In planning for the organization’s further growth, Sinclair and Stohr are transitioning out of their roles to push the advancement of Architecture for Humanity, while also enabling the founders to explore new ventures.

“It’s great to see something you started evolve into an institution. We are excited about the future of the organization and plan to continue lending support in whatever ways we can,” says Kate Stohr, Co-Founder, Architecture for Humanity. — architectureforhumanity.org

Almost a dozen major architecture contests are underway. By calling in the pros, city and federal officials are casting a wide net for fixes.

“We don’t have all the good ideas, and I don’t care who does have them,” Mayor Bloomberg said recently. — New York Daily News

Our way of life is still based in twentieth-century ideas, specifically a modernist philosophy that assumes we can use science and technology to conquer nature. So we try to isolate ourselves from nature; our cities are completely segregated from the environment. [...] That kind of modernist thinking has reached its limit. — artforum.com

“It is amazing to realize you could walk around the site not knowing if there is a body underneath you,” Nelson said. “How do you commemorate that?” — The Seattle Times

President Barack Obama is appointing a known critic of the planned Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial design to serve on the federal commission that oversees the project.

The White House announced Obama’s intent to appoint former National Endowment for the Humanities chairman Bruce Cole last month, but it drew little attention while Congress was in recess. Cole led the humanities endowment under former President George W. Bush. — washingtonpost.com

I think the development of design and planning ideas over the past three decades is where feminism has actually been most effective but least acknowledged...Architecture and planning have been reshaped by these feminist agendas in many areas...but I don’t believe academic culture acknowledges explicitly the influence of feminist ideas on the architectural and urban design practices and projects of the past three decades. - Torre — The Architectural League

Renzo Piano, the award-winning architect who gave London the Shard and Paris the Pompidou centre, has been granted one of his country's highest honours, being named a senator for life by the Italian president.

Giorgio Napolitano said the 75-year-old was among four distinguished Italians whose achievements in the cultural and scientific fields would allow them to contribute to the nation's parliament "in absolute independence of any party political considerations". — theguardian.com

Donna Sink offered up her memories "I spent a summer living in that building. It's very lovely and graceful, though I like ‘suavely-curved’ much better as a descriptor! The views are unmatched, IMO, still. Breathtaking...Back then its only drawback was that it was very removed from the activity of the city

In 2012, ​filmmaker Leon Gerskovic chronicled the journey of 16 design/buildLAB students as they conceived and realized the Masonic Amphitheatre. The project consisted of the complete redevelopment of a post-industrial brownfield into a public park and performance space. Reality Check is their inspirational story. — Reality Check Film

Architects Alice Kimm, FAIA; John Mutlow, FAIA; Lorcan O’Herihy, FAIA; Warren Techentin, AIA; Patrick Tighe, FAIA; and Ed Woll, Ph.D. will present housing projects in development and discuss the potential of micro-housing units, transit oriented development and changing lifestyles to create livable density in LA. — USC Architecture

George Schipporeit, co-architect of Chicago's suavely-curving Lake Point Tower, once the world's tallest all-residential building, has died. — Blair Kamin, Chicago Tribune architecture critic

For the better part of two years, Graves checked into hospitals and rehabilitation centers as a business traveler checks into hotels. [...]

While receiving his medical care, Graves was struck by the poor designs of hospitals, health care facilities and the chairs, tables and other devices used by patients. "If it's going to be this bad for everybody else in health care," he said, "I should do something about it." — money.usnews.com

1 World Trade Center, the iconic Ground Zero skyscraper formerly known as the Freedom Tower, this summer became the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere by some measures. It’s not, however, the building that Daniel Libeskind, the site’s master planner, conceived of over a decade ago. [...]

But as the opening of 1 World Trade Center approaches, a curious thing has happened. Libeskind has quietly transformed into one of the site’s most ardent boosters. — newyorker.com