Curves are to be banned in a new generation of no-frills school buildings, according to a government crackdown on what it believes is wasteful extravagance in educational architecture.

Design templates unveiled for 261 replacement school buildings also prohibit folding internal partitions to subdivide classrooms, roof terraces that can be used as play areas, glazed walls and translucent plastic roofs. — guardian.co.uk

Masdar City is a project in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. Its core is a planned city, which is being built by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, a subsidiary of Mubadala Development Company, with the majority of seed capital provided by the government of Abu Dhabi. Designed by the British architectural firm Foster and Partners, the city will rely entirely on solar energy and other renewable energy sources, with a sustainable, zero-carbon, zero-waste ecology.

Back in August, Bustler published the twenty shortlisted entries of ONE PRIZE 2012: FROM BLIGHT TO MIGHT, the open international design competition for transforming cities with innovation. Today, Terreform ONE announced the final competition winner, as well as three honorable mentions. The main prize went to the project 'MADE IN LOWER EAST SIDE (MiLES)'. — bustler.net

One of his alumni, the highly regarded architect Michael Maltzan, and a designer on the Walt Disney Concert Hall, says "most of the time people understand his buildings from their surface but deep down Frank is a classically trained architect. Whether that's historical classicism or a classical modernism, the foundations of that work and what's really operating under the surface is this incredibly controlled sense of order which allows for the buildings to have a seemingly intense animation". — kcet.org

David Mirvish and world-renowned architect Frank Gehry formally introduced their plans for a major overhaul of King Street West this morning at the Art Gallery of Ontario — an appropriate setting considering the 2008 AGO redesign exists as Gehry's other major Canadian project. — blogto.com

This week, SANAA released a proposal for its first building in the United States , located in New Canaan, Connecticut. The steel, concrete, and wood headquarters for the Grace Farms Foundation will wind its way along a piece of the 75-acre property owned by the nonprofit charitable organization. FRaC labeled it a "running fence" yet, AP simply "love(d) it".

Architectural pedagogy has become stale. Schools spin old wheels as if something is happening but so little is going on. Students wait for a sense of activist engagement with a rapidly evolving world but graduate before it happens. The fact that they wait for instruction is already the problem. Teachers likewise worry too much about their place in the institutional hierarchies. — The Architectural Review

Designed to continue the momentum of Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980, last year’s sweeping initiative that included exhibitions and programs at 60 arts institutions across Southern California, Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A., will be smaller in scope, comprising nine exhibitions and accompanying programs and events in and around Los Angeles slated for April–July 2013. — news.getty.edu

An overscaled monument flagrantly aloof from its surroundings, the addition is a laggard symbol of an era when the Netherlands, like this country, was awash in capital for boldly sculptural new projects.

As such it's a reminder of how slow architecture can be. The $159-million extension is the architectural personification of boom-time thinking. — Christopher Hawthorne, Los Angeles Times

The Jeju City Council, Korean Institutes of Architects, Jeju People’s Artists Federation and other cultural organizations has argued that even if it is legally justified to take down this work, it would be a violent act that destroys an outstanding piece of art. — english.hani.co.kr

Citing serious concerns, a group of high-profile architects advising Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on the downtown football stadium is recommending a redesign of the Los Angeles Convention Center hall that is part of the project.

Several members of the "Vision Team," a group of eight architects assembled by Villaraigosa to consult, believe the plan has major flaws, including having visitors enter the new hall through a dark, unsafe space created by stretching the building over Pico Boulevard. — dailynews.com

In a telephone interview, Mr. Meier said he was “open minded” about the aesthetic of the new crossing, and said that he hoped the final product would be “something people think of in a positive manner.”

“When you think of the great bridges in New York City, you think of the Brooklyn Bridge, right?” he said. “From any point of view, it’s a beautiful bridge, and one would hope that what happens here is of that quality.” — The New York Times

The arena was always a Trojan horse: its stars (Jay-Z), its original starchitect (Frank Gehry), and its semi-public function (bringing pro basketball to Brooklyn) have been used to make the development of the Vanderbilt rail yard seem like a reward rather than an imposition. In 2009, Gehry left the project, adding his arena and tower designs to the long list of New York’s famous unrealized buildings. — newyorker.com

The recession decimated the architecture profession, with firms closing or laying off large numbers of employees, architects left jobless for months or years, and many leaving the profession entirely. But a survey recently conducted by McGraw-Hill Construction (Record’s parent company) came to the counterintuitive conclusion that some U.S. firms expect a shortage of qualified designers to meet their workloads by 2014. — archrecord.construction.com

The 10,000 or so jobs promised have not materialized. Of the 2,250 affordable housing units pledged out of 6,300, only 181 are planned for a first tower, and ground for the building has yet to be broken. — NYT