If green roofs can be seen, they are a constraint for architectural design. Either you acknowledge them or they become an afterthought. — toskovic.com

Ikea is to sell solar panels at its British stores for the first time in an attempt to tap growth in the heavily subsidised green energy market.

The world's biggest furniture retailer, best known for cheap basics such as its Billy bookcases and Ektorp sofas, plans to offer solar panel packages at all of its 17 British stores within the next 10 months. — theguardian.com

Few cities evoke ideas of the future like Tokyo. When the Nakagin Capsule Tower was built in 1972, it was supposed to mark the Dawn of the Capsule Age. At the time, Japan was preparing for explosive growth fueled by a new economy built on technology and manufacturing. A group of architects from the so-called Metabolism school of architecture, championed by the tower’s architect Kisho Kurokawa, believed new structures should be made to grow and adapt organically with the society they served. — wired.com

While tiny housing of this kind has existed in Hong Kong for many years, it has expanded as soaring property prices have pushed more and more low-income earners out of the market for regular housing in recent years. Rent on these spaces has risen nearly 20 percent in the last four years, and now gobbles up about a third of the residents’ incomes. — New York Times

A five-storey apartment block collapsed on Friday in the Indian financial centre of Mumbai, killing at least four people and trapping scores in the latest accident to underscore shoddy building standards in Asia's third-largest economy. — reuters.com

This proposal seeks to demonstrate the potential for re-purposing the historic American bridge infrastructure as possible sites for sustainable urban housing and linear parks...an aerial garden, as the cities newest park through which you could walk and wander and enjoy the most spectacular views of the bay — Rael San Fratello/reThink Bay Bridge

National Building Museum and Metropolis Magazine contributor Andrew Caruso recently sat down with AIA Gold Medalist Thom Mayne to talk about the early days of his career and the major design school, public projects, and trajectory of work that followed. Thom talks innovation, politics, education… and about debunking his reputation as the “bad boy” of architecture. — metropolismag.com

Very immediately I’m working on the Persephone Project which is concerned with the design and implementation of a giant natural computer that will form the ‘living’ interior to a world-ship. It is going to be officially launched at the Starship Congress, in Dallas, from august the 15 of this year. I will also talk about Persephone further at Future Fest in the UK which runs over the weekend 28th to the 29th September. — Next Nature

"We'd like to leave, but the company won't let us," — theguardian.com

The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon is an award-winning program that challenges collegiate teams to design, build, and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive. The winner of the competition is the team that best blends affordability, consumer appeal, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency. — U.S. Department of Energy

Ra+b--Design from China shared with us their Berlin Contemporary Bridge proposal that won the second prize in ArchTriumph's recent international competition. Participants were asked to design an iconic contemporary footbridge over the Spree River and between Schilling Bridge (Schillingbrücke) and the Oberbaum Bridge (Oberbaumbrücke), two well-known structures in Berlin. — bustler.net

The houses in Ben Marcin’s project ‘Last House Standing’ seem oddly misplaced, lost and forgotten. The series reads like a homage to the forgotten solo row house. The Baltimore based self-taught photographers interest ‘in these solitary buildings is not only in their ghostly beauty but in their odd placement in the urban landscape. Often three stories high, they were clearly not designed to stand alone like this’. — ignant.de

Mr. Calatrava was paid approximately 94 million euros (about $127 million) for his work. How could that be, Mr. Blanco asks, when the opera house included 150 seats with obstructed views? Or when the science museum was initially built without fire escapes or elevators for the disabled? — NYT