have, buy, and sit on fewer and better things. — from the CICINA, a 20 minute video presentation on their effort to compare all things in a massive bracketed set of 2¹⁴ binary judgements. Which is better: Apples or Oranges?
posted by blasdelf on Oct 30, 2008 - 22 comments

"First we kill the architects..." Photographer Danny Lyon [1, 2, 3, 4] offers ten suggestions for New York City. Suggestion #6: "Leave the World Trade Center excavation exactly as it is and use the space as a freshwater pond planted with pink, white, and yellow lilies..." His essay is only one of many from names you'll recognize in a book called Block by Block: Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York. An associated exhibition opened yesterday [museum, NYT review]. Is New York City moving in the right direction? Is your city? [via] [more inside]
posted by salvia on Sep 26, 2007 - 19 comments

Starchitects. "There's a point where an architect crosses the line to the nether side of celebrity. The projects become less about exploring the unknowns inherent in a new commission and more about giving clients the sort of signature piece they're paying for."
posted by plexi on Aug 3, 2004 - 30 comments

I So Want This House It Hurts. Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House is up for sale. If price was no object and location wasn't a problem, where would you choose to really live? What architect, living or dead; what building, available or not, would you choose? [NYT reg. required for main link..]
posted by MiguelCardoso on May 31, 2003 - 44 comments

Constance Adams, Space Architect She designed the International Space Station's TransHab module (a prototype for manned Mars missions), and says cool things about what the role of architecture is: "Architecture involves forming harmony around the human system, balancing culture, biology, planetary knowledge and technology in counterpoint to the unknowable." (via boingboing)
posted by vraxoin on Jan 24, 2003 - 3 comments

Prince Charles attacks soaring egos of skyscraper architects "Prince Charles also called for the squares beneath skyscrapers to contain real public amenities such as restaurants and shops instead of incomprehensible pieces of art."..."what [the American novelist] Tom Wolfe entertainingly described as 'a turd in every plaza'."
Does plaza art provide anything for you but direction landmarks? Are there any that you like/hate-d (now) ? I enjoy seeing large works here, but also enjoy coming across a nice city piece by surprise.
posted by HTuttle on Dec 13, 2001 - 32 comments

If Architects had to work like web programmers (via archinect).
posted by jamescblack on Nov 22, 2000 - 2 comments