Located in the heart of historic Paris, Silencio is a 2,100-square-foot members-only nightclub that consists of a series of one-off rooms, plus a live stage with a reflective dance floor and 24-seat cinema. It grew, Navot says, out of a two-year process working with Lynch in Paris and in Los Angeles at the director’s home, with talks over the phone or on Skype. — fastcodesign.com

As his life wound down, and cancer claimed his body, his great passion was designing Apple’s new, three-million-square-foot headquarters, in Cupertino. Jobs threw himself into the details. “Over and over he would come up with new concepts, sometimes entirely new shapes, and make them restart and provide more alternatives,” Isaacson writes. He was obsessed with glass, expanding on what he learned from the big panes in the Apple retail stores. — newyorker.com

Gregory Walker, noted that Zaha Hadid Architects now has an app for that and thinks they may have finally jumped the shark. However, Steven Ward thought that "in a context where your business is built on maintaining your brand, this probably doesn't seem like a tough or strange decision at all." and lletdownl agreed arguing that "it makes perfect sense to me to develop a method of viewing your work targeted specifically to the fastest growing method of browsing.

BOFFO Building Fashion celebrates cutting edge design through a series of temporary retail installations showcasing the work of an architect paired with a fashion designer. Each of five projects receives a $20k stipend for all construction. We have completed three amazing projects that have given our designers and architects massive exposure but the rest cannot be completed without your help. — kickstarter.com

Bad news: a skyscraping apartment block is being built near my home. Worse news: judging by the computer rendering on the developers’ hoarding, it will be indistinguishable from thousands of instantly forgettable new buildings all over the world. Even worse news: its name is Avant-garde Tower. — 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

A concise representation of Architecture in pie chart form — Coffee with an Architect

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

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

Marc Jacobs will present Katie Grand the award for fashion innovator of the year. Marina Abramovic will accept the award for Ai Weiwei... for best art innovator. Jonathan Safran Foer will present the food innovator award to — wait for it — Chipotle founder Steve Ells. Other winners include Elon Musk (technology), Joris Laarman (design) and Bjarke Ingels (architecture). Bill Gates and Warren Buffett got the philanthropy award, but will not be at the ceremony. — wwd.com

Countless academic studies have argued that studying design at school can be hugely beneficial, even for students who have no intention of becoming professional designers, because it builds their confidence by teaching them communication, planning and visualization skills, which will be useful in any field. Yet relatively few students in America’s cash-strapped public school system are given the chance to study design, or art, especially in deprived areas like Bertie County — New York Times

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

"This year’s Solar Decathlon was a nail-biter of a competition, but in the end the University of Maryland team ultimately triumphed over all the other teams with an elegant, water conservation-focused home called the WaterShed." — Inhabitat.com