“It is amazing,” said Mr. Piano...“Looking back, I counted, and I said, ‘Is this true?’ ” — NYT

Eric Ho watches the boom on the Lower East Side...and sees...Detroit. Specifically...vacant storefronts — more than 200 of them in the area east of the Bowery and south of 14th Street.
How was it possible, he thought, that in a neighborhood where space was at such a premium, so much of it was sitting idle? ...an architect who once intended to design housing for disaster zones,, he thought: What could be done with them? — New York Times

Donghyun Kim, an architectural designer who graduated from Cornell University, recently won second place in the Residential category for RE-THINKING THE FUTURE's International Architectural Thesis Award. [...]

Kim's "Micro Housing" proposal is a response to New York City's changing demographics of shrinking housholds and also the lack of ground-level residential housing space. — bustler.net

Estimated costs for the European Central Bank's new headquarters in Frankfurt have more than doubled. As has been happening with so many major projects in Germany, its construction has been plagued by poor planning, oversight and execution -- and endless delays. — Der Spiegel

"Echoing Plateau" by Toshiki Hirano was one of twelve semi-finalist entries for the Waterfront Gateway Design competition to redevelop the waterfront and downtown communities in the historic City of New Rochelle in New York. Unfortunately, Hirano's team had to decline continuing in the competition when the team ran into issues finding a developer to work with after the first stage. — bustler.net

The Curry Stone Foundation has announced the winners of the 2013 Curry Stone Design Prize. Now in its sixth year, the annual prize celebrates humanitarian design and honors the influential work of socially engaged practitioners. — bustler.net

For those who do not believe travelers’ tales, there is the Chinese government’s own report, from 2010, concluding that home ownership rates in China were then nearly 90%. This compares with a world average of 63% and a U.S. average of 65%. — Forbes

The tiny Austrian village of Krumbach has commissioned international architecture firms to build avant-garde bus stops.

The "Bus:Stop" project was conceived by Krumbach's cultural association, which hired prominent Austrian architect Dietmar Steiner to act as curator. Though he counts major architects from around the world among his contacts, he chose to maintain a boutique feel: "No starchitects, just small offices with sculptural interest." — spiegel.de

Facebook is taking its friendship with Frank Gehry across the Atlantic, reportedly signing the Los Angeles architect to work on new office space in Dublin, Ireland, where the company already has a major presence. He will also design new office space for Facebook in London. — latimes.com

"The differences in unemployment rates, participation rates, and average earnings between whites, blacks, and Hispanics aren't just stark. They're also sturdy, rarely yielding over the last 40 years.

Whites account for about 81 percent of the workforce. But there are 33 occupations counted by the BLS (particularly those on farms, around heavy machines, in doctor's offices, and in C-suites) where whites officially account for nine in ten of all workers, or more. Here they are." — The Atlantic Online

If you're in the L.A. area and are already thinking of weekend plans, check out the "Glen Small: Recovery Room" exhibition which opens at Assembly this Saturday, Nov. 9 from 7 to 9 p.m. — bustler.net

The default recourse to data-fication, the presumption that all meaningful flows and activity can be sensed and measured, is taking us toward a future in which the people shaping our cities and their policies rarely have the opportunity to consider the nature of our stickiest urban problems and the kind of questions they raise. — Places Journal