An architectural rendering is a premonition of sorts, an illustration of what a park or a bridge, an apartment building or an office tower, might look like, even before the first splash of concrete licks the ground. But its most important mission is not to show the girth of a building’s footprint or the shape of the windows; it is to gin up enthusiasm for a project, or to incite resistance.

So the real purpose of these drawings is not to predict the future. Their real goal is to control it. — nytimes.com

Created by Smith|Allen Studio, an Oakland based architecture firm, the 10ft x 10ft x 8ft form adds a decidedly artificial element to the otherwise organic forest it calls home. However, despite its appearance, the Echoviren is quite environmentally friendly. Printed from a PLA bioplastic, the structure will naturally decompose back into the forest in 30-50 years. According to Smith|Allen “"As [Echoviren] weathers it will become a micro-habitat for insects, moss, and birds." — engineering.com

Construction has begun on a 47-story office tower at the edge of one of the busiest rail yards in the U.S. The $15 billion development will ultimately roof much of the 26-acre yards and stretch west from Midtown’s brawny brick to the sparkling park-edged Hudson River. A swath of greenery will flow around 10 high-rise towers. — bloomberg.com

“The problem is we’re still building the city of the past,” says Jacob. “The people of the 1880s couldn’t build a city for the year 2000—of course not. And we cannot build a year-2100 city now. But we should not build a city now that we know will not function in 2100. There are opportunities to renew our infrastructure. It’s not all bad news. We just have to grasp those opportunities.” — dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com

A new project, “Walking Shelter,” explores what on-the-go housing might just look like. Here, a portable dwelling is packed right into a pair of sneakers. Essentially a tent without a pole (that’s the clever part), the mobile home can be deployed anywhere you’d like it to pop up.

Rather than relying on the old pole standard, the shelter’s frame is provided by the person(s) occupying it, explains Amelia Borg, one-eighth of Sibling, the Australian architectural collective behind the project. — fastcodesign.com

[...] after months of blood, sweat and tears a team of students from Wilmington, Delaware, broke the Guinness World Record and built the world's tallest Lego tower. For the students, this victory was personal. They struck a powerful blow to their Lego arch-rivals, previous record-holder, the city of Prague.

The American Lego tower stands over 112 feet tall, and is made of more than 500,000 bricks! — lego.gizmodo.com

The exhibition re-envisions a series of urban environments that are typical for Chicago in order to examine alternatives to the way architecture engages the city. It is a collaborative effort by five teams – David Brown, Alexander Eisenschmidt, Studio Gang, Stanley Tigerman, and UrbanLab – determined to find potentials for spatial, material, programmatic, and organizational invention within the city. — City of Chicago

You learn with experience the things that are not worth doing. Most architects think, no matter what, they can make something out of any commission. For example, I don’t do prisons or hospitals, or restoration work. I do know, by now, who I am. And by now at least clients come to us with their eyes open. They don’t expect something we don’t do. — Architectural Record

It's that time of year when we announce the semi-finalists for this year's Buckminster Fuller Challenge from the Buckminster Fuller Institute. [...]

Each of the 19 projects represent a collective body of work including whole systems solutions and targeted efforts that address pressing global issues in sanitation, materials, water, energy, disaster prevention, poverty, food and ecology. — bustler.net

The leggy damsel with raven hair and Doc Martens to match is unequivocal. ''No,'' she tells the small, freckled boy. ''You can't climb here. Go in there where it's safe.'' [...]

But the boy - not recognising her livery - can be forgiven his mistake. To him, the large, gridded edifice that she guards promises infinite climbability. [...]

The climbing frame in question is in fact art. It is this summer's Serpentine Pavilion, by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. — smh.com.au

The success of a public work of art is measured not merely by aesthetics, but rather, by its magnetic qualities that inspire interaction. The art is a reflection of the City, the art becomes a part of the City, the art is instrumental in making the City. — Spirit of Space

The most distinctive trait of the machine city is the lack of human beings. Other animals live within its limits. Not the rats and pigeons of human cities—the scavengers feeding on our remnants—but animals that can thrive in such particular conditions: algae on the water-cooling ponds, lichen and moss on the unadorned walls, flowering plants within the dirt that invariably builds up along the edges of the roadways and in the cracks of the buildings, and, of course, the insects that come to feed. — omnireboot.com

The Architecture Billings Index for July, released today by the American Institute of Architects, shows that the market for design and construction services continues its steady and sustained recovery. With a national billings score of 52.7, more than a full point higher than June’s 51.6, demand for architectural services picked up even more steam last month. — architectmagazine.com

“We’re trying to fill the gap between the broad stroke of policymaking and the reality of life on the ground,” says Bar-Sinai, who recently returned to Israel after a yearlong fellowship at Harvard University. “Only thinking about these questions from the 30,000 foot high perspective isn’t enough.” — smithsonianmag.com

If San Franciscans like to describe their city as “49 square miles surrounded by reality,” the visionary ideas that were too grandiose for even San Franciscans to consider remain some of the most fantastic designs for any city in the world. Imagine a grand casino on Alcatraz, the city wrapped in freeways and a subdivision covering flattened hills north of the Golden Gate Bridge. — Architecture and the City Festival