You learn with experience the things that are not worth doing. Most architects think, no matter what, they can make something out of any commission. For example, I don’t do prisons or hospitals, or restoration work. I do know, by now, who I am. And by now at least clients come to us with their eyes open. They don’t expect something we don’t do. — Architectural Record

It's that time of year when we announce the semi-finalists for this year's Buckminster Fuller Challenge from the Buckminster Fuller Institute. [...]

Each of the 19 projects represent a collective body of work including whole systems solutions and targeted efforts that address pressing global issues in sanitation, materials, water, energy, disaster prevention, poverty, food and ecology. — bustler.net

The leggy damsel with raven hair and Doc Martens to match is unequivocal. ''No,'' she tells the small, freckled boy. ''You can't climb here. Go in there where it's safe.'' [...]

But the boy - not recognising her livery - can be forgiven his mistake. To him, the large, gridded edifice that she guards promises infinite climbability. [...]

The climbing frame in question is in fact art. It is this summer's Serpentine Pavilion, by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. — smh.com.au

The success of a public work of art is measured not merely by aesthetics, but rather, by its magnetic qualities that inspire interaction. The art is a reflection of the City, the art becomes a part of the City, the art is instrumental in making the City. — Spirit of Space

If San Franciscans like to describe their city as “49 square miles surrounded by reality,” the visionary ideas that were too grandiose for even San Franciscans to consider remain some of the most fantastic designs for any city in the world. Imagine a grand casino on Alcatraz, the city wrapped in freeways and a subdivision covering flattened hills north of the Golden Gate Bridge. — Architecture and the City Festival

The Morpholio Project has revealed the winners of Inside 2013! In case you're just tuning in about this competition, Inside 2013 promotes the research, exploration and investigation currently happening in academia and today's emerging talent. — bustler.net

Everyone makes mistakes. But when seemingly minor blunders are made in designing and building structures, the results can be catastrophic. Read about some of the more infamous architectural failures in history, and what we have learned from those mistakes. — NewSchool of Architecture + Design

[My Ideal City] is an instrument where all people in Bogota help to create their city by interacting in proposals made for their Downtown in crowd sourcing, thus impacting design through real time interaction and direct feedback. Once the different initiatives are defined, the process is completed by the population crowd funding its own initiatives. — Aedes

School buses are so much fun. The springy seats, the awkward-to-open windows [..]—it all hearkens back to a time in your life when you were younger, happier and worry-free. But did you ever imagine living in one? Hank Butitta did.

By his last semester at architecture school, Butitta had grown weary of doing projects that only existed on paper, ones that were destined to be filed away and forgotten. He got sick of making things that nobody cared about. So what did he do? He bought a school bus. — gizmodo.com

Euphony, a dramatic installation of suspended stainless-steel ball chains by Ball-Nogues, has been created for Nashville's Music City Center. The studio, headed by Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues, intersects the disciplines of architecture, art and industrial design. We talk to Benjamin Ball about Euphony and the process of its construction. — frameweb.com

What 4D printing offers is the opportunity for objects to change, to adapt to their environment, to respond.

Earlier this year, Skylar Tibbits, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Self-Assembly Lab, created a bit of a stir with his talk on 4D printing.

“We are looking at the ability to program physical and biological materials to change shape, change properties and even compute outside of silicon-based matter,” Mr. Tibbits told the TED conference in February. — blogs.wsj.com

We’re supposedly in the midst of a design renaissance, where beyond the cliché Steve Jobs and Apple ecosystem example, we see a design-centric focus in everything from soap (Method) and thermostats (Nest) to email (Mailbox) and even baby food (Plum Organics).

And yet, there’s a dearth of designer founders. — wired.com