But this year’s champion bathroom, crowned by voters on Cintas’ website, is not nestled inside some upscale restaurant in a major city. It’s a public restroom in Minturn, Colorado.

A collaboration between the town of Minturn, LaN Architecture’s Monika Wittig, LGM 3d Studios, and Noble Welding, the restrooms are meant to resemble a passageway into a Rocky Mountain mine. “The town rallied together and showed the value of a restroom that’s creative and memorable for guests,” [...]. — citylab.com

In suburbs, cities and rural areas, [big-box stores] can present a reuse and rehab conundrum, particularly as retailers become more sophisticated about controlling leases and redevelopment. [...]

With the big-box model, stores are rarely remodeled. [...]

A kind of “retail cannibalism” emerges, where companies compete for market share with ever-shinier facades that leave aging stores behind as the asphalt fades. — minnpost.com

Last month, Seth Pinsky, Executive Vice President at RXR Realty, shared a presentation regarding the development of the long-planned rehabilitation and conversion of Pier 57 aka “SuperPier.” According to him, the 450,000-square-foot development will invest $350 million of private capital to redevelop the structure, and in return create hundreds of jobs, generate millions of dollars of revenue for the Hudson River Park Trust, and create a new destination for New Yorkers and visitors alike. — 6sqft.com

Throughout its history, Kitchener has often imagined big plans for its urban development, but since the 1960s most of these grand plans for downtown Kitchener only ever found form in the Market Square Shopping Centre. Market Square is the most complete and concrete repository of Kitchener’s attempts at re-imagining itself in the postwar period. — Numéro Cinq

For those former guests and architectural buffs who lamented the demolition of the iconic Hotel Okura Tokyo, they can soon preserve a piece of it in their homes.

Hotel officials plan to sell on the Internet some of the furniture and fixtures used in the guest rooms and restaurants during the main building's 53-year history, with the proceeds going to charity. [...]

The 11-story main building, which opened in May 1962 [...], was called “a masterpiece of Japan’s modernism architecture.” — ajw.asahi.com

A set of maps from designer Archie Archambault might help us rebuild the mental maps of cities that we're starting to lose. Instead of a literal grid of streets, he maps out neighborhoods and the basic parts of a city the way someone who lives there might think of it, or at least the way they probably did before Google Maps existed. — Fast Company

"Nobody really reads books," Niami says, "so I'm just going to fill the shelves with white books, for looks." Stepping past the nightclub's outdoor lounge area where circular banquettes will seem to float next to a two-story waterfall, he says: "I really think that this house is going to do a lot for L.A. Anybody who lives in the area is going to be proud to be near it." — DETAILS

Transport bosses have unveiled the first official map showing the walking times between central London's Tube stations. 

The comprehensive plan highlights the time it takes to travel on foot between almost all of the stations on London’s Underground network.

[Transport for London] Chief Executive Gordon Innes said: “The Tube is the most used transport method by visitors in London, stations for many of our top attractions are within walking distance of each other. — the Evening Standard

But some designers are toying with another idea—that there’s a different way to build that exploits randomness rather than avoids it. This kind of building will rely on new kinds of granular materials that when tipped into place, bind together in ways that provide structural stability. [...] Sean Keller at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and Heinrich Jaeger at the University of Chicago explain how this kind of “aleatory architecture” is finally becoming possible. — technologyreview.com

Bio City -Terreform ONE’s Mitchell Joachim pushes the boundaries of architecture with experimental materials such as living trees and engineered animal tissue — to design future cities that merge with nature. — POLITICO Magazine

“The thing about Thomas is that every project seems to come out of a completely different burst of imagination,” says media mogul Barry Diller [...] “Nothing looks similar—there’s no linkage. I think he’s the most creative, interesting architect—other than Frank Gehry, whom I adore—alive. They share a kind of genius for imagination in its purest form.” — wsj.com