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Human Rights Watch said that, along with the Crystal Hall, stage of the 2012 Eurovision song contest, and the park-cum-shopping mall of the Winter Garden, the centre is one of the city's many oil-fuelled grand projects that have seen local people evicted by force. — theguardian.com
From earlier today: Zaha Hadid wins the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year Award 2014While almost 250 homes were cleared to make way for Hadid's building, (questions have also been raised about the rights of those who built it. In 2010, while the project was under construction, the global... View full entry
"It’s an attempt to really use architecture intelligence and design intelligence to unpack violations of international law," Weizman says of Forensic Architecture. Along with SITU Research, he and his team have developed a technique called video-to-space analysis to harvest spatial data from cell phone videos and photos, analyzing footage, sometimes from multiple sources, to model and recreate chaotic events to better understand what happened on the ground. — fastcodesign.com
"Ai Weiwei, who helped design the Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing, stayed away from the opening ceremonies because he said he wanted his building to represent freedom, not be a trophy for an autocratic regime uninterested in change." — hyperallergic.com
Are we even delineating the role of the Architect in the construction process? Especially in the case where the clients are a monarchy and the problem cited is endemic to the entire region and not limited to the construction industry?Quoting Ai Weiwei and not Herzog and de Meuron seems almost... View full entry
A hunger strike in California state prisons calls for an end to indefinite solitary confinement in Security Housing Units, known as SHUs. Raphael Sperry has challenged fellow architects to ban the design of SHUs. Beverly Prior responds, reflecting on a career designing for incarceration. Joe Day sees societal values mirrored in the growth of both American prisons and museums. — kcrw.com
Previously: Building A Better Prison View full entry
It might not seem like an architect’s area of expertise to reform inhumane prison conditions. But like attorneys, journalists and doctors, architects have a code of professional ethics. They’re required to “uphold human rights in all of their professional endeavors.”
Architect Raphael Sperry says that prisons designed for prolonged solitary confinement violate the human rights of the inmates, and that he and other architects are ethically bound to do something about it.
— thestory.org
Previously on Archinect: Design Against Prisons The Architecture of Juvenile Detention in America Prison Architect and the moral dilemmas of a prison simulator View full entry
Daniel Libeskind, who has built a reputation working on historically and culturally sensitive projects such as the Jewish Museum in Berlin and the reconstruction of New York’s World Trade Center site, said beautiful architecture was no excuse for working with “morally questionable” clients.
“Even if they produce gleaming towers, if they are morally questionable, I’m not interested,” he said in the interview with The Architects’ Journal.
— independent.co.uk
The project received approval from the Architectural Board of Review (ABR) last year, but this week, with the plan returning for final sign-off on some late-hour landscaping tweaks, the board majority, for what appeared to be political reasons stemming from the gay-marriage flap, opted to abstain from voting on Monday. — independent.com
Helene Schneider, the mayor of SB, and a proponent of marriage rights, says Chick-fil-A’s Architectural Approval Shouldn’t Hinge on Owner’s Politics. View full entry
As you're probably aware, Ai Weiwei, Chinese artist and human rights freedom fighter, is still being detained by Chinese police. In an effort to increase public awareness we're working with BIG to offer these t-shirts designed by e-types, at cost. Now available: Click here to buy  ... View full entry