As the dry, beetle-kill pine blew up in the West Fork fires, which have charred more than 110,000 acres, firefighters used helicopters and air tankers to divert the fire from valuable resources and dug a "dozer line" to defend the town of South Fork. In the Rio Grande National Forest, where rugged terrain presents dangerous conditions for ground crews, firefighters have battled the flames judiciously, on their own terms. — sgvbtribune.com

Marc J. Neveu, Ph.D., of the Wentworth Institute of Technology has been named Executive Editor of the Journal of Architectural Education (JAE) for a four-year term starting July 1, 2013. Neveu has previously contributed to the JAE as a writer, a reviewer, a theme editor, and, most recently, as an Editorial Board member and Associate Editor of Media Strategies. The JAE has been the primary venue for research and commentary on architectural education since it was founded in 1947. — Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture

The new regional head office of the United Nations in Copenhagen, designed by 3XN, has just been inaugurated.

Check out the very impressive sculptural staircase in its core which, according to the architects, is designed to reflect the UN’s work to create global dialogue. — bustler.net

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has confirmed a shortlist of twelve architectural firms aspiring to design its new Olympic headquarters on a site by Lake Geneva in Lausanne, Switzerland. The list surely doesn't lack any star power, featuring names like OMA, Toyo Ito & Associates, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, 3xn and Farshid Moussavi Architecture. — bustler.net

NL Architects recently completed the project NS Station, a major office interior revamp over 9 stories right on top of Central Station in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The project resulted from a 2011 competition win where NL Architects made the Thick Walls™ system the conceptual core: big shelves absorb the clutter that normally spreads trough the office - wardrobes, bookshelves, flip boards, archive, bulletin boards. And sometimes even the stairs. — bustler.net

Italian firm Mario Cucinella Architects has won the international competition for the design of the new headquarters of telecommunications agency ARPT (Autorité de Régulation de la Poste et des Télécommunications) in Algeria's capital city Algiers. — bustler.net

Steven M. Davis, a partner in Davis Brody Bond, which designed the museum, said he and his colleagues had been guided by the principles of memory, authenticity, scale and emotion.

The museum will not open to the public until next spring, but officials have begun taking reporters through the unfinished galleries, confident that what was a construction zone a year ago, and a disaster area after Hurricane Sandy, now looks more like a museum. — nytimes.com

Design and research collaborative Kutonotuk is sharing with us its proposal "Helsinki Link" which was awarded one of the four Honorable Mentions in the recent competition for the design of the new Helsinki Central Library. — bustler.net

"We hoped the canals would simply make it easier to move around the city, for civilians and police but the reality is Water Level is one giant port of entry for whoever has the cash."
- Yoko Aramaki, City Planner — Flickr

The team Herzog & de Meuron + TFP Farrells is the winner of the international competition to design M+, Hong Kong's future museum for visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District. The winning team will work closely with the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority over the next four years to design and deliver the ambitious project which is scheduled for completion in 2017. — bustler.net

In the recent competition for the design of the new Helsinki Central Library, the jury had decided not to award a Second Prize but to give a shared Third Prize to the entries ”LIBLAB” and "Kasi” instead [...]. Helsinki-based Playa Architects are the designers behind LIBLAB and have sent us some more information about their design concept. — bustler.net