NL Architects has sent us images of their recent project: a pretty rad mash-up pavilion for a bicycle club in the Hainan Province in southern China. The proposal is part of a big resort for developer VANKEN, and NL Architects told us that they've just received green light from the client! Looks like this will actually get build soon. — bustler.net

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden, entering its second century, is hardly a novice at branding, but at the new Visitor Center it is exercised with comprehensive aplomb. … the green roof is no small engineering feat. With a pitch of up to 27 degrees, it requires complicated networks of special soils held in place with cleats and geo-nets involving drip irrigation systems woven into capillary fabrics, and other impressive techniques with specialized vocabularies known only to au courant gardeners… — Wall Street Journal

This week the Whitney Museum inaugurated a brand new exhibition and studio space designed by shipping container architects-extraordinaire LOT-EK. An ultra-modern and eco-friendly addition to complement the museum's 1960s concrete brutalist construction, the new structure was commissioned by the Whitney as a space where the museum could hold special exhibits and house activities for the Whitney education program. —

Yesterday's gray sky and drizzle couldn't keep anxious press away from the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum of Art where Argentine artist and architect Tomas Saraceno was officially debuting his new project "Cloud City". A sculptural constellation of 16 geodesic pods, Cloud City "floats" above the museum's roof anchored by steel cables... The futuristic construction features over 100 planes... — Inhabitat

To some, it seemed an unlikely fit, Gehry designing a memorial honoring Ike, but that impression was always based on two misunderstandings. There is a vulgar idea that Gehry is all about flamboyant buildings, radical structures acclaimed by critics but derided by common sense. The popular perception of Ike is no more accurate. — washingtonpost.com

For retailers, daylight offered one additional advantage the advertisements did not mention: the implication of moral virtue. Large department stores were described as cesspools of fraud, filth, poor working conditions, child labor, anti-competitiveness, potential press censorship (because of their advertising clout), disease, drunkenness, savagery, prostitution, suicide and darkness. A well-lit interior, it was said, could do much to counter such negative associations. — Places Journal

while there are many moments of breathtaking refinement, and the galleries themselves are a revelation, the result is sadly - no, tragically - a long way from being a successful addition to the city. — Philadelphia Inquirer

When architects and designers are called in to redesign a space that already exists for a specific reason and their goal is to reinvent that space for an entirely different use, professionals are faced with a duality of responsibility and potential. In order to respect what once was and bring truth and beauty to the space that is without time or purpose, the task at hand becomes visceral. Questions arise as to how we want people to feel in this space. — yatzer.com

“As a housing commissioner we feel like we’re trying to plug a lot of leaks in the dike,” said Nick Fish, a Portland city commissioner in charge of the housing bureau and parks and recreation. And the city’s budget has still not recovered from the downturn. Habitat, especially in east Portland, he said, is filling the gap. — NYT

Before the recession and the return of architectural probity, the phrase "like an alien spaceship" was all over architecture journalism like a cheap suit. Faced with anything that didn't look like a brick box, critics and headline writers would ransack their imaginations before inevitably reaching for the extra-terrestrial. — Guardian

A new TV and web production coming to PBS in 2013 about ten influential American buildings that changed the way we live, work, and play. — wttw.com

Chicago-based firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture just released its design for Dancing Dragons, a pair of landmark supertall mixed-use towers for the new Yongsan International Business District in Seoul, South Korea. The buildings, which include residential, “officetel” and retail elements, consist of slender, sharply angled mini-towers cantilevered around a central core. — bustler.net