Young Architects Boston Group, a collaborative of Boston-based firms each 6 years young or less, has installed a prototype green wall in preparation for Boston's AIA national convention this week. Go

The last day of the Gravity Free conference has been a busy one for Archinect correspondent Emily Kemper. Follow her detailed updates on speakers Karim Rashid, Tom Hennes, Arturo Vittori, Philip Tiongson, and Karin Fong; live card-stacking by world champion Bryan Berg; and lots of photos. Have a safe flight back to LA Emily, and thanks for keeping us all updated!

Axiotron has decided to take on the responsibility of building a Tablet Mac, since Apple hasn't shown much interest yet. The results are quite nice - tough case, super sensitive pen interface, built in GPS, and all the features that you would expect in a regular Mac laptop (except the keyboard). Axiotron Modbook

Peter Eisenman set out his thoughts on architecture at RIAS 2008

1. Architecture in a media culture
2. Students have become passive
3. Computers make design standards poorer
4. Today’s buildings lack meaning or reference
5. We are in a period of late style
6. To be an architect is a social act

BDonline + full entry...

Japanese architects are schooled in working with small spaces. The manipulation of light and space makes the Penguin House in Tokyo seem much larger. Video » NatGeo

The executive director says, "the women only hotel is a part of global trend." CSM

Richard Sennett examines (similar to John Ruskin and William Morris before him) the role of craft in the past and present and draws out the distinct ethics within “doing something well for its own sake” in his new book The Craftsman. time4time

When will it stop? kontrast | la eyeworks

Following yesterday's breaking news, and the recent update from MADianito, Roemer, from TU Delft's faculty, sends us his updates and photographs (view them in the gallery)...

The faculty of Architecture of the technical University of Delft in the Netherlands with more than 3000 students has burned down yesterday the 13th of May. The architect was Jaap Bakema who built it in the seventies. It started with a small fire (of a coffeemachine on the 4th floor) after a waterflood in the building. All people were safed but the building is ruined. This thursday an exhibition with many models produced and collected over many years by the faculty would open (with models of projects by Rietveld, Le Corbusier, Melnikov, Duiker, Van Eyck, Adolf Loos, Eames and many many others, including the famous collection of many original chairs by Le Corbusier, Rietveld, Gispen. Luckily 80 models and 200 chairs have been saved from the lower parts of the building. Most likely the collection of the Architecture Library (more than 400.000 books and magazines - on of the best of Europe - will be safed too. Although the water and smoke damage must be disastrous.

Vatican- Because aliens would still be God's creatures, ruling out the existence of aliens would be like "putting limits" on God's creative freedom. + full entry...

As Jasper mentioned already, some of the biggest losses of TU Delft fire was the collection of modernist chairs and priceless documents lost in the flames, among others Breuer and Rietveld Chairs, and a collection of models and original sketches from Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier who were about to be exhibited next thursday

_Read more here (in spanish)

The subprime mortgage crisis hasn't bruised one chunk of the real-estate market: top vintage modern houses. This week, two midcentury classics hit the auction block. The stunning Kaufmann House in Palm Springs, Calif., designed by Richard Neutra in 1946 and the more modest 1960 Esherick House—one of the few private residences designed by the influential Louis Kahn.

Preservationists lose sleep when great modern houses go on the market. Many Neutra houses, for example, have been radically altered or even bulldozed after they were sold.

Newsweek

When the British architect Norman Foster first presented his proposal to erect a 30-story glass tower atop the existing building, many neighborhood residents were outraged. “A glass dagger plunged into the heart of the Upper East Side,” one said. The project’s developer sent Mr. Foster back to the drawing board, and he has returned with a plan, one that both hope will be more palatable to neighborhood preservationists. NYT | previously

Herzog & de Meuron have been selected to design the Kolkata Museum of Modern Art.