Alissa Walker

The AIA Finally Gave A Medal To A Female Architect. She Died In 1957.

How is this possible? The American Institute of Architects, the largest and most influential architecture organization in the country, had never, ever awarded a Gold Medal—its highest honor, which it has been bestowing upon architects since 1907—to a woman. Until now. I only really have one question here. What took so long? The woman in…

Christmas Tree Lane Hosts The Oldest Holiday Display In The World

They’re perfectly conical, with long draping boughs and a citrusy fragrance: Your search for the perfect Christmas tree ends here. Unfortunately, you can’t chop down any of the 132 historically protected cedars that line a street outside of Los Angeles called Christmas Tree Lane. The Cedrus deodara, a native to the Himalayas commonly known as…

Have a Blast Preparing for the End Times in This Luxurious Compound

At first, this 4,000 square-foot cabin in Colorado seems like nothing more than a gorgeous high-elevation getaway. But then you start to notice a few things—signs that this place is for more than just maxing and relaxing. The helicopter pad. The UV cannons. This is some serious prepper porn. Located on a little over two…

San Francisco’s tech companies are bringing it down, L.A.’s having trouble growing up, plus sexy cabbies, vertical cemeteries, Bloomberg’s next act, and much, much more in this week’s Urban Reads. Michael Bloomberg is starting an urban think tank and taking most of his City Hall team with him [New York Times] The 60-year-old theory that…

What Should Miami Do With Its Graffiti-Covered Marine Stadium?

If you follow anyone who was down in Miami for the art fairs earlier this month, you might have seen their photographs of the Miami Marine Stadium, a decaying, dilapidated oceanfront venue for powerboat racing that turns 50 years old next week. Condemned in 1992 after Hurricane Andrew, it’s since been plagued by vandalism and…

Parrots, Cats, Roaches, and Ants: What’s Ruining Our Cities This Week

Feisty parrots, alien cockroaches, crazy ants, and cats bearing frankincense and myrrh. It’s an all-animal edition of What’s Ruining Our Cities! Parrots are ruining the electrical grid in Southern California Wild parrots—actually former pets that have since escaped and flourished—can be found throughout Southern California. Mostly they just chill in palm trees, where they squawk…

Not-So-Pedestrian Gifts for Urban Walkers

Hey, using your feet is cool again! Chances are, you know someone in your life who walks to stay healthy, to explore their city, or simply to commune with their neighborhood. Whether they’re commuting on foot, illegally accessing abandoned infrastructure, or simply enjoying a Sunday stroll, here are some gift ideas for the walkers in…

Make your own at Woofmaker. Thanks @annfriedman!

Rock Piles, Graves, and Ice Caves Are Historic Monuments in Antarctica

On these frigid days, it helps to think about a place like Antarctica, which was recently determined to be without a doubt the coldest place on Earth (as if anyone was really surprised?). But it’s also home to unique historic monuments befitting the treacherous environment that include 100-year-old huts, industrial tractors, and even one nuclear…

Tall Is Good: How a Lack of Building Up Is Keeping Our Cities Down

Early in Spike Jonze’s film Her, Joaquin Phoenix’s character gazes out his Los Angeles window. As the camera pans, we see not a squat, sprawling metropolis, but a golden-lit landscape of skyscrapers stretching all the way to the horizon. When I saw the film, this scene made me gasp. It wasn’t just the shock of…

Buy This Cabin—And Get Its Secret Treasure Tunnels Free

This one bedroom, one bath cabin in the hills above Malibu is nothing fancy: It was built in the 1940s, it’s serviced by dirt roads, and it needs “major remodeling.” In fact, you have to get all the way into the second paragraph of the listing to see the cabin’s biggest selling point: The cabin…

Miami’s starchitect magnet, “Super Zips” for the rich, the real story behind our city-dwelling squirrels, and why Americans are driving less. Plus, a chilling portrait of homelessness in gentrified New York City—all in today’s urban reads. Once an urban punchline, Miami has become a hotbed for luxury, culture and dozens of starchitect-helmed projects dotting the…

Smog, Suburbs and Stereotypes: What’s Ruining Our Cities This Week

Choking pollution sweeps through China, new development could eradicate Mexico’s emerging wine industry, and Yahoo can tell you everything that’s wrong with where you live (congratulations, Memphis, you’re apparently a hellhole). All this and more is What’s Ruining Our Cities. Smog is ruining Shanghai I know, a smog alert in China is nothing new. However,…

Should Queens Tear Down the 1964 World’s Fair Pavilion?

Last month, officials in New York determined that it would cost $53 million to fix and restore the New York State Pavilion, the series of hulking space-age structures built in Flushing Meadows Corona Park during the 1964-65 World’s Fair. Should these deteriorating ruins be preserved? In our series Preservation Battle, we look at significant buildings…

A Gift Guide for the Transit-Obsessed

This one’s for the people who give you more reliable subway directions than HopStop, who can describe to you, in detail, the metro map in any given city, and who want to ride the bus “just because.” These transportation-themed gifts will fare well for any and all overzealous public transit enthusiasts in your life. Just…

L.A. Saves Southern California’s Best-Preserved Googie Diner

The Los Angeles City Council ruled last week to give landmark status to Johnie’s Coffee Shop, a blue-and-white striped diner in the city’s Miracle Mile district. Opened in 1956, the building’s dramatic angles and flashy neon made it a darling of L.A.’s newly car-centered culture. Romeo’s Times Square by Armet & Davis, 1955. Pencil on…

Find Inner Peace In Your Own Private Meditation Cavern

Yoga studios are nice, but what about the pretentious people and their greasy mats—not to mention all the see-through pants and all the farts? What you really need is your own private meditation cavern in the New Mexico desert. In fact, maybe you need two! Well, lucky you. Conveniently located between Santa Fe and Taos,…

How Two Guys Figured Out The Number of Pools in Los Angeles

Anyone who’s flown into Los Angeles can see them: the tiny, irregular-shaped turquoise gems that dot the residential landscape. It’s incredible, really, how visible L.A.’s backyard pools are from the sky. You might have even found yourself counting them as you began your descent into LAX. As researchers at MIT’s Senseable City Lab, Benedikt Groß…

Driving is slowly killing us, a freeway expansion uncovers geological treasures, Londoners protest the city’s poor cycling conditions, what dive bar bathrooms can tell us about our neighborhood, and a quick look at San Francisco’s real underground (not BART). All in this week’s urban reads. Can inner-city farms, pocket parks, and urban orchards really save…

Boing 474: The Chinese Are Now Knocking Off Our Airplanes

Chinese manufacturers are experts at knocking off just about anything, from “Rat Ban” sunglasses and “Wee” gaming consoles to, yes, “HiPhones.” But now it looks like they’re very close to copying another American export: They’re bootlegging our Boeing 747s. Copying our planes is actually nothing new for the Chinese aerospace industry. This has been going…