Last year, Greater Manchester’s economy outgrew that of inner-city London. Further devolution of powers from Whitehall are about to be realised, and the campaign for the title of first elected mayor of Greater Manchester has picked up pace.

However, Manchester is also about to contend with the capital in other ways. A major housing crisis lurks, and a growing deficit of office space needs to be dealt with. To make amends, Manchester’s skyline is heading for dramatic change. — theguardian.com

An approach called Projective Preservation brings speculation about the future into a dialectical relationship with preservation of a city’s historic and pre-existing environments. Historic architecture, sites and cities can and should be preserved, but they must also be open to reinterpretation and adaptation to meet the needs of present and future generations. — Strelka Magazine

The villas are naked concrete, baked in the sun like unpainted pottery. The swimming pool is a trough with light fixtures poking from the sides. There are no guests, many stray dogs, and one-full time member of staff—a watchman who spends much of his time tending a fruit orchard where mangoes, oranges and lemons grow.

If this were an isolated case, it would be mere misfortune. But the Seagull is just one ruin among dozens that line some 200 km of road on the southeastern Sinai coast. — Quartz

At 93 years of age, Friedman is the oldest architect in the group. He took the opportunity to further explain the thinking that has propelled his life’s work, and the origin story behind the structure.

The Summer House, Friedman explained, “was improvised from small models that I was putting together and it was reproduced. And for me the most important [thing was] that anyone could make this, and I made this experiment and it was built by children.” — Archinect

Hackers may be pickin’ up good vibrations from your phone. All the better to surveil you with, my dear.

Researchers at the Electrical and Computer Engineering school of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign discovered that the vibration motor in your devices can operate like a microphone, according to the researchers’ paper. That means, if a hacker rewires your vibration motor (which TechCrunch reported could be executed “in a minute or two”), they can listen to what you’re saying. — Medium

By living above 800 feet, Estis and Enkin are two members of an unexpectedly exclusive group in Manhattan. In my estimation, no more than 40 people currently live above that line, scattered among just three buildings...

As my elevator descended and my ears popped, it occurred to me that I would almost certainly never take in such a view again. And in fact, maybe nobody will, if these apartments wind up becoming empty investments. — The New York Times

Canada's University of Calgary paid almost $16,000 ($20,000 Canadian, ~£10,800) to recover crucial data that has been held hostage for more than a week by crypto ransomware attackers.

The ransom was disclosed on Wednesday morning in a statement issued by University of Calgary officials. It said university IT personnel had made progress in isolating the unnamed ransomware infection and restoring affected parts of the university network. — Ars Technica

A large fire has broken out at a convention centre in the western German city of Duesseldorf.

The centre acts as an accommodation hub for refugees waiting to be sent elsewhere in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Everyone inside hall 18, where 180 refugees were staying, was brought to safety, according to reports.

As the fire raged, a thick, black plume of smoke could be seen across Duesseldorf. — BBC

Surveys have revealed that 93% of the almost 3,000 individual reefs have been touched by bleaching, and almost a quarter – 22% – of coral over the entire Great Barrier Reef has been killed by this bleaching event...

Since tourists usually go diving and snorkelling in the middle and southern sections, there are plenty of spectacular corals for them to see there. But they shouldn’t be fooled by that – the reef is in the midst of a major environmental catastrophe. — the Guardian

By and large, elite architects have disengaged from efforts to make the most fundamental unit of architecture available to all. [...]

Contra Hadid and others, a truly revolutionary architecture would concern itself with how to provide permanent, quality housing for the nearly one billion people currently living in slums, how to create accessible housing for the millions more adversely affected by a global affordability crisis in urban areas. — jacobinmag.com

Mr. Greenberg expects its future clients' new offices can expect similar results. In R/GA's first five months in its more "connected space" employee retention is up 5%. The ultimate goal and "magic number" will likely be akin to the higher retention rates of tech companies, like Google and Facebook. Those companies are growing in cities like New York and forcing agencies like R/GA to offer more desirable workspaces if they want to keep their talent, explained Mr. Greenberg. — AdAge

The scheme was designed by EMA Architecture + Design, a local practice specialising in commercial mixed-use masterplans and residential development.

The first phase will be followed by subsequent ones over 20 years, resulting in a £1bn ($1.4bn) “Garden District”. As well as the homes, there will be a school, shopping centre, sports facilities and parks.

A quarter of all the homes will be affordable housing, with the remainder split between private homes and apartments. — globalconstructionreview.com

The Turkish word for Gated Community is site, from the French cité, and they generally resemble the French highrises of the same name, rather than American tract housing. Towers and slabs stand shoulder to shoulder, dancing in a circle around the gardens they surround. — failed architecture