Coming at a crucial time in which Los Angeles is at risk of “losing its reputation as a center for innovative architecture,” museum director Michael Govan and Swiss architect Peter Zumthor have unveiled preliminary plans for what they hope will be the new home of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). If approved, this $650 million proposal - nearly five years in the making - would replace the dated William Pereira-designed campus and its 1986 Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates-designed addition with an organically-shaped, dark-grey concrete and glass Zumthor original.

More information after the break, including Peter Zumthor’s project description...

Light matters, a monthly column on light and space, is written by Thomas Schielke. Based in Germany, he is fascinated by architectural lighting, has published numerous articles and co-authored the book „Light Perspectives“.

From early nocturnal studies in a lonely hotel room to transforming a volcano in the world’s biggest landscape art project to, most recently, lighting up the Guggenheim in New York, the American artist James Turrell is driven by his fascination with light. He explores perception for visual experiences where light is not a tool to enable vision but rather something to look at itself.

More Light Matters, after the break…

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The impending destruction of the last public park in Istanbul was the straw that broke the camel's back last Tuesday. When a peaceful demonstration to save Taksim Gezi Park was met with violent police retaliation, the situation quickly escalated into a nationwide protest against the increasingly authoritarian Turkish government. At this moment all across the country, thousands are standing up not only for Gezi Park but for the right to shape the place that they call home.

More information on the situation in Turkey after the break.

Interiors is an online film and architecture journal, published by Mehruss Jon Ahi and Armen Karaoghlanian. Interiors will run an exclusive column for ArchDaily, analyzing and diagramming films in terms of space.

If cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame, David Fincher is an artist who is very much concerned about all four corners of his canvas. In his career, visual effects have always been at the forefront of his films, but his later works have also showcased his level of maturity as a storyteller. In Zodiac (2007), The Social Network (2010) and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), visual effects play an integral role in the advancement of the story, as Fincher explores the relationship between visual effects and space.

The spaces we analyzed decrease in size with each film – an entire block in Zodiac, a business establishment in The Social Network and a single room in an apartment in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In each instance, we are dealing with spaces that depend on an effect of some sort. 

Lebbeus Woods envisaged a world at war. The visionary architect, artist, and educator - who would have turned 73 today - drew cities under duress, buildings in the face of destruction, and landscapes confronting catastrophe. He imagined an underground city connecting divided Berlin, buildings designed for seismic hot zones that could move during earthquakes, and a utopian city that looked like an insect. He didn’t depict the world as it was, he depicted what it might be.

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In this talk at TED 2013, WikiHouse co-founder Alastair Parvin elaborates on some of the ideas which he presented in 2012. WikiHouse is his project to create an open-source library of houses which can be downloaded, manufactured with a CNC machine and assembled in a day - an idea which he hopes will democratize the production of housing and the city as a whole - as he puts it, "In a way it should be kind of obvious that in the 21st century maybe cities could be developed by citizens".

Last night we attended the Pritkzer Prize ceremony, where the 2013 laureate Toyo Ito accepted the prestigious award at the JFK Presidential Library in Boston.

On his acceptance speech, Toyo Ito recognised the team that has worked with him during his 42 years of practice, including engineers and architects who attended the ceremony, including a very special former employee: Kazuyo Sejima, who worked with him for 7 years before establishing her practice, and also a Pritzker laureate (2010). As Ito said "Making architecture is not something one does alone; one must be blessed with many good collaborators to make it happen".

And then, Ito continued his wonderful speech on how modern architecture and nature have been in a constant clash, how he has approached this relation and what he hopes for the future, appealing to JFK's famous quote "ask not what America will do for you” to propose the question "What can we ourselves do for the freedom of man?".

The full speech is reproduced below, so you can understand how Ito's passion for architecture and critic view of the state of world turns into a message of union for architects:

A recent report by the UK Architectural Education Review Group has highlighted the high cost of education as a barrier which prevents less wealthy students from accessing the profession, reveals BDonline. Among a number of concerns raised about the current state of architectural education, it says that the cost to study architecture in the UK could "create an artificial barrier to the profession based solely on a student’s willingness to accept high levels of personal debt".

Architecture has long been seen as a pastime of the wealthy, as evidenced by Philip Johnson's claim that "the first rule of architecture is be born rich, the second rule is, failing that, to marry wealthy". However, the report acknowledges the fact that making the profession open to people of all backgrounds is not only a moral imperative, but will be vital to bring the best talent into the field.

Read more about the barriers surrounding the profession of architecture after the break

This morning, four architectural firms, invited by the Metropolitan Art Society(MAS), displayed how they would transform New York's darkest & dingiest hub - Penn Station - into a space worthy of its site in the heart of the city.

New Yorkers have been up in arms about Penn Station ever since its Beaux-Arts predecessor, designed by McKim, Mead & White, was demolished in 1963. Its replacement is a dark, cramped station that lacks both the operational and security features it needs to sustain the hundreds of thousands of travelers who use it daily. As Michael Kimmelman put it in his inaugural piece as architecture editor for The New York Times: "To pass through Grand Central Terminal, one of New York’s exalted public spaces, is an ennobling experience, a gift. To commute via the bowels of Penn Station, just a few blocks away, is a humiliation."

As we reported last month,Madison Square Garden’s (MSG) 50-year permit expires this year, and it will be either renewed without limit, or extended 10-15 years, by The New York City Council in the coming months. The problem, according to MAS, is that "MSG happens to sit on top of the busiest train station in North America [a.k.a, Penn Station] and constrains its ability to serve over half a million people every day. [...] 2013 presents New York City with a truly unique opportunity and together we need to seize this moment."

And so MAS invited Diller, Sofidio, & Renfro; H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture; SHoP; Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill, to do just that. See their visions, after the break...

In an effort to address the changing priorities of sustainable development, a group of international scientists at the UN identified six goals that achieve a holistic view of the development and nourishment Earth's life support systems. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) were launched with the intention of addressing problems of environmental sustainability as it pertains to poverty eradication, citing that these two problems need to be addressed in unison as they will "increasingly become serious barriers to further human development", says Professor David Griggs of Monash University (AU) according to the International Council of Scientists.

More after the break.

As cited by the research of scientists at the UN and supported by the International Council of Scientists, current trends indicate that humans are altering the natural balances that exist in the atmosphere, oceans, waterways, forests, ice sheets and biodiversity. These changes undermine the stability of Earth systems that allow for continued human development. Climate scientists have already made it clear that changes in the atmosphere have contributed to the unpredictable and severe weather systems that have caused damage all over the world. These scenarios are escalating in their damage and their frequency thereby uprooting stable cities and making future development more challenging.

Which cities are embracing the green revolution? This infographic compares the efforts of six leading cities - New York, Vancouver, Copenhagen, London, Amsterdam and Stockholm - in the race to drastically reduce global C02 emissions. Based predominantly on 2009 statistics, Stockholm seems to be leading the way in carbon reduction. Continue reading after the break to see who claims the blue ribbon for renewable energy, efficient water consumption and rigorous recycling. 

Recovery efforts are underway in the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore after a deadly, 1.3-mile-wide tornado carved a 20-mile-long swath of destruction through neighborhoods and schools on Monday afternoon. With winds up to 210 miles per hour and a death count that currently stands at 24, President Obama has declared this tornado to be “one of the most destructive in history,” ranking it at a Category 5.

In an effort to help, Architecture for Humanity and the American Institute of Architects (AIA) have mobilized their teams to provide instant assistance and aid in long term reconstruction efforts. Although professional design and construction volunteers from both organizations are already on the ground, the community needs your help. Find out how you can help the residents of Moore after the break.

Videos

Among the extensive discussion of Feilden Clegg Bradley's scheme to redesign the Southbank Centre in London, one issue which has sometimes been ignored by the architectural media has been the proposal to relocate the skate park in the under-croft of the Queen Elizabeth Hall to a space beneath the nearby Hungerford bridge.

Unsurprisingly, this decision has sparked a petition which has collected nearly 40,000 signatures to save one of the UK's most famous skating hotspots. We’ve talked about how skaters can teach architects about understanding space before; however, in this instance I would like to examine how skaters as a (sub)cultural entity interact with the city, and how the city can cater to their needs. Though many architects are already in favor of accepting skaters, I hope to explore why the wider community tends to see skating as a problem to be solved, and what this can reveal about the proposal at the Southbank Centre.

Read on to find out more about the peculiar way skaters experience cities

At just a little over 50 years old, the University of California San Diego is one of the younger college campuses in the United States, but despite this it is one of the most architecturally fascinating universities around. In the official UCSD campus guide, Dirk Sutro emphasizes that "UCSD does not have a single example of the historical-revival styles prevalent at other University of California campuses... and at San Diego's two other major universities". The history of UCSD architecture is one of ambition, which has made the campus a display case of modernism in all of its forms from the last half a century.

Thanks to photographer Darren Bradley, we can now share this history and a selection of the exciting structures it has produced.

Find out more about the UCSD campus after the break

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August Kekulé discovered the structure of the benzene ring after having a daydream of the Ouroboros, a famous mythological snake depicted as biting its own tail. Francis Crick figured out the complimentary replication system of DNA when he remembered the process of replicating a sculpture by making an impression of it in plaster, and using it as a mold to make copies. Johannes Keppler attributes his laws of planetary motion to an inspiration from religion: the sun, the stars, and the dark space around them represent the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost respectively.

What’s the point? According to Arthur Koestler, “all decisive events in the history of scientific thought can be described in terms of mental cross-fertilization between different disciplines.” Great discoveries arise not from the isolated hermit working without interference, but from tireless work enlightened by unintentional collisions with an unfamiliar subject. For Kekulé, it was ancient mythology, for Crick, sculpture, and for Keppler, religion.

Creativity and innovation, then, thrive where disciplines collide. And this is true not only for science, but for all subjects. We all have something to learn from one another, and what better place to encourage this cross-fertilization than school?

Keep reading to find out more about how interdisciplinary architecture can foster creativity and collaboration in schools…

In Russia, hundreds upon hundreds of buildings are endangered. The work of making sure they don't become extinct? That's in the hands of a tireless few.

One of these crusaders is Natalia Melikova, the author of The Constructivist Project, an on-line web site that seeks to preserve the memory - and hopefully inspire the protection of - Russia's avant-garde architecture. Although it began as her thesis project, it's steadily become one of her life passions. In Melikova's words, "By sharing photographs (my own and others), articles, events, exhibitions, and other resources on the topic of the avant-garde, The Constructivist Project unites common interest and appreciation of Russian art and history and makes it accessible to an international English-speaking audience. This is a way to initiate discussion not only of the perilous situation of Russian avant-garde architecture but also of cultural preservation and urban development in general."

See 10 of Melikova's images, snapshots into a part of Russian history quickly being forgotten, with her descriptions, after the break.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) presents the first major UK exhibition showcasing the work of renowned Indian architect Charles Correa (born in 1930). Rooted both in modernism and the rich traditions of people, place and climate, Correa has played a pivotal role in the creation of an architecture and urbanism for post-war India. He has designed some of the most outstanding buildings in India and has received many of the world’s most important architecture awards including the RIBA Royal Gold Medal (1984), Aga Khan Award for Architecture (1988) and Japan’s Praemium Imperiale (1994), and is still working today.