The Feral Houses of Detroit - Part Deux

Last week we covered one of the more spectacular and haunting side effects of the dramatic decline of Detroit - the rise of "feral houses" and even "feral neighborhoods" that are so thoroughly abandoned they revert to a natural state.

Part of the City of Detroit's economic rescue plan involves essentially withdrawing from nearly one-quarter of the city's land area and letting it become wild. Cut off your nose to spite your face. For those living in Detroit, this must be a stunning reality that not only has the city been in sharp decline since the 1960s, it is completely evacuating large sections of once elegant neighborhoods just to remain financially solvent. Once among the richest of American cities, it now seems more like an internationally famous ghost town. Our version of Somalia, if you will.

A note for the Detroit Chamber of Commerce: "ugly tourism" is all the rage right now in Europe. Like "slum tours" through the favelas of Rio de Janeiro or "grief tourism" to the killing fields of Cambodia and Auschwitz, Detroit needs to take advantage of its clear monopoly on decay and the powerful story of its riches-to-rags downfall. Might I suggest a marketing slogan to tempt the more thrill-seeking among us? "Zombieland Detroit: And You Thought it Was Just a Movie"

This series from the Guardian has excellent photos of the interiors of some of Detroit's most tragically derelict buildings. The incredible thing about many of these shots is that so many of the buildings appear to have been abandoned so suddenly and without planning, with knicknacks and personal belonging still left untouched decades later. In many ways it's eerily reminiscent of post-Katrina, except this disaster was entirely man-made. All photographs by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre.

East Methodist Church

Detroit’s Vanity Ballroom with its unsalvaged art deco chandeliers. Duke Ellington and Tommy Dorsey once played here.

The biology classroom at George W Ferris School in the Detroit suburb of Highland Park

Dentist's station, Broderick Tower

Light court - Farwell Building

Michigan Central Station

Michigan Theater - now a parking lot?

Former police station, Highland Park

The ballroom of the 15-floor art-deco Lee Plaza Hotel, an apartment building with hotel services built in 1929 and derelict since the early 1990s

The ruined Spanish-Gothic interior of the United Artists Theater in Detroit. The cinema was built in 1928 by C Howard Crane, and finally closed in 1974

Waiting Hall, Michigan Central Station

Livingstone House, designed in French Renaissance style in 1893, demolished after this picture was taken.

Via: Planetizen

Crazy and Outrageous Buildings of 2010

2010 has thrown up some buildings and developments that are out-of-this world, spectacular, outrageous, and even absurd. All despite the worst recession in thirty years. Here's a look at some of the best, courtesy of GOOD magazine.

The tallest freestanding structure on the planet, the Burj Khalifa, will open in Dubai in January, standing 2,717 feet above the desert. Designed by Adrian Smith, the tower is the centerpiece of a $20 billion development named Downtown Dubai, but it opens at an ominous time. The tower itself, known as the Burj Dubai, is re-named after Sheikh Khalifa al-Nahyan, the President of the United Arab Emirates, who gives it the economic bailout necessary to complete it. Dubai is plagued with financial problems, and in October, only 825 of the 900 apartments are rented, overlooking a city where cranes hang motionless across the sky.

Meanwhile, a few months later in China, the new tallest tower in the world officially opens in Guangzhou, Guangdong. Designed by Information Based Architecture with Arup, the Canton Tower twists up 1,968.5 feet (beating out Toronto's CN Tower) into a hyperboloid (or double-ellipse) structure. An observation deck is planned for its rooftop. Meanwhile, Nanjing Greenland Financial Center and the International Commerce Centre in Hong Kong are also completed this year, meaning China secures the titles of the second and third tallest buildings in the world.

After years of speculation about the future of the Santiago Calatrava-designed Chicago Spire, which would rise 2,000 feet over Chicago's waterfront, a foreclosure suit threatens to end construction for good. If ever completed, it would be the tallest building in the United States, topping the neighboring Willis—formerly Sears—Tower in Chicago. But since 2008, the construction site (literally a huge hole in the ground) has been abandoned, symbolic of the nation's waning power in the skyscraper race.

It officially opened in late 2009, but 2010 sees the completion of the final phase of CityCenter in Las Vegas, a spiky, fantastical, starchitect-studded collaboration featuring hundreds of A-listers like Daniel Libeskind and Cesar Pelli. The $8.5 billion project is the largest privately funded development in U.S. history, and one of the largest LEED-certified projects in the world. Yet reviews slam the development for its faux-urban nature, and suffering Vegas hotels blame its 6,000 new rooms for glutting the market. In November, Norman Foster’s troubled and still uncompleted tower, the Harmon, is slated for demolition. Um, what does that do to the LEED ratings of the other buildings?

At the Shanghai World Expo this year, plenty of architects had a chance to flex their muscles while designing the various national pavilions. While the U.S. architecture was a dismal failure, there were otherstandouts from countries like Denmark, who featured a working bike track, equipped with bikes, that wound through the Bjarke Ingels-designed sculpture. But nothing tops Thomas Heatherwick's Seed Cathedral for the United Kingdom, a stunning tribute to biodiversity. More than 60,000 fiberoptic rods showcase specimens from Kew Gardens' Millennium Seedbank, which will hold 25 percent of the world’s plant species by 2020. Which makes it even more fitting that it was nicknamed "The Dandelion."

In October, official renderings are revealed for Park51, an Islamic community center that plans to occupy the site of a former Burlington Coat Factory in Lower Manhattan. Instead of the design by SOMA Architects, the media focuses on the fact that it's three blocks away from where the 9/11 attacks took place, inaccurately dubbing it the “Ground Zero mosque” (even though it's not a mosque, and there are already other mosques in the area). Although there's no explicit commentary about what the design means, the exteriors seem to evoke an Islamic star pattern while flooding the interiors with daylight.

Also in October, a family of five finally moves into what's widely regarded to be the first billion-dollar house, a private, 27-story tower in Mumbai that's built for India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani. Designed by Perkins+Will, the "house" has a health club with a gym and dance studio, swimming pools, a 50-seat cinema, three helicopter pads, a garage for 160 vehicles on the ground floors, and 600 full-time staffers to maintain the house, which is widely regarded to be the most expensive permanent residence in the world.

In December, after perhaps the most ambitious World Cup proposal in history, the tiny Middle Eastern country of Qatar wins its bid to host the 2022 games. Its radical plan to host millions of soccer fans in 130-degree heat include building 12 stadiums that will later be disassembled into 22 new stadiums for neighboring countries, and mysterious solar-powered air conditioners that will keep even open-air stadiums cool. Well, at least they’ve got 12 years to figure it out.

Via: GOOD

The Soccer Stadium to End All Soccer Stadiums

The recent announcement that the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar will host the 2022 World Cup has caused this tiny Arab country to become an architect's wet dream, as dozens of fantastical designs for the World Cup stadium seem to push the limits of the imagination.

One of the main concerns surrounding the logistics of the World Cup was how this country of 115-degree temperatures would accommodate hundreds of thousands of soccer fans.

According to GOOD, "all of the stadiums will utilize the region's solar energy through solar panels which will help keep temperatures cool. Energy will also be collected from the 12 stadiums when they're not in use, and will be stored for later use." The ultimate goal is to make the 2022 World Cup completely carbon-neutral, piggybacking on efforts to make the 2012 London Olympics the "greenest games ever". This is no easy feat given the lack of water, transportation, and energy infrastructure in Qatar in place to handle crowds large enough to fill multiple stadiums.

Here's a look at each of the designs and some of their unique features:

Qatar plans to host the opening and closing matches for the 2022 World Cup in the Lusail Iconic Stadium (in the city of Lusail), which boasts a seating capacity of 86, 250.

Doha Port Stadium will be on an artificial peninsula in the Gulf and will have water running over its outer surface, aiding in the cooling process. 

Al-Gharafa Stadium is one of three stadiums set for remodeling in Qatar. Colorful ribbons will decorate the outer walls, symbolizing the various nations to qualify for the 2022 World Cup Games.

With its flexible roof and seashell shape, Al-Khor Stadium will offer spectators a wonderful view of the Gulf—right from their seats.

Umm Slal Stadium's design is a modern interpretation of traditional Arab forts.

Located in one of Qatar's oldest cities, Al-Wakrah Stadium takes inspiration from the city's local heritage in fishing and pearl diving.

The Al-Shamal Stadium is modeled after a "dhow" fishing boat commonly used in the Gulf.

 Al-Rayyan Stadium is one of Qatar's current stadiums and features a "media membrane" on the outside walls where updates and news on current matches are projected.

Inspired from traditional Arab tents, Sports City Stadium has plenty of retractable seating, making it ideal for future sporting events and concerts.

The Qatar University Stadium will feature a facade with traditional Arabic geometric patterns. After the World Cup games, the stadium's seating capacity will be downsized for use by university student athletes.

Via: GOOD

Who lives in the pyramid at the Top of the Smith Tower? These lucky bitches...

When I was a freshman at UW, I was looking for a part-time job. I came this close to landing a job working as an elevator operator and tour guide for the Smith Tower, the iconic 1914 skyscraper where this incredibly lucky family lives in the pyramid at the very top.

This has to be one of the most sought-after, out-of-this-world penthouse apartments in the entire city of Seattle. It's like being a 21st century pharaoh in your very own terra-cotta pyramid.

According to the NYTimes article linked above, one of the residents is an energy and recycling executive, and his wife is childhood friends with Dale Chihuly. It's good to have a dream, right? Especially one that involves having a giant glass ball in your attic and living at the top of a 35-story urban legend.

Via: NYTimes