The project calls for anyone to photograph examples of hostile architecture — from spikes on windows to bars on benches — and share the images on Instagram.
Urban Design
Posted inArt
An Interactive Map of New York’s Earliest Skyscrapers
The Skyscraper Museum’s “Ten & Taller: 1874-1900” exhibition maps the first Manhattan buildings to soar beyond 10 stories.
Posted inBooks
Architectural Histories of New Yorks that Never Were
From a Dodger Stadium by Buckminster Fuller to an Ellis Island by Frank Lloyd Wright, a new book gathers hundreds of alternate realities proposed for New York City.
Posted inArt
Be a Better Robert Moses in Games that Deconstruct His Legacy
A competition challenged developers to reinterpret a biography of the “master builder” as interactive experiences.
Posted inBooks
Retracing a Lifetime of Urban Activism Through Jane Jacob’s Last Interview
“The kind of planning for a city that would really work would be a sort of informed, intelligent improvisation, which is what most of our planning in life is in any case,” said Jane Jacobs in a 1962 interview with Mademoiselle, conducted just after the 1961 publication of her influential The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
Posted inBooks
How the Bulldozer Smoothed Postwar America into a Blank Slate
Demolition and construction following World War II radically altered the landscape of the United States, and one machine in particular allowed for such a dramatic overhaul.
Posted inArt
Designing Less Dangerous Architecture for New York’s Birds
The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on the west side of Manhattan was once among New York City’s top three bird-killing buildings.
Posted inArt
The Homes, Parks, and Towns that Shaped the United States’ Built Environment
The built environment of the United State was constructed on grand ideas, including parks that inspired morality, towns designed to curb strikes, and homes that offered everyone their own slice of the land.
Posted inArt
Bringing New York City’s Underpasses Out of the Shadows and into Public Space
Over 700 miles of underdeveloped space are in the shadows of New York City’s elevated highways and rails.
Posted inArt
Recording the Fading Local Typography of Our Cities
One of the most overlooked design casualties of global homogenization is regional lettering.
Posted inIn Brief
Archaeologist Discovers Ancient Mayan City Built on a Grid
If you’ve ever found yourself lost in Manhattan, you know that city grids are a beautiful thing.
Posted inNews
Boston Unveils Finalists in Competition to Retrofit City for Rising Waters
Following on the heels of New York, London, and many other urban centers, Boston is the latest city to envision how best to manage the certainty of rising water levels due to global warming.