Thomas Mayne's Morphosis Architects, SOM, KPF and Richard Meier & Partners are among nine firms on the all-American shortlist to design Britain’s £275 million new US embassy. BD | previously | related

Oliver Lincoln Lundquist was a truly multi-disciplinary designer. As an architect he worked with Eero Saarinen before starting his own firm Lundquist & Stonehill in New York. He worked directly under industrial design master Raymond Loewy, and also played the role of graphic artist as the designer of the United Nations logo. NYT

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A British museum is looking to spark the creation of an interesting art installation by calling for an artist to live isolated in its tower next summer. The Manchester Museum, opened in the 1880s on the University of Manchester campus, has issued a posting seeking a new resident artist. CBC

BBC's guest editor, Zaha Hadid, invites Peter Cook to discuss the work of Archigram. Check it out

Banks aren't lending. Projects are shelved. And the normally secretive government has had to acknowledge it has one of the highest levels of per-capita debt in the world -- and not enough oil to pay for it. CBS News

This exhibition coming to the Canadian Centre for Architecture looks amazing. It features 99 actions that instigate positive change in contemporary cities around the world including seemingly common activities such as walking, playing, recycling, and gardening. Explore the interactive website and submit your own ideas
here or discuss.

...But even interior architects/designers need to be careful about the weight and connections of interior finishes.

Patrons at a new Boston restaurant were injured when wood panels fell on them.

News
Point and counterpoint? Is sustainability the newest fad or is it really the new degree zero? How about post-occupancy or pre-occupancy weatherization?

Urban cannibalization?

Continued after the jump.... + full entry...

The Dadameter is a tool for the profiling of language at large scale and the historical tracking of artistic and literary movements. It brings about a new alliance between art, science and global finance. Explore

When it is gone, one of the world’s most extreme national makeovers will be complete. NYT

NYTimes looks at how design is affected by an economic downturn.

To reflect on the prehistory of sustainability is not to find ‘precedents’ of practices that give us tips for the present. Rather these reflections aim to mobilize critical perspectives on the shifting definitions of the term and on the practices that are advanced in its name so as to guard against absolutes. Can architects have partnerships with techno-scientific fields without subsuming design to managerialism and anti-intellectual postures? Can ecological problems be debated in architectural circles without resorting to eco-determinism? Can architects embrace an ethical imperative without resorting to moralistic prescriptions or grand meta-narratives?
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Some Christians worry that such activism distracts believers from their mission to literally follow and spread the word of God. Arizona Republic