Some of the most densely populated cities across the globe are tackling population growth and food shortages by establishing more rooftop farms. Vertical farms are popping up on unused rooftops in cities across the globe and the outcome is extremely positive. — DesignBuild Source

In Australia, we tend to think of green building as ‘high tech’ and ‘high spec.’ However, if we take a look at ancient Roman structures, it is clear that green building was on display even then, and without all of the high tech innovations we have available to us in the 21st century. — DesignBuild Source

If you live in any large ‘rustbelt’ city in the Midwest, and St. Louis in particular, you’re probably all too familiar with the site of vacant lots. Empty land where homes and businesses used to be present a tough challenge for cities.

This weekend, ground will be broken on several projects which aim to change the way neighborhoods and cities deal with vacant property.

The Washington University Sustainable Land Lab Competition chose five winning designs from 48 design submissions. — marketplace.org

According to academics like Brent D. Ryan, author of “Design After Decline: How America Rebuilds Shrinking Cities," it is one of the most ambitious privately financed urban reclamation projects in American history. — NYT

How should we live together? is the central question of this 18th issue of MONU on the topic of "Communal Urbanism", focusing on contemporary communal living in cities.

(Bernd Upmeyer, Editor-in-Chief, April 2013) — MONU

Over the last week, the architectural community has been all aflutter over the fate of the former American Folk Museum Building. A 12-year-old building that was opened just after 9/11, MoMA snatched it up for $23 million in 2011 and is planning to raze its critically acclaimed sculptural bronze facade. It's inevitable, the modern art juggernaut shrugs, because the floors of the adjacent buildings, plus the rest of MoMA uses lots of glass as its primary material rather than metal. — ny.curbed.com

BIG, along with fellow team members Tess, Transsolar, Base, Transitec, and Michel Forgue, has been selected to design EuropaCity, an 80-hectare cultural and commercial destination in the heart of France. — bustler.net

If you're in Miami these days, make sure to visit the exhibit of Up-Downtown, the winning entry of DawnTown’s inaugural Design/Build competition [...].

Up-Downtown, the successful collaboration between Jacob Brillhart (Miami, FL) and Manuel Clavel-Rojo (Murcia, Spain), interactively presents the rapid rise of downtown Miami over an extended period of time. — bustler.net

Atlanta and Rio are but two chapters in the long history of displacement that has accompanied mega-events like the Olympics. Similar dynamics reshaped London’s Clays Lane Estate, Beijing’s hutongs, the Marousi Roma settlement in Athens, Barcelona’s Poblenou and Seoul’s hanoks. . . . Today the people of Vila Autódromo are struggling for what housing scholar-activist Chester Hartman has aptly called “the right to stay put.” — Places Journal

over the next half-century these coastal megacities may grow “too big to flood.” But flood they will unless they dramatically revise their growth strategies and undertake major infrastructure projects — Yale Environment 360

The City of Melbourne has been certified carbon neutral, an important step toward its goal of becoming one of the world’s most sustainable cities.

In a carbon constrained economy, councillor Arron Wood said the certification by Low Carbon Australia against the National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS) “was a solid demonstration of the City of Melbourne’s commitment to a more sustainable Melbourne.” — DesignBuild Source

The salesclerk at a Belgravia clothing boutique, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity because she did not want to get in trouble, said that at some times of the year the area was virtually abandoned. “We’ll shut for the whole of August,” she said. — NYT

D’Hooghe, a Belgian-born architect and director of the Center for Advanced Urbanism at MIT, cares deeply about urban form and the large-scale issues cities face in achieving more efficient energy use, better transportation and less congestion. One of his main concerns is better integrating suburbs with the larger metropolitan areas in which they exist. — web.mit.edu

The latest evidence of Philadelphia’s architectural comeback? The Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta is coming to town for a project at Temple University.

“We have a fantastic tradition of quality architeture and urbanism in Philadelphia, but we do go through low ebbs in that tradition,” says Harris Steinberg, the executive director of PennPraxis, the clinical arm of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design. — Next City