38 Special
Okay. This week’s newsletter is a bit of a doozy. Lots more environmental and climate-related links than usual due to the fact that the UN Climate Change Conference is currently underway as you’re reading this.
In this online exhibition key metrics for some of the most common materials used in architecture today are drawn together to encourage wider debate and continued research
And this virtual exhibition showcases sustainable projects that demonstrate the built environment's opportunities for addressing the climate crisis
As a material, timber is renewable, low-carbon and light weight, but is it the way forward for sustainable architecture?
A trillion tons of carbon hangs in the air, put there by the world’s rich, an existential threat to its poor. Can we remove it?
It’s time to delete carbon from the atmosphere. But how?
Over 40 countries pledge to end use of coal power - the US is not one of them
Over 100 leaders make landmark pledge to end deforestation
A self-sustained urban rainforest takes root in Dubai
Residential development in Bangkok prioritizes the wellbeing of residents by featuring over 500,000-square-feet of urban forest at its center
Sustainable hotels offering eco-friendly infrastructure, organic gardens, and community initiatives are changing the way people travel
Future of Cities film questions what will happen as our cities continue to grow
Designing Dune required mining the past to build humanity’s future
Architect proposes covering the planet with an inhabitable multilayered biostructure capable of nurturing both people and the planet
While another architect envisions networks of floating cities that will provide freedom for nature on land
These floating salt-resistant marine farms might be the solution to rising sea levels
After a successful 12-week test campaign, the Ocean Cleanup Crew is ready to tackle the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
A new book explores architecture’s relationship with the earth
The story behind Isamu Noguchi’s playscapes
How not to cheat children: Let them build their own playgrounds
The incredible opportunity of community schoolyards
A new childhood education center in Brooklyn is designed with soft, playful shapes
How academia laid the groundwork for denying home mortgages on the basis of race
Mapping inequality - redlining in New Deal America
Planners and designers are linking labor, social services and maintenance to building projects by prioritizing the concept of care
Architecture firm provides roofs over the heads of the unhoused by building villages of tiny homes
Historic People’s Park in Berkeley to be redeveloped with housing for both students and the unhoused
Billionaire donates $200M for student housing complex with windowless rooms in California; architect resigns in protest
Said billionaire defends the controversial design he approved
Meanwhile, arguments for building the windowless, bathroomless dorm are to be had
Let’s look at some other poorly-designed buildings with major architectural flaws
Does the skyscraper still have a future?
Recent sales at Central Park Tower close below their asking prices reflecting falling values at Billionaires' Row residences
China cracks down on vanity-project super skyscrapers
A luxury apartment tower in Midtown Manhattan is inspired by classic New York skyscrapers of the 1920s
Why a Manhattan office building has a giant rare stone dangling from its lobby
Brooklyn’s first supertall skyscraper just topped out
Taking 11 years to complete, a housing project in Ukraine now resembles a Lego block village (is this real life?)
Australia-based robotics company announced they have signed a deal for their block-laying robot to construct up to 5,000 homes in Mexico
A home in Mexico is inspired by the spatial and material distributions of old time houses and the return of the patio as a container for recreational and social activities
A derelict farmhouse in Spain is refurbished as a hostel
Architecture firm restores 140-year-old traditional Edo Period home in Nara as their head office
Residence in Japan aims to encourage connections within farming village
A Japanese family home with a grand pitched roof that seems to slide all the way down to the street
A 1961 post-and-beam residence in Hollywood Hills cantilevers over the wooded hillside
An Australian cottage reconnects new and old narratives
A 10-foot-wide micro-terrace is inspired by its surroundings
A historic Santo Domingo hospital is reborn as a slow travel retreat
An unconventional country home in Australia’s Southern Highlands
A minimal, concrete residence in Austin
Essential volumes in pigmented exposed concrete are set in the Argentine mountains, for breathtaking views
A soft, minimal home in Montreal
A home in Mexico that is hidden in the forest
A prefab cabin in Iceland that boasts both sea & volcano views
A rustic, design-minded retreat in Upstate New York
An 18th-century workshop is now a rustic home in east Sussex
A designer's uniquely, eclectic space in Paris
An artist’s life in objects, from a Warhol print to a postmodern lamp
Interior designer mixes Nordic softness, Japanese simplicity and Parisian chic into her apartment in the heart of Geneva
A 600-square-foot apartment in Sydney that contains one-of-a-kind pieces as well as a wonderful color palette
Measuring at just 9.5-feet-wide, New York’s skinniest townhouse asks $5M
A New York start-up is now letting people rent stylish furniture for a monthly fee
The future of fashion is wearing iconic chairs from the past
The past, present, and future of mid-century modern home design
Some of the most innovative and attractive furniture designs are the ones just waiting to be rediscovered
Secrets for finding the best Craigslist furniture
A $185 door mat inspired by Japanese Zen gardens
How to hang a hammock in your apartment (my vibe always)
You can now have a sustainably-made, wood-burning hot tub delivered right to your door (also my vibe)
While you’re at it, you might as well get plans to build your own a-frame cabin or order a pre-fab backyard home
Here are seven hotel getaways in the Catskills and Hudson Valley to visit this fall
150 postcard collages by Elsworth Kelly are now on view at The Tang Museum in Upstate NY (seen above)
Georgia O’Keeffe’s photographs are seen closely for the first time at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Investor gifts $4.2M archive of rare photographic plates featuring traditional Native American cultures by Edward S. Curtis to the University of Pennsylvania
KAWS donates holy grail of folk art—a William Edmondson sculpture discovered on a St. Louis porch—to New York’s American Folk Art Museum
Archaeologists in the UK unearth strikingly preserved Roman statues discovered during railway dig
A giant KAWS sculpture will soon arrive in Singapore where it will spend the week
An exhibition of new paintings and sculptures by KAWS opens at Skarstedt Gallery in NYC
Pace to present Keith Haring prints at New York’s The Art Show
Museum of Fine Arts Boston’s Black Power in Print illuminates the rich artistic legacy of the movement
As We Rise looks at the multifaceted ideas of Black life through the lenses of community, identity, and power
A student-designed mural intended to reflect on social justice and racial equity was removed from a public school in Brooklyn
Inside the rapid rise, alleged frauds, and sudden disappearance of the art world’s most wanted man
A painting stolen in East Germany’s biggest art heist may be an unknown Rembrandt
Hotel 'guests' steal extremely rare 215-year-old bottle of wine valued at $407K along with 44 other bottles from Spanish wine collector
Italian officials have returned three stolen ancient artifacts to Mexico
Nearly 250 antiquities have been repatriated to India
I think I should stop here. Tons to take in this week. Hope you found something worth reading and possibly something to pass on. I’m grateful to everyone for still letting me slide into your inbox. I’ll be back next week. Thanks in advance for sharing this newsletter with a friend. And I can always be reached at murphy@therealmurphy.com if you have something to say or share.
Thomas