Although aluminum siding is available that resembles wooden clapboards, the recently built or renovated homes with metal facades of Kings County, N.Y., tend to have a funky, artistic sensibility. The idea is not to mimic traditional construction, but to be proudly metallic. — NYT

The Associated Press reported that the person killed was a Wall Street worker sitting in a parked car. [...]

The accident happened as workers were trying to secure the crane against winds around 20 mph by lowering the boom, which had been extended to as long as 565 feet the day before, officials said. Because the crane was being lowered, workers were directing pedestrians away from it on a street that otherwise would likely have been teeming with people. — npr.org

During an excavation for a new office development at 21 Lime Street, a team from the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) found the millimeter-thin fresco nearly 20 feet below street level. Dating to the late 1st century AD, and the first decades of London, it’s one of the earliest surviving frescos from Roman Britain. [...]

The rare, ornate wall painting is likely to have decorated a reception room for party guests at the home of a wealthy Roman citizen. — hyperallergic.com

Architect Frank Gehry has been named the recipient of the 2016 Harvard Arts Medal, which will be awarded by Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust at a ceremony on Thursday, April 28. The ceremony, presented by the Office for the Arts at Harvard and the Board of Overseers of Harvard College, will include a discussion with Gehry moderated by actor John Lithgow, who is host of the event.

This marks the first time that the Harvard Arts Medal has been awarded to an architect. — gsd.harvard.edu

Houston's architects obviously do not read poetry.

None of the corporate buildings, apartments and hotels being built now seems like something we'll be proud of 20 years from now. Of course, that's assuming that those buildings even survive 20 years in a city that is characterized by destroying its architectural past. [...]

But maybe we citizens can influence the builders. We can tell them how ugly their buildings are. We can refuse to rent space in them. — houstonchronicle.com

[A former sanitation policy director for New York City, Ben] Miller is working with his partners at the planning firm Closed Loops, with funding from state grants, to bring pneumatic tubes to New York’s High Line.

Rather than rotting in landfills, carrot peels and apple cores from nearby restaurants could travel under the feet of unsuspecting tourists through pneumatic tubes hung below the elevated park. A small facility could turn them into compost right there in the neighborhood. — fusion.net

...the Nu [River is] the last remaining major watershed in China without a dam. For years, though, the local government has planned to build a series dams along the Nu, too. Entire villages have already been relocated to make way. If the dams are built, China’s last free-flowing river will turn into a series of cascading lakes. — Marketplace

...the pieces in [Wurm's] latest show, Lost, appear as thought your living-room furniture took a nightmarish turn for the worse.

Wurm modeled all of the objects in clay before distorting their form by stomping, smashing, or walking on them (the latter method can be seen clearly in the footprints on the torn-up chaise lounge). Wurm then cast the deformed pieces in bronze or polyester and painted [them]. — Fast Co Design

So 3D printing didn’t even have much of a chance before the railing began regarding fumes and toxicity and in general, the question of how sick we might be getting while the filament takes its time melting nearby...[A recent University of Texas at Austin] report seems to offer up fairly common sense information, although they do state that more studies should be done regarding exposure to fumes and potential carcinogens, and should be weighed against usage patterns while 3D printing. — 3dprint.com

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the city's major airlines have struck a deal to build the final runway envisioned in the city's multibillion-dollar modernization of O'Hare International Airport, but new gates that experts agree are key to significant reductions in long-standing flight delays are not part of the pact.

The agreement, which the mayor formally announced Saturday, calls for spending $1.3 billion to build a sixth east-west runway at the airfield’s north end [...] — chicagotribune.com

In an interview with The Times, Dame Zaha Hadid said that the Qataris “should do something” about the issue of migrant workers. [...]

“I’m not a defender of the Qatari situation, but it’s important to get the facts right and then we can discuss it. I’m very happy that the press make the government aware of problems on certain sites. But it doesn’t apply to this site.” — designmena.com