The author or editor of over twenty books, Michael Sorkin was a renowned architect, urbanist, and writer. Principal and founder of Michael Sorkin Studios and president of the non-profit research group Terreform, a nonprofit urban research and advocacy center, Sorkin was especially famous for his writings for the Village Voice and the Nation. The Professor of Architecture and Director of the Graduate Program in Urban Design at the City College of New York who passed away earlier this year due to complications resulting from COVID-19 wrote the forward for Miró Rivera’s Monograph Miró Rivera Architects: Building a New Arcadia.

Landscape architecture practice Studio-MLA has been selected to design the new Community Park as part of the Fair Park Master Plan in Dallas, Texas. Replacing over one thousand parking spaces, the project will feature an 11-acre park with free programming for children, adults, and seniors. The team was chosen by Fair Park First, Spectra, and Biederman Redevelopment Ventures, and the new park will be the first project to come out of the Master Plan Update.

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The shortlist for the design of a 111-acres observatory urban park covering the Calan Hill in Santiago, Chile, has been officially released by a jury of experts.

Organized by the Municipality of Las Condes in collaboration with the University of Chile and the Cerros Isla Foundation, the competition seeks to choose the best architecture and landscape proposal for the design of a new urban natural park in Santiago: the Cerro Calan Observatory Urban Park (Parque Observatorio Cerro Calán)

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This article was originally published on Common Edge as "Presenting Architecture as Progressive, but Practicing Through Exclusion."

For a profession that likes to congratulate itself about how well-meaning it is, and sees itself as liberal, diverse, open, and progressive, British architecture has a serious problem with diversity of pretty much every kind. It is dominated by people from well-off backgrounds. It trains a lot of brilliant female architects but doesn’t pay them as much as men, and loses many of them after 30 when they are not supported in balancing work and family life. Its ethnic makeup is very, very white, considering that it’s 2020. A supposed beacon of success is the acceptance of the LGBTQ community within the field, but as with women and those from and religious and ethnic minorities, stories of unprofessional comments, inappropriate jokes, and insidious forms of jovially “innocent” othering and the diminution of identity-specific concerns abound.

In order to create vibrant public spaces, people need to have a constant presence in these locations, whether they are on their own or in groups. In fact, they need to linger in these places and establish social interactions. To do so, one major element has to be incorporated into the urban setting: the bench.

This seating feature, simple or high tech, insures firstly the comfort of the passersby and animates the area consequently, through the addition of the missing human aspect. Sometimes, this is all it takes to revive a space that became a dull passage. The most basic urban design component can take many forms and can be created from different materials, always generating a statement and serving its purpose.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced that Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU) has won the competition to design its expansion in downtown Cleveland. Designed to help preserve rock and roll history, the extension includes internal and external gathering spaces for the community to learn and celebrate together. Serving as a connector to the Great Lakes Science Center, the expansion will bring more space for visitors, concerts and community events.

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In 1941, Swiss engineer George de Mestral was coming back from a hunting trip with his dog when he noticed that some seeds kept sticking to his clothes and his dog's fur. He observed that they contained several "hooks" that caught on anything with a loop, and from studying this plant, seven years later, he invented the hook and loop fastener, which he named Velcro.

Argentine environmental artist Tomás Saraceno has recently unveiled his latest venture at Moscow’s Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. On view and remaining until February 14, 2021, the installation entitled Moving Atmospheres, is a partially mirrored sphere suspended midair in the museum’s atrium, made from ETFE.

Design collective Mutual Atelier has won the competition to create a new Central Square in Rahovec, Kosovo. One of numerous proposals that explored new solutions to the square, the design was selected for its elegant formal solution and careful consideration of Rahevec’s city center. The scheme's circular form was made to provide a memorable identity for Rohevec’s city center and encourage public life to thrive.

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ELEMENTAL presents a sneak peek of its contribution to "How will we live together?" at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021. Recently, violence has increased in the historical Mapuche-Chilean conflict, that is why the architectural office proposed to build places that recover the old tradition of parleys, spaces to meet in order to settle differences and discuss terms for an armistice.

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Architects, not Architecture is turning five and is celebrating it with a Virtual World Tour. With its new event series, „AnA“ brings the architectural community a bit closer together by taking participants on a tour around the globe to “visit” selected cities and virtually meet some of their most relevant architects.

A single, continuous line unbroken by handle rotation: such was the simple, yet difficult-to-execute design concept motivating Zaha Hadid Design’s new innovative door handle. The result is a beautifully molded sculptural yet ergonomic design, playfully balancing form with function.

Vincent Callebaut Architectures has created “The Green Line”, an inhabited garden footbridge prototype that “generates its own energy from renewable sources, recycles its own waste and wastewater, and optimizes its needs thanks to Information and Communication Technologies”. Inspired by a fish skeleton, the proposal links the Bercy Village to the Masséna district in Paris, restoring urban connections and connecting the 12th and 13th arrondissements.

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The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) has released a Request for Proposals (RFP) seeking plans to build 100 percent affordable housing in Stapleton on the North Shore of Staten Island. The City-owned site provides over 100,000 square feet of land for affordable housing, community amenities and other improvements as part of the island's mixed-use development.

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

Pretty much everyone hates waiting rooms. Here are four statistics about them from a survey administered by Software Advice, an Austin, Texas-based consultation group: 80% of respondents said being told the accurate wait time would either completely or somewhat minimize their frustration; 40% said they would be willing to see another physician if it meant a shorter waiting time; 20% would be willing to pay an extra fee for quicker service; and 97%—virtually all of us!—are frustrated by wait times. And now, waiting rooms, in addition to being some of the dreariest places on earth, have become one of the easiest places in the world to get sick.

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Every city has its odd building. Paris has Centre Pompidou. London –Lloyd’s of London. New York –the Guggenheim. Naturally, Chicago, the architectural capital of the world, has one too. Here it is –James R. Thompson Center, named so in honor of four-term Illinois Republican Governor (1977-91) who was brave enough to get it built in 1985. Home to offices of the Illinois state government the building is unlike anything you have ever seen before.

The board of the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad (IIMA) has announced that the dormitories, built by Louis Kahn and part of the overall campus design, will be demolished and replaced. In fact, the administration plans to “bring down at least 14 of 18 dorms which were built between 1968 and 1978" for showing "problems of leakages from the roof, dampness in walls, leakages in toilet walls, slabs, etc.”, according to the Indian Express.

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