‘El mejor anuncio de la historia’, or ‘the best ad in history’ is a picture taken in February 2008, which neatly encapsulates several aspects of the city’s urban landscape: the formal, the informal and the promotional.

'[...]Around and in between the super bloques a carpet of slums has grown, an organism that now seems to bind the blocks together in some symbiotic relationship. These are the kind of hybrid forms that are developing in Latin American cities [...]’ — failedarchitecture.com

Many in the west too often think of Beirut as a city scarred by war and terror. But the capital of Lebanon is a beautiful, modern city, one utterly remade after the country’s civil war ended in 1990. Gleaming skyscrapers tower over historic and pre-war modernist architecture, drenched in color and bathed in sunlight. It provides no end of inspiration for Serge Najjar, whose gorgeous photos of the city fill his Instagram. — Wired

The systematic destruction of Saudi Arabia is under way—in silence. Historic mosques, tombs, mausoleums, monuments and houses: more than 90% of the old quarters of the holiest cities of Islam has been razed to make room for a new urban landscape of hotels, shopping centres and apartment blocks. [...]

Construction works have already transformed Mecca and Medina into cities without a past, dominated by skyscrapers. — theartnewspaper.com

From farmland to stately brownstones to battleground for million-dollar bidding wars, Brooklyn’s transformation has fundamentally altered the city’s geography—and the way New York now thinks of itself. It has also altered the lives of the residents who call the borough home. To understand those changes, we dispatched a team of reporters to find a place where Brooklyn’s past and future are next-door neighbors. — nymag.com

Brazilian police investigating corruption around the state-run oil firm Petrobras also plan to investigate more than $10bn of construction contracts for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, according to a lead investigator on the case.

Some of the big engineering companies caught up in the Petrobras inquiry “very probably” broke laws against price-fixing and bribery on contracts to build Olympic venues, said Igor Romario, a federal police chief and key figure in the investigation. — The Guardian

Our urban centers were not designed with cyclists in mind; we’re a car-centric society. American cities can try piecemeal approaches, but the reality is that sharing the road is only a small part of the solution. Bikes and cars need their own dedicated thoroughfares to keep everyone as safe as possible, and to encourage people to choose clip-in pedals over gas ones... — Wired

Privatisation in the 90s has resulted in a reduction of public buildings and an escalation in large, corporate ownership — the guardian

The team will examine the spatial experiences of people with Alzheimer’s and the installation will be accompanied by a social media campaign designed to extend the reach of the work beyond the Biennale. [...]

The scheme was set to be a test case for future developments and was seen as an opportunity to ‘improve the quality of life of a marginalised group by reaching towards an understanding of the deep human mystery of how we place ourselves in the world.’ — architectsjournal.co.uk

"Do you believe in infrastructure?” asks Norman Foster, with challenge in his voice. He does. Infrastructure, he says, is about “investing not to solve the problems of today but to anticipate the issues of future generations”. [...]

“I have no power as an architect, none whatsoever. I can’t even go on to a building site and tell people what to do.” Advocacy, he says, is the only power an architect ever has. — theguardian.com

The number of Mexican immigrants living in the U.S. illegally has declined. In 2014, 5.6 million unauthorized immigrants from Mexico lived in the U.S., down by about 1 million since 2007. [...]

Mexican unauthorized immigrants are more likely than unauthorized immigrants overall to work in the construction industry ... Among Mexican unauthorized immigrants ages 16 and older who were employed in 2012, 19% worked in construction and 13% worked in a wide range of businesses — pewhispanic.org

between population gains and the popularity of fully self-driving mobility services, we’ll see the total number of vehicle miles grow by 1 trillion. (Half of the 1 trillion it attributes to population growth.) For perspective, U.S. residents drove 3.1 trillion miles in 2014.

KPMG expects this growth to come from trips taken by the very young and very old, who can be immobile only due to their inability to drive. By having access to a self-driving shuttle, a world of opportunity would open up. — washingtonpost.com

As architects, we are living at a time of shifting paradigms. [...] It’s why I’m so interested in how architects and urban planners engage with other fields – economics, security, the environment and so on. Our challenge must be to go beyond architecture and speak the languages of these other disciplines, before translating our discussions into formal design proposals. [...] Our ultimate focus is still on form, but what informs this has expanded dramatically. — theguardian.com