The urban conditions around us are constantly changing. With a faster or slower SPEED, the built environment is transformed as it does the way we experience and engage with it. In this issue we will be looking at the pace in which physical and social changes happen and the consequences and opportunities available. — mascontext.com

Demographically and geographically, the members of the Dozen are more diverse and expansive than the Five of 40 years ago. This is certainly not a white-boys-only club. Women architects have principal positions in about half the firms, and many of the firm founders are ethnically and culturally diverse -- just like New York. Many of the Dozen pursue or have built projects on other continents, a reflection of the global stage upon which architecture is practiced today. — theatlantic.com

Charlie Hussey of Edinburgh-based firm Sutherland Hussey, which has 75 per cent of its work in China, believes that architects are often singled out. “Whenever ethics in China is brought up, architects are always picked on,” he says. “But we’re all trading with China. If Joe Bloggs buys a TV, he’s trading with China. Architects just deal with bigger pieces. There isn’t a single person in the UK who hasn’t traded with China”. — ft.com

Marking the decade since the attacks of September 11, 2001, Lebbeus Woods offers reflections on the context for the tragedy, and the reconstruction's bitter sense of business as usual — domusweb.it

In February 2003, Daniel Libeskind was named the winning designer of the international contest to rebuild the World Trade Center. After eight years of collaboration, controversy, and the typical cast of characters in any real estate nightmare, the final product that will tower over Lower Manhattan is not, in fact, the design that won the hearts of New Yorkers. — Inhabitat

How great are the benefits of density? Economists studying cities routinely find that after controlling for other variables, workers in denser places earn higher wages and are more productive. Some studies suggest that doubling density raises productivity by around 6 percent while others peg the impact at up to 28 percent. — nytimes.com

Any skyscraper is a contradiction.

The tall tower is architecture's most famous building type and also the one most clearly at odds with the profession's roots. Fundamentally, architecture is shelter, a concession that we're afraid to face the elements without protection. A skyscraper is vertical hubris. — latimes.com

theids wants to start a conversation about the Animal Architecture Awards. To theids, "this is not Animal Architecture. I feel that they have taken a term that was already being used to describe other projects... which pre-dates this competition that has been hosted for 3 years. " der flaneur cautioned "Zoomorphic is an architecture book for 1st year students that want to see 'cool animal-looking buildings'."

THEY go up, they go down — and that’s pretty much it for any New York building, maybe with one or two alterations. But the French-style Harry Winston store of 1960, at Fifth Avenue and 56th Street, now shrouded in netting, is a ramble through a century of architectural history. The building has been through one-two-three-four-five major episodes, and a sixth was never realized. — nytimes.com

Hoping to lure top talent to remake Navy Pier, pier officials on Thursday began an international search for a team of architects and other designers who will re-imagine the pier's outdoor public spaces as part of a broader revamp of the facility. — featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com

The poet and author and one of the memorial's consultants, Maya Angelou, told The Washington Post, yesterday, the quote makes King seem arrogant. Actually, she put it in harsher terms.

"The quote makes Dr. Martin Luther King look like an arrogant twit," she said. — kcrw.com

There is seemingly no limit to the manipulations that Apple store designers will make to ensure that the various elements of construction are aligned and pleasing to the eye. What looks like a simple retail storefront is actually a carefully designed, measured and constructed assemblage of glass, cement, metal and stone whose edges correspond. — ifoapplestore.com

Designed by developer/architect Ian Pollard, it's a brash, grandiose office building on Queenstown Road facing Battersea Park that was completed
in 1987... In short, it's an architectural dog's dinner, one of a very few buildings that can actually make me laugh out loud on the rare occasion I pass it on the bus. — thisislondon.co.uk