It is believed that all mammals, including humans, have a ‘figural primitive’ in the brain, a pattern with two dots representing eyes, a vertical line representing a nose and a horizontal one for the mouth, at the ready to perceive upright face-like input instantaneously. [...]

So when we look at buildings that suggest a face, we feel a kinship, maybe a little love, maybe in reunion with an extended family member. — metropolismag.com

The Architecture Billings Index (ABI) is reflecting healthy and sustained demand for design services in nearly all nonresidential project types. [...] (AIA) reported the July ABI score was 54.7, down a point from a mark of 55.7 in June. This score still reflects an increase in design services (any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings). The new projects inquiry index was 63.7, up slightly from a reading of 63.4 the previous month. — aia.org

People caught running unlicensed apartments through websites will be offered the chance to have 80% of their fine canceled if they allow the city council to use the apartment as social accommodation for three years...When the three years are up the landlord [can] either pay off the fine through his or her own funds and reclaim possession of the apartment or continue offering the property as social accommodation until the council receives the equivalent of full payment of the fine. — Business Insider

It is a region where America, the global superpower, looks more like a developing nation [...]. Indeed, the water crisis is becoming a humanitarian one -- because the absurd agricultural policy of many arid regions in California is being carried to extremes. More recklessly than elsewhere, wetlands in the state are being dried out to make irrigated agriculture possible.

Agriculture makes up 2 percent of California's GDP, and yet it consumes 80 percent of the state's water. — spiegel.de

Regulations have progressively made homes more sustainable and energy-efficient, and voluntary codes take these standards further. Architects like to push them further still [...]

There are now housing associations and developers who can see the point of good design, and others who can’t quite, but still feel as if they should employ it. The public, too, perhaps encouraged by the TV programmes of Kevin McCloud, are more open to contemporary architecture. — theguardian.com

Dublin is building a water park — in the middle of the worst drought in California’s modern history. [...]

“It just looks bad, frankly ... It looks like we are out there thinking, ‘Let’s just go out there and build a water park,’ when the rest of the state is suffering.” [...]

“Even if the drought weren’t to end,” said Lori Taylor, a spokeswoman for the city, “there will be a need for places where kids need to learn how to swim.” — nytimes.com

Many have challenged the logic of a Swiss building in Los Angeles [...]

In a sense, all of the criticisms can be boiled down to a single accusation: quality architecture does not belong in Los Angeles. [...]

Contextualism in Los Angeles requires more innovation than matching roof heights or aligning cornices; its ecology is one of large and oversized cultural objects that act as signposts amid sprawl. — lareviewofbooks.org

...What [Gehry's Guggenheim Bilbao] showed, [is that] if you picked a remote part of the world and put a world-class museum in it, the world would beat a path to your door. That's the so-called "Bilbao Effect," but you'll notice that doesn't mention art; it mentions tourism, travel and finance.

I feel we're in a strange time where we're building furious Potemkin villages of seeming life, behind which, if you looked with the right eyes, you would see cobwebs and skeletons. — NPR

Across the continent, Chinese companies are building highways, railways, sports stadiums, mass housing complexes, and sometimes entire cities.

But China isn’t just providing the manpower to fuel quickly urbanizing African cities. It is exporting its own version of urbanization, creating cities and economic zones that look remarkably similar to Chinese ones. — qz.com

After the dramatic decline in concentrated poverty between 1990 and 2000, there was a sense that cities were “back,” and that the era of urban decay—marked by riots, violent crime, and abandonment—was drawing to a close. Unfortunately, despite the relative lack of public notice or awareness, poverty has re-concentrated. — Paul Jargowsky for The Century Foundation

Americans living in rentals spent almost a third of their incomes on housing in the second quarter, the highest share in recent history. Rental affordability has steadily worsened, according to a new report from Zillow, which tracked data going back to 1979...While mortgages remain relatively affordable, landlords have been able to increase rents because demand for apartments remains strong. The U.S. homeownership rate fell to the lowest level in almost five decades in the second quarter. — Bloomberg

Goldfinger’s [brutalist] buildings were decreed “soulless.” Inhabitants claimed to suffer health problems and depression from spending time inside of them. Some of Goldfinger’s buildings were vacated because occupants found them so ugly. Yet, architects praised Goldfinger’s buildings. [...]

This divide—this hatred from the public and love from designers and architects—tends to be the narrative around buildings like Goldfinger’s. Which is to say, gigantic, imposing buildings made of concrete. — slate.com

Humans have exhausted a year’s supply of natural resources in less than eight months, according to an analysis of the demands the world’s population are placing on the planet. — The Guardian

If America decides to take on its growing slum problem, people will need to think hard about how to do so. Mobility programs are proven to work for the families who move, but what happens to the neighborhoods that people leave? Can affordable-housing projects in low-income areas also help poor families succeed, or are they doomed to fail their residents, no matter how nice they are, because of where they are located?   — theatlantic.com