In 2008, while conducting research on the work of celebrated modernist Kevin Roche (b. 1922), Yale School of Architecture associate professor Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen conducted a series of interviews with the architect in his Hamden, Connecticut, home. She included selections from the interviews in Kevin Roche: Architecture as Environment (Yale University Press, 2011), the monograph published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name. — nbm.org

“If you go into the hardcore urban or the hardcore rural, it is quite simple to define it, but that is not so relevant. It is more significant to talk about the condition in between. And this condition is extremely difficult to define.” – Urban planner Kees Christiaanse in conversation with Bernd Upmeyer and Beatriz Ramo on behalf of MONU Magazine — Free Association Design

King’s Cube is the creation of MFA student Joe Yiu, who wanted to investigate the Hong Kong idea of an “ideal living space.” The apartment advertised in her video features art, houseplants, wood flooring, and “international-class marble” — at least, the model unit does — and residents dress in formalwear to show their status, but the space is too small for a kitchen, a bathroom, a dresser, a chair, or a particularly tall or wide human. — grist.org

The Buckminster Fuller Challenge just announced that the Living Building Challenge is the official winner of this year's competition. The LBC sets the world’s highest ecological standard for building thoughtful, sustainable buildings, but it's much more than that - it’s also a philosophy, an advocacy tool and a support network. — Inhabitat

People love the New York Public Library, and yet there’s a general agreement that it cannot survive in its current state. [...] While strong points have been made on all sides of the debate over the NYPL's future as a center of research, a real conversation about its future as an architectural treasure is just now emerging — and thankfully so, for the fate of the institution is also the fate of one of New York's most iconic landmarks. — artinfo.com

Orhan Ayyüce penned Review: Carlson-Reges House, RoTo Architects. In it Orhan described how Carlson-Reges House has grown out of logistics and a "story within a story". Steven Ward waxed nostalgic about the fact that he had an "opportunity to visit this house with mr rotondi in 2003. stunning - and completely unique. there really could never be anything else like it. and the brewery is a magic little 'neighborhood'."

Developed in Europe in the 1990s, cross-laminated timber, or CLT, is among the latest in a long line of “engineered” wood products that are strong and rigid enough to replace steel and concrete as structural elements in bigger buildings. Already popular in Europe, CLT is only beginning to catch on in North America, where proponents say buildings made with the panels could be a cheaper and environmentally friendly alternative to structures made with those other materials. — New York Times

the canopy covers 11,000 square feet of an easement in Battery Park City; effectively, North End Way is a north-south passageway or alley, lined with shops and restaurants. Part of what makes this a notable public space is the quality of construction... But it’s the canopy, which Goldman also commissioned, that formally elevates what is really just a gap between two buildings into something almost as inspired as the nave of a great Gothic cathedral. — New York Times

So, to re-pose the question: what is the radical aesthetic consequence of the cultural desire for sustainable performance? Is it something that expresses itself in a set of formal rules, like the Modern response to the development of the steel frame? Or is it something — because it is essentially about performance — requiring entirely different means to fruition? Well, as with uncharted territory: here there be dragons. — Places Journal

A bunch of bees is inspiring what seems to escape so many people in Buffalo: waterfront development.

With the help of a group of University at Buffalo architecture students, a local entrepreneur hopes to build on a giant bee hive he discovered in an abandoned office and turn a portion of Buffalo's historic waterfront into a design campus where manufacturers, architects and others will collaborate and mastermind new ways to use locally made materials — Buffalo News

In December 2009, at the "SportAccord" marketing trade show held in Denver, a pair of young Qataris walked up to the Albert Speer & Partners booth, flipped through the brochures and soon realized that the Frankfurt-based firm specialized in very large-scale projects with a focus on sustainability. — Der Spiegel

An architectural Time Machine by architect Heechan Park explores how to create an architectural time-based event.

As the machines blow vapour rings that double as ephemeral scent zones, the public not only experiences a visual performance of smoke vortices travelling through space, but they also perceive scents that are temporally spatialised and visualised. — We Make Money Not Art

The word "speculation" is altered by the context in which it appears. Stockbrokers use it in a certain way, workplace gossips in another.

There's also an architectural dimension that kicks in as designers pursue visions that have no realistic chance of ever being built. There are different motivations: to plant seeds, question norms or nudge the public debate. — sfgate.com

There is a saying that "God made the world, but the Dutch made Holland." And for centuries, the Dutch have built different types of barriers to hold back rising water and allow for development.

But as sea levels continue to rise, instead of trying to fight the water, Dutch architects and urban planners are taking a new approach: finding ways to live with it. — pbs.org

“It was not typically a type of project we normally do,” says Dukho Yeon, the firm’s associate partner-in-charge on Teachers Village. “This was part of basically everybody including the investors giving back to the city of Newark.” — Fast Company