"A block of row houses -- narrow, tall, brick- or stone-faced homes, connected side-by-side -- is my shorthand for city perfection....Blocks of row houses generate a perfect urban scale: large enough to support neighborhood groceries, bars, and shops, but not so dense as to create parking crunches or attract huge stores" — the Stranger

Canada’s biggest city is getting even bigger, with a pace-setting number of skyscrapers set to join the city skyline.

According to a Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) report dubbed “Canada Rising,” Toronto is leading the western world in terms of new buildings 150 metres or taller currently under construction. — DesignBuild Source Canada

At the annual SLEEP European Hotel Design Awards, the project "Hotel Valentiner Hof" in Castelrotto, Italy was recently named the 2012 winner in the category "Conversion And/Or Extension Of An Existing Hotel Building." Architects of the hotel conversion was the young firm noa*, based in Bolzano in Northern Italy. — bustler.net

People tend to like churches and synagogues with intricate detail, like the lacy Gothicism of Grace Church at Broadway and 10th Street. But I am drawn to the austere Church of the Heavenly Rest, at Fifth Avenue and 90th Street. Designed by Mayers, Murray and Phillip and completed in 1929 ...wait, that’s not right, it has never been completed. — nytimes.com

Those outside the design industry may often wonder what makes for good architectural design. Most laypeople would say good design is aesthetically pleasing and unique, but their assessment would likely end there. — DesignBuild Source

Manchester Airports Group (MAG) has outlined redevelopment plans worth £650 million to create Airport City Manchester, a future ‘aerotropolis’, close to Manchester Airport, the UK’s third busiest airport. — DesignBuild Source

The skyline of Chile’s capital city, Santiago, has a new addition with the Gran Torre skyscraper casting a two-kilometre shadow across the historic city.

The 70-storey residential building stands more than 300 metres tall, making it the tallest building in South America. The five-ton steel structure cost an estimated one billion dollars to build and tenants are expected to move into the building next March. — DesignBuild Source

The study argues that re-using Prentice and developing a new facility would generate more money and jobs than demolition and new construction.

The study claims the rehab would generate one-time taxes and temporary jobs, in fields ranging from construction to finance and insurance. And a re-designed, multi-purpose Prentice would mean 980 permanent jobs and just over $1 million a year in local tax revenues. — wbez.org

As neighborhoods devastated by Hurricane Sandy begin drafting plans for reconstruction, some progressive architects and urban planners have been pointing out that the emerging science of biomimicry offers a way forward. The notion is that the next generation of waterfront designs could draw inspiration from the intricate ways that plants and animals have adapted to their situations over hundreds of millions of years. — green.blogs.nytimes.com

China is also the land of the knock-off: knock-off designer handbags, knock-off blockbuster movies on DVDs, etc. But now, it seems the knock-off has gone off the charts in terms of proportion: entire buildings. — theworld.org

The United Technologies Corp. unit has to go beyond the braking mechanism Elisha Otis demonstrated with a rope and saber at the 1854 World’s Fair. It’s working on systems able to stop 16 metric tons (35,274 pounds) of elevator and cable falling from the top of a kilometer-tall tower -- equal to a half-full tractor trailer driven off a cliff. — bloomberg.com