"In the same way that we have backup batteries for our cameras and computers, the Japanese government has recently unveiled plans to develop a whole new city that will act as a backup for Tokyo in the event of another crippling earthquake." — Inhabitat.com

The Green House concept is the most comprehensive effort to reinvent the nursing home ...— including the way medical care is delivered. In traditional nursing homes, employees typically have narrowly defined jobs ... based on efficiency that tends to ignore individuals’ preferences and needs. — New York Times

While during the last decade most of the people have become fascinated by, and began researching into, the vast population growths of cities and their consequences, everybody got so excited that it was forgotten that even now half of the world's population is actually living in non-urban areas. — MONU magazine

Chicago architect Jeanne Gang, hired in March to come up with a new design for downtown Lexington's empty CentrePointe block, is no longer involved in the project, developer Dudley Webb said Thursday.

Webb said Gang and her firm Studio Gang Architects were hired to do a master plan for the block "and share her vision of what she thought this project might be." — kentucky.com

a floating dome, built with the spokes of dead umbrellas and carried over the waves by the invisible power of empty soda bottles.... was due to begin a monthlong exhibit on Friday in a finger of water in Inwood, at the northern end of Manhattan.

“We were floating it on pontoons to Inwood from the South Bronx.”

A pause.

“We shipwrecked,” she said. “On Rikers Island.”

If this is failure, it is of a type rooted in genius. — New York Times

d3 and Transportation Alternatives have announce the winners of the “Close The Gap” design competition, which invited architects, landscape architects, urban designers, engineers and students worldwide to envision the completion of New York City's East River Greenway. Submissions from pla.net Architects and the design team of James Stokoe & Madeline Stokoe were selected by the jurors for a shared first prize. — bustler.net

The plan is to transform a 1960s warehouse into a multifunctional space dedicated to the intersection of art, commerce, working, and living. Called, Transitlager, the restored building is part of a larger redevelopment of Basel’s upcoming Dreispitz neighborhood, which is becoming an attractive and inviting urban quarter. The industrial area is characterized by hard lines and the renovated and extended warehouse will reflect its origins with a modern twist on those geometries. — Inhabitat.com

Rem Koolhaas, Victor van der Chijs, Reinier de Graaf, Ellen van Loon, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka and David Gianotten will discuss their roles within OMA, and how new ideas are transforming the 36-year-old practice. The discussion will be chaired by Chris Dercon, director of Tate Modern. — OMA

Cities are very complex, and what the best designers illustrate is how to give form to sometimes very simple ideas. Good design involves bringing not just a fresh eye to problems but, most of all, listening to the people who live in those communities. We’re talking about a billion people living in informal settlements today — New York Times

Over the next 5-10 years, what does HUD need to know to improve knowledge gaps that are affecting the execution of good housing and community development policy and practice? — U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

[ed] How 'public' space is lost "Casting a wary eye on the four-week-old Occupy Wall Street encampment, a group representing some of the city's most influential landlords plans to ask the city to revamp the rules governing privately owned parks, including removing a requirement that they be open 24 hours a day." — WSJ

Munich's Department of Urban Planning and Construction recently announced that Rotterdam-based practice West 8 has won Part B (Housing and Neighborhood Center) of the urban and landscape planning competition for the first phase of Freiham North. Part A (Community Center, School and Sports Center) was won by Ortner & Ortner Baukunst Gesellschaft von Architekten, Berlin. — bustler.net

The Holcim Awards is an international competition that recognizes innovative projects and future-oriented concepts on regional and global levels. A total of USD 2 million in prize money is awarded in each three-year cycle. — Holcim Awards

The exhibition, curated by Elias Redstone, originated as an online project and showcases 60 architecture magazines, fanzines and journals from over 20 countries. From Australia and Argentina to the UK and USA, these independent publications are reframing how people relate to their built environment – taking comment and criticism out of just an architectural arena and into everyday life. — archizines.com

This week, MVRDV, The Why Factory and the JUT Foundation for Arts and Architecture opened the fourth edition of the exhibition series “Museum of Tomorrow” in Taipei. Under the title “The Vertical Village” the exhibition explores the rapid urban transformation in East Asia, the qualities of urban villages and the potential to realize this in a much denser, vertical way as a radical alternative to the identical block architecture with standard apartments and its consequences for the city. — bustler.net