Whether or not the Whitney was wise to migrate, the design suggests that it has misperceived its future neighborhood, a formerly run-down area where mottled brick, painted iron, and salvaged wood are still pleasingly rough. The district’s architecture of the past decade has put a sophisticated gloss on this neighborhood’s industrial past. — New York

Steven Holl Architects in collaboration with BCWH Architects has won the commission for the new Institute for Contemporary Art for Virginia Commonwealth University. The building will create a new forum for the arts on campus and forge new connections to the arts community of the region. — stevenholl.com

The new visitor center is the first park project to be completed as part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Design and Construction Excellence Initiative. By making it easier to get talented architects on the job, the program aims at bringing good design to even the humblest city-funded projects. The Poe Center was designed by Toshiko Mori, an award-winning architect and a former chairman of the department of architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. — online.wsj.com

The citizens living off the Han River in Seoul, South Korea inaugurated the world’s largest floating island just last week. The stunning structure includes a 700 seat convention hall, restaurants and arcades — all powered by solar energy. When the development is completed, a trio of islands will be linked together by twenty-three weather-proof chains. — Inhabitat

Despite the reassuring rivets in the 1,500-pound glass panels, the calm stillness of the air at the Windy City’s pinnacle and the security of a 10,000-pound weight capacity for each of the four 4.3-foot-deep glass boxes that protrude past the sheer edge of the Western Hemisphere’s tallest building — despite all that, you still feel twinges of queasiness. — nytimes.com

Hydro Building Systems, a division of the Norwegian multinational aluminum giant Hydro, has confirmed the energy-positive performance of a building constructed in 2009 in Bellenberg, Germany.

The building produces about 80% more electric power than it consumes annually, according to analysis of performance data collected to date. — blogs.forbes.com

Just six months after the death of its longtime director, Peter C. Marzio, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston has chosen three architects to submit designs for the new building he envisioned and hired a firm to search for his successor. Selected from an international list of 10 candidates, the firms are Morphosis, Snøhetta and Steven Holl Architects. Each will develop a concept for a building to house post-1900 art as well as a parking garage. — chron.com

These homes in Vicksburg are all situated along the Yazoo River, a tributary of the overflowing Mississippi River, and their owners have surrounded themselves with tons of earth and sand.

With questions over whether the main levees that protect the area from floods would hold, these farmers took no chances and have so far saved their homes and crops from destruction. — dailymail.co.uk

Fred Scharmen in a new Op-Ed entitled "Sticks and Stones; Ai Weiwei and the Uses of Architecture", offers his opinion about whether or not media should "protest the treatment of Ai Weiwei by ceasing promotion of all new architectural work in China? Should architects refuse to take on new work in China? Should we continue to support the work of architects and artists in China, but only with a disclaimer?"

An advisory body to UNESCO has counseled against registering 19 buildings designed by French architect Le Corbusier, including the National Museum of Western Art in Taito Ward, Tokyo, as world cultural heritage sites, it has been learned.

The recommendation was made by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), a cultural conservation organization, the central government's Cultural Affairs Agency said Saturday. — yomiuri.co.jp

Institutions including SFMOMA, the Whitney, the Barnes Foundation and MoMA plan various additions and exits, a boom for contemporary architects but a bust for architectural history. — latimes.com

Designed by busy Norwegian firm Snøhetta, which is also at work on the museum at New York's ground zero, the addition will slip a massive, 335-foot-long cruise ship of a structure behind the museum's existing building, which was designed by Mario Botta and opened in 1995. The main entry to Botta's museum, along Third Street, will remain, but a second gateway to the museum will open up along Howard Street. — latimesblogs.latimes.com