This case study looks at the origins of, and factors that led to, the “death” of the best-known humanitarian architecture organization in the world.

However, it will also reveal that AFH is regenerating via its worldwide network of chapters, which it had begun developing around 2004, and which gathered more formally under the name Architecture for Humanity Chapter Network upon AFH’s closure. — nonprofitquarterly.org

L.A. has always been a place of experimentation, but now it appears to be in an architectural arms race, a competition to build the tallest, shiniest, and weirdest buildings. Adding to some Angelenos’ trepidation is how many of the projects popping up around the city are museums—built to last for 40 years or more, which is an eternity in a city known for knocking things down. — LA Magazine

The renovation has pared Kahn's spaces down to their essence, restoring a Zenlike calm, and revealing the muscular concrete structure that made the design such a revelation in the early 1960s, when International Style glass towers were all the rage. As Kahn, who was known for his mystical pronouncements, might say, Richards has become the building it always wanted to be. — philly.com

Their biggest challenge was securing the house’s foundation....Other work included stabilizing the walls by injecting adhesive between the lath and plaster with a veterinarian’s needle and transforming a small bathroom into an elevator shaft — NYT

It is fervently hoped that when the 45th president takes the oath of office outside the Capitol on 20 January 2017, a $60m project to restore the building’s august cast-iron dome will have been completed. [...]

“There’s never been a major renovation of the dome. It’s important work and was long overdue. It apparently has a thousand cracks and pieces have been falling off for years but, once this work is done, it should be good for another 150 years. — theguardian.com

Just two days after images of a giant gold-colored statue of Mao in the bare fields of Henan Province spread across the Internet, the statue was gone — torn down apparently on the orders of embarrassed local officials. [...]

According to villagers and reports on online chat sites, the statue was the idea of a local businessman, Sun Qingxin ... “He is crazy about Mao,” said a villager who identified himself as Mr. Wang, a potato farmer. “His factory is full of Maos.” — nytimes.com

The new study provides one of the strongest cases yet that from the amount of concrete mankind uses in building to the amount of plastic rubbish dumped in the oceans, Earth has entered a new geological epoch.

“We could be looking here at a stepchange from one world to another that justifies being called an epoch,” said Dr Colin Waters, principal geologist at the British Geological Survey and an author on the study published in Science on Thursday. — theguardian.com

Mall of America’s ability to so zealously suppress the December 23 [Black Lives Matter] protest there highlights how, in a nation where more and more public life takes place in privatized spaces, the ability to exercise First Amendment rights has become increasingly contingent...

Legal arguments that free political speech should be allowed at malls center around the idea that the shopping center has replaced the town square as a place where opinions can be heard and exchanged. — the Intercept

Whereas residents were once all long-term tenants, in the 35 years since Margaret Thatcher encouraged people to buy – and therefore sell – their council flats and houses, the population of places like this has become ever more transient.

In particular, homes that were once council properties are now often owned by buy-to-let landlords who rent them out on a short-term basis. — The Guardian

The second-biggest Italian city is offering a monthly payment of 350 euros ($376) to every resident willing to host a refugee, or an asylum seeker, in their home.

The city of Milan announced Monday with a post on its Facebook page that soon local residents will be paid for giving shelter to one or more refugees. — Vice

The company promised to “faithfully reproduce” several beloved artifacts in the lobby, including wall tapestries, paper lanterns and sliding doors, the lacquered furnishings and map of time zones...But those plans have done little to assuage the concerns of preservationists, many of whom contend that Tokyo is destroying its greatest postwar architectural assets to accommodate the 2020 Olympics and a recent surge in tourism. — The New York Times