In a series of photos taken over seven years, now published in a new book called Ciphers, photographer Christoph Gielen shows a different perspective on sprawl, intended to get more people to question typical patterns of development.

"I meant for Ciphers to be provocative at a time when we are witnessing a phenomenal escalation in urban construction ... when entire cities are emerging fully formed in India and China, rather than slowly evolving," says Gielen. — fastcoexist.com

Silicon Valley is a meticulously researched show [...] and the work spaces that appear on screen are no exception. Production designer Richard Toyon, the man responsible for the visual storytelling, called up friends all over Silicon Valley to get a peek inside the offices of Facebook, Google, Zynga, and others. Security often prevented Toyon from taking pictures inside the buildings, so he made due with mental notes. — fastcodesign.com

It was 75 years ago—the year Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz were released and World War II began—that Los Angeles's lovely Union Station first opened for business. There was a big Downtown celebration on May 3, 1939 to mark the opening of what is viewed as the nation's last great rail station, and Ward Kimball, an award-winning Disney animator and part-time rail nerd (one of Disney's Nine Old Men and the man who created Tweedledee/Tweedledum and Jiminy Cricket), filmed the occasion. — la.curbed.com

Unfinished Spaces by Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin Murray continues to gain recognition since its initial release in 2011. In addition to previous grants and awards, the documentary film recently won the 2014 Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) Award for Film and Video at the 2014 Annual Conference in Austin, Texas. Established in 2013, the annual award is given to the most distinguished international work of film or video on the history of the built environment. — bustler.net

The video reveals Hong Kongers’ anxieties over political and social issues, such as their increasingly crowded and materialist city and the growing numbers of mainlanders since the city's transfer from the United Kingdom to China in 1997. It sends the opposite message of a very common view among mainlanders, that without China's economic support, Hong Kong would have been dead long ago. — globalvoicesonline.org

Baan, who began shooting buildings in earnest less than a decade ago, balances politeness with relentlessness—qualities that help explain his rapid rise in the architecture world. So compelling is his work, which depicts the world's buildings being used, misused or even abused, that top-tier architects like Herzog & de Meuron, Rem Koolhaas and Zaha Hadid dispatch him to photograph all of their new projects, requiring him to fly hundreds of thousands of miles a year. — online.wsj.com

The Rendering Eye: Urban America Revisited presents 3D screenshots of the urban US as they appear in Apple Maps: deserted streets, post-apocalyptic buildings and industrial plants, melting harbors. Cars and boats turn into shadows, trees into sculptures, containers into wax.[...]

The cityscapes captured by artist REGULA BOCHSLER for the publication are abstract, machine generated, and cold. And yet they are poetic, not least because of their “mistakes,” which give them a painterly composition. — 032c.com