The fires raging in Los Angeles County and Ventura are an urgent signal that we need to start asking the hard questions — about the true cost of expanding the local tax base with new residences in high fire hazard zones. We need to stop having the same conversation over and over again, a conversation laced with non-sequiturs and focused on outdated, ineffective solutions. — latimes.com

Architecture, like contemporary art in the 1990s and legal theory a decade before, faces a critical moment in theory and practice. What do black citizens of major U.S. cities and global cities have to look forward to in the coming century in terms of urban conditions and their agency in determining how these conditions change and transform? What does an approach to cities that takes into account black agency, social codes and aesthetics have to offer to city-making as such? — CNN

Can you tell the difference between a Brakdak and an Afdak, a Sekwere or a Caka? Do you know your Domba hut from your Zulu one? An Inqolobane from an Indlu yezikhali?

Give yourself a pat on the back if you do. Truly, you deserve it. However, don't worry too much if you can't, as there's a new English-isiZulu architectural dictionary, just published by UKZN Press, which contains more than 1200 entries of local architectural terms. — HuffPost

Architects know best, as they often claim. With conviction, they’re sure certain details will make a space more hospitable, more beautiful, more preferable, and more enjoyable...But an emerging field of research is now uncovering and quantifying our psychological response to buildings: cognitive architecture. The hope is that by better understanding through science what exactly it is people like or dislike about our built environment, designers can truly improve it. — Fast Co Design

Since 2008, Solidia Technologies [...] has been quietly developing a new cement-making process that produces up to 70% fewer CO2 emissions at a cost that DeCristofaro claims is on par with or better than conventional cement.

Solidia, which was formed in a bid to commercialize ideas developed at Rutgers University in New Jersey, is not the first company to attempt to make environmentally friendly cement. But industry experts say it’s the most promising yet. — Quartz

Mayor de Blasio’s recent pledge to close the Rikers Island jail complex within ten years was met with celebration by many — and skepticism by others. After 85 years in the public imagination, it has become hard to believe that the East River behemoth could ever really be slain. But the reality of a post-Rikers future is coming into focus [...]. Rikers is toxic, and its era is done. A change is on the wind, it seems, and the island’s aura of inevitability is finally dispersing. — Urban Omnibus

China’s State Council announced that “weird architecture that is not economical, functional, aesthetically pleasing or environmentally friendly will be forbidden.” Many architects and members of the public understood the frustration and bewilderment, even if they questioned the subjective nature of the official instruction. — The Economist

[...] hostile architecture -- a controversial type of urban design aimed at preventing people from using public spaces in undesirable ways. [...]

CNN invited architect James Furzer, whose designs try to combat hostile architecture, to debate this issue with Dean Harvey, co-founder of the Factory Furniture: a company that produces many of the offending benches. — CNN

Out of the 208 households that needed rehousing after the fire, 118 will still be in emergency accommodation or with friends over the holiday period, including 29 families with children. A further 48 households have accepted permanent housing offers, but have not yet moved in and are currently still in temporary homes, [support group] Grenfell United said. Days after the fire the prime minister, Theresa May, promised that families would be rehoused within three weeks. — The Guardian

The Hill House in Helensburgh was built as "a home for the future" by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 1902. But the experimental building material used has allowed water to soak into the building. Now, the National Trust for Scotland will surround the house with a protective "shield" in the form of a "giant cage" while it comes up with ways to restore it. The trust plans to build the huge see-through structure [...] over the top of the landmark to protect the building from the elements. — bbc.com

How do you raise the standard of living in the poorest neighborhoods in the country?

That’s what community developers, typically nonprofits that build and finance affordable housing, have tried to do over the last few decades. And yet [...] many of these communities remain stuck in poverty. [...]

This problem has stumped community developers for decades. But two local nonprofits think they’ve hit on something: They’ve created a private equity fund. — marketplace.org

Last month, London mayor Sadiq Khan, joined by a trio of Google executives, broke ground on the site of Google’s new campus in the city’s King’s Cross district. [...]

The property has been dubbed a “landscraper,” a building as long and as horizontal as skyscrapers are tall and vertical, and it could represent a shift in the very shape of the places where people work.

Google’s London flagship will be 1,082 feet long, which is 66 feet longer than The Shard, London’s tallest building, is high. — Quartz at Work