Over at the Los Angeles Times, Christopher Hawthorne eloquently pans the new addition to the 405 freeway, noting that "The expanded 405 might be the first L.A. freeway project to look haggard and disjointed the day it opened." His review comes at a time when infrastructure, especially in California, is starting to (violently) show signs of its age: last year, the University of California Los Angeles briefly flooded thanks to an aged water main breaking, and in July a freak thunderstorm collapsed a portion of interstate 10. Hawthorne's displeasure is focused primarily on the 405's haphazard design to please multiple neighborhoods, its tacky soil-nail construction retaining walls ("This technique is something like the comb-over of freeway design"), and its simple underwhelming-ness as a public works project.

Meanwhile, James S. Russell's thoughtful examination of Thomas Heatherwick in the New York Times delves into one of the perennially feisty debates of the architectural realm: just what is public space, and how should it be shaped and funded? Hulk-like developer The Related Company has tapped Heatherwick to design the Hudson Yards, a project which will affect the public realm, yet will not be open for public review. Should potentially iconic projects like this be held to greater public oversight? For his part, Heatherwick, whose creative approach has injected fun and some impressive feats of engineering into everything from rotating furniture to unfurling bridges, spoke to Archinect in depth when he came through Los Angeles to give a talk at The Hammer Museum earlier this year.

Got a piece of criticism you think should have made the round-up? Let us know in the comments.