London’s 200 new towers are something different. Virtually every one contains “luxury” apartments. This new residential upsurge in London is echoed across the Atlantic in New York – as property in both cities becomes a global reserve currency. New York, once the city of the commercial skyscraper, has become the city of the condo tower and the penthouse. But where does that leave commercial architecture? — ft.com

Gensler recently began a research project focused on Los Angeles and D.C., “Hackable Buildings – Hackable Cities,” exploring how building owners can adapt their properties to meet changing demand.

“It really started with some research that we were doing on the evolution of office buildings,” said Raffael Scasserra, a Gensler principal. “What we were looking at is what is that evolution like? What is it transforming to and what are buildings going to be?” — washingtonpost.com

As Jersey City has cast off its stigma as a back-office-and-apartment haven of cheap rents and cheaper-looking buildings, more and more professionals and families are calling “Chilltown” and “JC” home. They’re ditching the suburbs of their parents, but also the stratospheric prices and stuffy attitudes of Manhattan and, increasingly, Brooklyn.

The so-called sixth borough has finally become a destination in its own right [...]. — nydailynews.com

The way it works is each loop, outside and in, is equipped with a bed, study, kitchen, bathroom, and little dresser, arranged so that when the wheel stops the matching item is available to each person at the same time. To switch over to a new activity, they both have to walk in tandem... — hyperallergic.com

In October 2012, the Supreme Court of Honduras forced closure on a recent chapter of neoliberal expansionism, ruling against the constitutionality of autonomous cities within its borders... Nonetheless, what happened in Honduras provides a cautionary tale about the role we resign—of who we lose—when the citizen turns private. — e-flux.com

Silicon Valley long prided itself on building world-changing technologies from the humble garage, or the nondescript office park. The new spaces are more distinctive, as companies seek to build a consumer profile [...]

[There] is a sense that nothing is permanent, that any product can be dislodged from greatness by something newer. It’s the aesthetic of disruption: We must all change, all the time. And yet architecture demands that we must also represent something lasting. — mobile.nytimes.com

Curator Francesca Molteni filmed each architect's home, and interviewed them about their lives and careers. Working alongside fellow architect and set designer Davide Pizzigoni, Molteni has recreated the private residences of Hadid and co., “by means of real-life videos, images, sounds, comments and reconstructions. The result is an interactive exhibition space that unveils the architects’ visions of living, their choices and their obsessions.” — phaidon.com

... you can find in his full body of work a sustained attempt to measure how much the physical or architectural setting of a scene contributes to a narrative and how much it takes us out of one. — latimes.com

A Catholic church, a theater and one of the nearly 50 schools closed by Chicago Public Schools last year are among the most endangered buildings in the city, a local preservation group said today.

Preservation Chicago today released its Chicago 7 list, an annual collection of seven local, historic properties in danger of being lost to demolition or decay. — chicagobusiness.com

Ordos fell away beneath us: a wide, sweeping wasteland of empty towers and silent, disused streets. ...The odd car moved slowly along the main road, where it looped around the centre of Kangbashi to cross the Ordos bridge, and out towards Dongsheng – but for the most part, from this height, Kangbashi looked like a model city; its radical architecture reduced to novelty ornaments, its unfinished towers scattered like broken bricks across a sandpit. — Business Insider

"Ai Weiwei, who helped design the Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing, stayed away from the opening ceremonies because he said he wanted his building to represent freedom, not be a trophy for an autocratic regime uninterested in change." — hyperallergic.com