The 10 Best architecture blogs

From your house to Bauhaus, there's a wealth of architectural views, news and comment, plus stunning pictures online

Samuel Muston

Thursday, 5 July 2012

1. Dezeen
dezeen.com
When Dezeen launched in 2006, it aimed to bring a selection of the best buildings, design and interior projects from around the world. Now, it gets two million visits a month.

2. Design Observer
designobserver.com
Below Design Observer's sometimes pompous blog titles ("The Shape of Green: aesthetic imperatives") is a well-stocked cellar of interesting information and original research.
3. BLDG Blog
bldgblog.blogspot.co.uk
BLDG covers whatever it deems to be interesting. The varied post headings give you some insight into the content: "Buy a prison", "Hotels in Zero-G", "Buncefield bomb garden".
4. Domestic Space
house-design-architects.architectureforlondon.co.uk
Written by architects, for architects. But the guys behind it aren't below displaying nice pictures of cutting-edge home- and workspace design.
5. Contemporist
contemporist.com
This blog drip feeds at least one large picture of some far-out, or downright pretty, building each day. But it's also an important source of news on innovative building and design.
6. Eikongraphia.com
eikongraphia.com
This website is well rounded, in that it contains not only essay-like meditations and original interviews with architects and designers, but also lots of nice, big pictures.
7. A Daily Dose of Architecture
archidose.blogspot.co.uk
New York may not be the crucible of architectural innovation it once was, but there is still much to admire there. Here you get an almost-daily dose of the Big Apple's best new buildings.
8. Architectural Association School of Architecture
aaschool.ac.uk
This should appeal mainly to those with a more professional interest. However, others will be able to take pleasure in the avant-garde offerings in the school's 2012 project reviews.
9. Unhappy Hipsters
unhappyhipsters.com
This is not just an architecture blog. It's also a send-up of the strangely disconnected world of architecture magazines and catalogues.
10. Architecture Blog Tumblr
architectureblog.tumblr.com
Just pictures. Lots of them. And showcasing the best and most arresting of current and not-so-current building projects around the globe.

Millors blogs de arquitectes segons Architectural Record

10 Architecture Firm Blogs to Watch in 2013

 (Architectural Record  December 27, 2012)

Architects’ rush to Twitter and Pinterest makes blogging seem so 2008. But the recent launch of two blogs, by Perkins+Will and Westlake Reed Leskosky, proves that the medium is both relevant and worth the commitment of extra resources. In that spirit, we went scouting for others making good use of the platform. Ten that caught our eye include professional resources and conversation starters, plus a few more typical examples that broadcast news in a lively or visually elegant manner.



A screenshot of Spamos, a blog curated by the New York City-based firm Mapos.

Utile
Boston-based Utile calls itself a design firm “built like a think tank,” and its blog reveals the substance of that tagline. Posts contemplate aspects of the historic constructed environment and comment on new buildings conceived by other architects, while others intimate a certain obsession with environmental graphics. In all, the blog pulls back the curtain on inspirations and musings. Similar kudos goes to endearingly named Spamos (from the New York City–based design firm Mapos).

recool, a new blog from Westlake Reed Leskosky.

recool
Just-launched recool may become the grounded alternative to breathless green technology coverage you find on Inhabitat or Jetson Green. Conceived and operated by Westlake Reed Leskosky, the new website is devoted to technology solutions for sustainable architecture. Case studies of completed WRL buildings examine CFD analysis, predicted versus actual metrics, and more. Most promising is recool’s Yelp-like products tab, which supplies real commentary about applications, claims, and lifecycle costs. Hopefully testy manufacturers won’t short-circuit the comments section.

BNIM
Scroll down BNIM website’s press tab to arrive at the architecture firm’s official blog. Its subjects range from green technology solutions to art to social media in urban planning. Viewed in tandem with BNIM’sFacebook profile and case studies (find the latter under the research tab), the reader gets a broad, triple-bottom-line understanding of sustainability—and a possible roadmap for recool’s growth.

Dialogue
This Gensler effort is a print magazine foremost, yet the professionally written publication has been translated into a digital environment with great sensitivity to the original hard copy. The website is sympathetic to users, too, in particular because you can access stories without having to launch a pinwheel-spinning desktop reader. Dialogue is part of a larger portfolio of reports, videos, and other information-sharing tools, and while Gensler projects are at the core of their inquiries, very few shout the company name.

FXFOWLE Blog
Large architecture firms often use their blogs as platforms for non-namesake staff. So what distinguishes FXFOWLE’s blog from, say, Life at HOK? In a word, secularism. Writers include employees and outside professionals and topics range from infrastructure in the wake of Superstorm Sandy to Art Basel Miami Beach—and the New York–based architecture firm is very rarely the subject of these narratives. In short, the blog is an earnest attempt at professional service.

ideas+buildings
With this project’s launch in early December, Perkins+Will officially entered the blogosphere. Participants are encouraged to share their ideas about urban infrastructure, the relationship between architecture and public health, plug loads, and more, and company cheerleading, while it exists, isn’t offensive. Whereas Utile’s blog is the virtual refrigerator door for a curious family and FXFOWLE’s blog appears like a conversation with the larger world, ideas+buildings is an agora for a multinucleated community. Bonus points for the graphic design.

Life of an Architect
Even though we’re staring into the gaping maw of 2013, it feels like the early aughts on Life of an Architect. Bernbaum Magadini Architects associate principal Bob Borson treats his digital diary in the confessional and modest manner that the blog format originally intended. The Dallas-based architect’s discussion of materials, the occasional existential dilemma, and other day-to-day scenes should be relatable to most working professionals. Durham, North Carolina–based architect Jody Brown offers a slightly snarkier—or as he might say, angst-y—take on similar subjects at Coffee With an Architect. Either should be required reading for high school career day, especially for kids smitten by architectural spectacle.

ZGF
The navigation bar on ZGF’s homepage spells out its blogging strategy plainly: Facebook, which it joined in November 2011. It has taken to the platform with gusto. ZGF’s timeline sprouts recently completed projects, office-wide charity work, media mentions, and groundbreakings, and these posts also reveal the corporate firm’s pet interests, such as active green technologies and district stormwater management. Another pro of going the Facebook route is that responses are in plain sight, suggesting that feedback informs the design process.

BIG | Bjarke Ingels Group
The darling of contemporary architecture is lauded for his forward-looking approach to buildings. Ingels also deserves praise for incorporating extensive vlogging into his studio’s website.

Foster + Partners
The Foster + Partners website is the only firm to crack Alexa’s top-50 list for most popular architecture websites. Although it is not called a blog, the site’s news tab does the job of one; posts involve competition wins, upcoming appearances, and press statements, like a recent to tribute to Oscar Niemeyer. Foster + Partners breaks the blog mold in the way limited posts move from left to right instead of scrolling endlessly, but the content itself is typical for the category. In other words, fame begets web traffic.

MAS CONTEXT

http://www.mascontext.com/about/

MAS Context, es una revista trimestral creada por Studio MAS. Se ocupa de cuestiones que afectan al contexto urbano. Cada número se centran en un solo tema y lo aborda desde una  variedad de campos del diseño por arquitectos, fotógrafos, escritores, diseñadores industriales, músicos, artistas gráficos, urbanistas ....... La combinación de las distintas técnicas ofrece una visión global. Luego, se trata de compartir las ideas y puntos de vista a través de diferentes  medios para llegar a una audiencia global.

Su sede está en Chicago, pero quiere tener un alcance  global. Se presentan como una plataforma para el intercambio de propuestas pertinentes, ideas y experiencias que ayuden a avanzar en el mundo del diseño. Se plantean un enfoque  simple y  a la vez profundo. En cada tema se convoca a pensar en nuevas posibilidades, liderando a todos a colaborar de nuevas maneras, lo cual desata un gran debate. Se pide a los diseñadores  a actuar de maneras nuevas e inimaginables. "Piensa. Colabora. Debate. Actúa." es el moto.

La revista participó en el debate Archizines de Storefront, donde Iker Gil presentó un manifiesto de 10 puntos  que establecen la metodología y los objetivos de MAS Context: 

1. DO IT FOR YOURSELF

Create the magazine that you would like to read. You are the audience of what you do so be passionate and critical. In the end, it is an extension of you as an architect and as a way of understanding the profession. Use it to define and reinvent yourself. Architecture, and design in general, demands expertise, commitment, engagement, and optimism. A magazine should aspire to no less than that.

2. DO IT WITH OTHERS

Collaborate with peers, either as part of your team or as contributors. Create a network of people from different disciplines, contexts and positions. Engage them as much as possible, learn from their disciplines, test each other’s positions to create a comprehensive, informed and forward-thinking outcome.

3. BECOME A PLATFORM

Use the magazine to provide a voice to people who have something meaningful to add to the conversation. The medium is flexible, and should allow for the inclusion of established authors as well as to give a voice to others who, without the platform, would remain mute and removed from the discussion.

4. STAY FRESH

Be alert to new, important and unexpected issues that affect you, the profession and your context. Address it quickly and produce fast but thoughtfully. Capture the energy of the moment, the medium demands it. But also be ready to revisit issues that can be recontextualized and discussed from a new perspective.

5. TELL A STORY

Think critically, enquire and research. There is an excess of information available out there without a story to ground it. A lot of it shallow, simplistic, partial and disconnected. Put forward topics and ideas in a comprehensive and focused way so it can advance the public awareness of the issue.

6. EXPLORE COMMUNICATION

The situations discussed are complex and multilayered. We are now used to either impenetrable and obscure essays that engage a limited audience or a constant bombing of void images without context and story. The combination of different communication techniques (essays, photographs, diagrams, videos just to name a few) and formats will not only allow to communicate efficiently and clearly the complexity of the topic but also engage with a wider audience.

7. REACH FAR

Formats evolve and with them our habits. New mediums and new habits mean challenges but also new opportunities. Test, combine and reinvent old and new mediums in order to evolve and push the boundaries. Think critically about the unique qualities present in each medium to improve the outcome and expand the reach of your network of collaborations and distribution.

8. INSTIGATE THE DEBATE

Each issue of the journal is a chance to address a pressing aspect of our built environment. The combination of formats not only helps to expand the network but also establishes ways in which a fruitful debate can be established. Each issue is a pro-active start of the conversation, not the end of it.

9. LEAVE SEDIMENT

Use multiple formats to create a culture of design in as many locations as possible. Ground your magazine. Establish events, formal or informal, that exploit the potential of a collective gathering and discussion. It will give a new reading to the content of the issue from the online and printed versions and hopefully it will start or continue to define and establish forums of critical thinking.

10. ACT, AND ACT FREQUENTLY

As Mimi Zeiger wrote it in her article for the INFORMATION issue of MAS Context “Forget paper or websites, publishing is a happening, an act, an event to generate content in itself.”

Como vemos, un verdadero manifiesto que puede hacerse extensivo a otros innovadores de las nuevas publicaciones de arquitectura. 

Un entrevista con su fundador Iker Gil puede verse en :

http://www.architectmagazine.com/architects/the-exhibitionist.aspx

Por cierto, Iker Gil es arquitecto por la ETSAB !

Ballardian

De la definició del lloc extraiem:

Ballardian explora els trops i els motius que es troben en l'obra de JG Ballard. Està editat i publicat per Simon Sellars. Però potser els  objectius del lloc es  defineixen millor per les definicions aplicades a la paraula 'ballardià"  , segons el Diccionari Collins Anglès:
Ballardià: (adj) 1. de James Graham Ballard (JG Ballard, nascut el 1930), el novel·lista britànic, o les seves obres. (2) s'assembla a , o suggereix les condicions, descrites en les novel·les de Ballard com ara, la modernitat distòpica, els  paisatgesdesolats creats per l'home, o els efectes psicològics del desenvolupament tecnològic, social o ambiental. És a dir, s' hi explora la Ballardosphere (definició 2) tant com ho feia Ballard (definició 1). O per dir-ho d'una altra manera, utilitzen  el terme 'ballardià" per identificar una fase particular en el capitalisme tardà que encara no es dona, i que va ser  articulada millor per l'escriptor JG Ballard. Aquest lloc per tant, intenta formular una visió del món refractada a través dels escrits  que va deixar un autor  que  va predir amb exactitud el ritme desconcertant de canvi a finals del segle XX i principis del XXI.

El lloc pretén unir a una comunitat d'escriptors i artistes que també han estat inspirats per Ballard i la seva obra. Un component clau d'aquest projecte és contextualitzar el treball de Ballard, per analitzar la seva esfera d'influència més enllà de les restriccions sufocants del regne literari cap a altres camps més amplis com ara, el de la música, el cinema, les arts visuals, la moda, la teoria cultural, l'arquitectura, o la pornografia, fins i tot. L' obra de Ballard conté un codi misteriós que no és fàcilment destil·lable en la seva  biografia o en  la teoria literària. Mitjançant el seguiment d'aquest virus trans-disciplinar o  paraula mutant, la pàgina BALLARDIAN  pretén arribar a un coneixement preliminar de les forces culturals que es reflecteixen en aquest concepte.  

Podem afagir que entre d' altres etiquetes la d' "arquitectura"  mereix un gran numero d' entrades.
Hi podem trobar Affirmative Architectural Dystopias una ponencia del Simon Sellars a la conferencia de la Monach University dedicada  al tema:   Changing the Climate: Utopia, Dystopia and Catastrophe. on la presentació va ser  part del panell  representant el projecte PLASTIC FUTURES del SIAL (RMIT University) integrat per Pia Ednie-Brown, Andy Miller i Simon Sellers.
També hi trobem un entrevista i referencia del curs de Nic Clear i Simon Kennedy "Crash . Architectures of the near Future" a la Barlett School. O una entrevista amb Geoff Manaugh de BLDGBLOG.A més, hi ha tota una serie de recursos sobre  J.G. Ballard , o les noticies o twits.

Simon Sellars es editor amb Dan O'hara del llibre Extrem Metaphores iterviews with  J.G.Ballard .

Simon Sellars va participar al monografic sobre Ballard de  Kosmopolis 2008. Entre d' altres Sellers va dir:

I think the adjective ‘Ballardian’ will become immortal, because I think that, to take what Bruce has said about the way Ballard turned from the traditional notion of science fiction from outer space to inner space, I think that was a very prophetic move. He saw the way technology was heading. There’s a famous phrase of his that he wanted to explore the next five minutes rather than the next 500 years. To me, that says that he saw that technology was creating a turning inward in a psychological sense. He saw the democratisation of technology, in terms of technology that – in a phrase of Bruce’s from the cyberpunk era – would stick to the skin rather than being something else. He would write about this stuff rather than the modernist aesthetic of rockets and outer space. I think that was a very prophetic move.

Also, he saw the way that we’re entering this globally homogeneous space, a sort of eventless present as he likes to call it, where you virtually can go to any country in the world. He talks about the areas around motorways and airports as a metaphor for this homogeneous space, and I think he saw the implications of where this is all heading. He also reacted against it, so I see his work as a resistance against this sort of corporate culture, and against the drive of, I guess, late capitalism to classify and categorise everything.

To me, the most important thing about Ballard is providing this space that he evokes, that preservation of inner spaces and autonomous zones. I’ve been reading a lot of mainstream newspaper articles recently, talking about the colonisation of inner space and the way we’re really crowded with information. The terms that were used and the arguments they were making were the things that Ballard was talking about in the ’60s. In that sense, I’d say there was this philosophy of resistance to a political culture. To me, that’s a sort of ideal for living.

Veure transcripció de la taula rodona a la pàgina Ballardian . Per més interesats en Ballard, el catàleg de l' exposició "Autopsia del nou mileni" comissariada per Jordi Costa al CCCB, i el blog derivat de la mateixa 

Publishing Futures Chicago

L' exposició A Few Zines va ser seguida a  Chicago per la discusió Publishing Futures, a fi de parlar de com els nous formats canvien el panorama de les publicacions d' art, arquitectura , disseny, i  quin es el futur.
Seguim la crónica feta per l' experta Mimi Zeiger al seu blog.

(From:   loudpaper / Mimi Zeiger/ publishing/ 03/26/2010)

and then we take chicago

Back in December I met with Iker Gil, the mastermind behind MAS Context (There's a new one out now!). We drank super-fueled Intelligentsia cortados at the Monadnock and cooked up a plan to bring A Few Zines to Chicago. Fast forward to spring, and the show opens at UIC's School of Architecture on April 5 and closes with a top notch panel on April 9.

The closing-night panel, Publishing Futures, includes:

Brendan Crain, The Where Blog

Penelope Dean, University of Illinois, Chicago, Flat Out

Iker Gil, UIC, University of Illinois, Chicago, MAS Context

Marc Fischer, Temporary Services

Jimenez Lai, University of Illinois, Chicago, Bureau Spectacular

Publishing Futures: Content, Context, and Emerging Formats With e-book, tablet, and social media technologies rapidly reshaping the publishing landscape, how new and old formats respond? Publishing Futures observes the changes facing art, architecture, and design publishing—blogs, journals, zines, and magazines—and speculates on future models.

Closing Panel April 9, 2010

Panel Discussion: 6:00 – 7:30 pm

Reception: 8:00 pm ‘til late.

Many thanks to Andrew Clark at Mas Studio for designing a kick-ass poster. His stats come from ASME.

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Publising Futures 

(From:   loudpaper / Mimi Zeiger/ publishing /03/31/2010)

new city, new additons

A Few Zines hits Chicago on Monday (panel and reception on Friday, April 9) and it seems that each new venue grows the exhibition. This time we have a slew of new publications: David Garcia Studio's two MAPs (Manual of Architectural Possibilities), both Antarctica and Quarantine; Fred Scharmen's Losing My Edge, a lgnlgn-related release; hard copies of the new and prolific MAS Context (I can't believe how good #5 is); and the latest edition of Standpunkte (the German title roughly translates to "How did you do that?" 6 talks about architecture).

To get your hands on copies, come by the show at University of Illinois at Chicago's School of Architecture, Room 3100, 845 West Harrison Street, Chicago.

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ARCHIZINES book

ARCHIZINES book . Edited by Elias Redstone

From handmade fanzines and print-on-demand  news-letters to magazines and student journals, ARCHIZINES celebrates the recent resurgence of alternative and independent architectural publishing. Edited by Elias Redstone, ARCHIZINES showcases 60 new publications from over 20 countries alongside critical texts from Pedro Gadanho (Beyond), Iker Gil (MAS Context), Adam Murray (Preston is my Paris), Rob Wilson (Block), Mimi Zeiger (Maximum Maxim MMX / loudpaper) and Matthew Clarke, Ang Li & Matthew Storrie (PIDGIN) that explore the relationship between architecture and publishing today. Themes addressed include the role of publishing in academia and architectural practice, and the representation of architecture in fictional writing, photography, magazines and fanzine culture.

Featured publications:

America Deserta Revisted, another pamphlet, Apartamento, Archinect News Digest, Beyond, Block, Bracket, Camenzind, Candide, Civic City Cahier, Club Donny, Conditions, Cornell Journal of Architecture, Criticat, dérive, Ein Magazin über Orte, engawa, Evil People in Modern Homes in Popular Films, face b, Foreign Architects Switzerland, Friendly Fire, Generalist, Horizonte, Junk Jet, Kerb, Le Journal Spéciale’Z, Log, MAP, Mark, MAS Context, matzine, Maximum Maxim MMX, Megawords, The Modernist, mono.kultur, Monu, no now, OASE, One:Twelve, Pablo Internacional, P.E.A.R., PIDGIN, PIN-UP, PLAT, PLOT, Preston is my Paris, Public Library, San Rocco, Scapegoat, scopio, SOILED, SPAM_mag, Thresholds, TOO MUCH, Touching on Architecture, UP, UR, VOLUME, The Weather Ring, What About It?
November 2011, English21.6 x 13.5 cm, 152 pagesSoftcoverISBN 978-1-907414-20-6£12 Order online from AA Publications