Inside the design of New York City's upcoming borough-based jails

New York City plans to relocate inmates from Rikers Island into four jails built from the ground up in Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx. Here, Dezeen looks at the architecture of each project.

Begun in 2017, the NYC Borough-Based Jail Program (BBJ) is largely overseen by the New York City Department of Design and Construction (DDC), which is working with a variety of architecture studios on each jail, including HOK, Cetra Ruddy and Michael Graves.

With the recent groundbreaking of the Manhattan jail, construction of all four borough-based jails has begun, while the city simultaneously makes steps towards closing the Rikers Island...

Lush Mixed-Media Collages by Clotilde Jiménez Piece Together an Artist’s Lineage

Through vivid collages layering fragments of paper and fiber, Clotilde Jiménez echoes his own mélange of experiences and histories. The Mexico City-based artist was born in Honolulu to a Puerto Rican mother and African-American father, and he grew up in Philadelphia, before attending university in Cleveland and London. Both his heritage and ties to different cities around the globe nest together in his work, which draws references from the cultural and political contexts of each locale.

Using magazine clippings, Mexican craft paper, fabrics, and other pliable materials, Jiménez fashions dense portraits of his family alongside archetypal depictions of Blackness...

Industrial Designer Alberto Essesi's Pen for Precision Sketching

This beautiful Exclamation Pen is by industrial designer Alberto Essesi. Both the pen and the rest are made of aluminum with a satin finish.

With the pieces paired, it's easy to see where the name came from.

The point is severely tapered, with sketching in mind; Essesi seeks to provide a clear view of the tip, allowing for precision linework. This is a tool by an industrial designer, for industrial designers.

Essesi self-produces the pen, and has trouble keeping it in stock; the first three batches sold out. Now he's thinking of doing a run...

The Celluveyor: A Next-Generation Omnidirectional Modular Conveyor Belt

Factories, warehouses and distribution centers all use conveyor belts. These are great for moving objects along a single route. However, should you need to turn, sort, descramble, separate or space the objects, additional machinery is required: Diverters, rotators, alignment stations and the like. All of these bring added cost, additional space requirements and of course, installation time.

German company Cellumation has invented a system that does away with all of these extras. Their Celluveyor consists of a hexagonal module containing three omnidirectional wheels, and motors inside.

These modules are built into a line, honeycomb-style.

Core77

Posted at 2026-09-21 14:00:00 | Art_and_design | read on

Classical Musicians Interpret Astronauts’ Footage of the Planet for Earth Music Theater

https://player.vimeo.com/video/1221939198?dnt=1

On the International Space Station (ISS), a module known as the Cupola allows astronauts to float into a small, window-filled viewing area. It’s used for observing high-tech exercises, spacewalks, and incoming vehicles, but it’s also a spectacular place to view what’s right outside: Earth.

Astronauts often take thousands of photos and videos of what they see from their lofty vantage point, and the Association of Space Explorers (ASE)—the professional association of astronauts who have flown on a mission, representing 43 countries—archives the footage for educational use. So far, the collection consists of more than seven million photos and movies. What...

LILAC / BUREAU

The starting point is two ‘family’ apartments: the first home owned by each of the two “brothers.sisters”, Lilac & Blue. 

KAIST Develops a Way to Detect Hidden Cameras Using Your Smartphone

As a society, we've accepted that security cameras are everywhere in public. But inside hotel rooms or AirBNBs, we still have an expectation of privacy. In 2024, there were some 75 lawsuits against AirBNB filed by guests who discovered they had been secretly recorded by their hosts. The platform subsequently banned hidden cameras, but detection and enforcement remain tricky. 

Researchers at KAIST (the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, something like South Korea's MIT) have developed an inexpensive way to detect hidden cameras using your smartphone. The researchers built an LED rig (reportedly costing $7 in parts) called...

Kaohsiung Port Terminal / RUR Architecture DPC

The Kaohsiung Port Terminal project seizes the opportunity to seamlessly blend the uses of a cruise-ship terminal, office tower and public space into a polyfunctional work of civic infrastructure that celebrates the critical threshold between city and sea.

SIITUA III | International Seminar on Research in Territory, Urbanism, and Architecture

3rd International Seminar on Territory, Urbanism, and Architecture Research – SIITUA III

Ricardo Palma University and U.Llaqta Research Journal present the 3rd International Seminar on Territory, Urbanism, and Architecture Research (SIITUA III), an academic gathering that will bring together researchers, educators, and professionals from Peru, Colombia, Spain, Mexico, Bolivia, Chile, and Luxembourg to share research and reflections on architecture, urbanism, territory, and the environment.

RX Architects expands Sussex home with extension "immersed in the garden"

UK studio RX Architects has returned to a house it previously completed in Sussex to add an extension, designed to blend in with the existing timber-clad form.

The original home, named Druim, was completed in 2020 on the Rye Nature Reserve in East Sussex. The project involved altering a half-built structure that had been sold with the site.

While the original project focused on views of the nature reserve and sea, RX Architects looked to improve the home's connection to the more private rear garden with the Druim Extension.

"The main opportunity was...