Though indebted to conventional artistic methodologies, the vibrant, playful works of Jorge Prado lack traditional notions of artistic autonomy, with multiple uses straddling sculpture, furniture and architecture. Over espresso and a cigarette in the kitchen of his Los Angeles home, Pardo shares with Oscar Tuazon his processes of transforming built environments into functionally fluid sites designed to facilitate a diversity of experience. — youtube.com

Last week, Broad Group announced it has received approval from the Chinese government and will break ground on the project next month, though according to Quartz's Lily Kuo, Broad Sustainable Building has pushed the building's schedule to a more modest seven months. — theatlanticcities.com

Jeffrey Johnson, an architect who runs the China Megacities Lab at Columbia, is among a number of scholars who study China's rapid urbanization. He says local governments are building museums to create a cultural life and competitive identity for their cities.

But China lost a lot of art because of its civil war in the 1940s, as well as the Cultural Revolution, looting and overseas sales. Johnson says many museums are going up faster than curators can fill them with works and audiences. — npr.org

Not every director studied the greats at film school. Joseph Kosinski spent more time with Wren than Welles. "I went to graduate school in New York to get a degree in architecture… but never got my licence." Instead Kosinski, 38, has applied his skills to virtual worlds such as "the Grid" -- the digital setting of Tron: Legacy. Now, in Oblivion, he gets to imagine Earth 60 years after an apocalyptic war. — wired.co.uk

Civil society has to get things done here - Kurt Dillon, architect, Urbio — New York Times

We’re already building the metropolis of the future—green, wired, even helpful. Now critics are starting to ask whether we’ll really want to live there. — bostonglobe.com

Unconscious perception represents the automated processes the body goes through to take in the surrounding environment and its metaphysical status. While our five senses help us perceive the physical world, unconscious perception connects us to the realm of intuition.

To shed light on how we are influenced by this dimension of our minds, artist Dan Graham spoke about his practice, which challenges our perceptions of space through performance, installations, video, sculpture, and writing. — bmwguggenheimlab.org

The 2013 global leaders in technology, design, media, music, movies, marketing, television, sports, and more. — fastcompany.com

Architecture for Humanity is working with local and regional construction professionals to begin assessments and support rebuilding work after an F-4 tornado ripped through the heart of Moore, OK and surrounding communities. — architectureforhumanity.org

Now Mr. Ai is answering the guards’ request in a different key. He is presenting them, and the world, with his first heavy-metal music video, one with detailed re-creations of scenes from his 81 days of detention. He also portrays fantasies he imagines flitting through the guards’ minds. Mr. Ai posted the video on a Web site, aiweiwei.com, on Wednesday morning, Beijing time. — nytimes.com

Reminiscent of a greenhouse or conservatory, the three intersecting biodomes replace an earlier plan for a six-story office building and would establish a visual focus and “heart” for the three-block project, according to plans filed with the city.

The spheres will offer “a plant-rich environment” filled with species from mountainous ecologies around the globe, chosen for their “ability to coexist in a microclimate that also suits people,” according to the plans. — seattletimes.com

The jury in the United States District Court in Houston found that Frontier committed copyright infringement by constructing and marketing nineteen houses that infringed Hewlett’s copyrighted designs. Frontier’s owner, Ronald Wayne Bopp, was also held personally liable for Frontier’s activities.

The amount of the judgment was based on the amount of profits Frontier earned from the sales of houses that infringed Hewlett’s copyrights. — yourhoustonnews.com

In his first solo exhibition in a New York museum since 1980, American artist James Turrell sets out to reimagine the iconic rotunda of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum in a dramatic transformation. The luminous and immersive site-specific work, Aten Reign, will be part of the upcoming exhibition James Turrell at NYC's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum which opens on June 21, 2013. — bustler.net

A lot of Chinese people look up to the West as an ideal, so the construction of these towns could be seen as a way of accelerating their progress; a quick way of achieving through emulation. — psmag.com