Not far from the Brandenburg Gate, Potsdamer Platz was a no man’s land during the Cold War. Then the Berlin Wall fell, and the German authorities made it a petting zoo for celebrity architecture. The corporate headquarters of Germany’s new global swagger.

But the ambitions for Potsdamer Platz, like the hopes and fears about a united Germany, turned out differently. The architecture was not so great. Many companies fled. — nytimes.com

"The pied-à-terre tax is seen by New York’s wealthiest 1 percent as a question of fairness" - James Parrott, the chief economist at the Fiscal Policy Institute — NYT

Dubbed “Dementia Village” by CNN, Hogewey is a cutting-edge elderly-care facility—roughly the size of 10 football fields—where residents are given the chance to live seemingly normal lives. With only 152 inhabitants, it’s run like a more benevolent version of The Truman Show [...]

Last year, CNN reported that residents at Hogewey require fewer medications, eat better, live longer, and appear more joyful than those in standard elderly-care facilities. — citylab.com

How did we come to live in an insular tribal sphere where unwritten rules and rigid moralities — about whom to like and dislike, what is permissible to say and what must remain unsaid — are strictly enforced via social media and online disapproval, much of it anonymous? When did this band of gypsies and relentless radicals get so conservative? — vulture

Monica Ponce de Leon, a leading American architect proud of being a Hispanic woman in a field long dominated by white men, wants to change the face of her profession.

[...] agreed to conduct a class earlier that day for juniors from John Hay High School - the vast majority of whom were black.

Ponce de Leon, dean of the Taubman College of Architecture and Planning [...], wanted to inspire the students to enter a field in which the vast majority of practitioners don't look like them. — cleveland.com

The McMillan Sand Filtration Site is one of Washington, DC's most conspicuous mysteries. Unbeknownst to the thousands of commuters and residents that pass by its rusted gates daily, below this sprawling parcel of land lies a series of vast underground caverns built in the early 20th century by the Army Corps of Engineers as a natural purification facility for DC's turbid water supply. — Vimeo

Rotterdam has been crowned as the best city in Europe at today’s Urbanism Awards. The post-industrial city in the Netherlands beat off strong competition from Aarhus in Denmark and Turin in Italy.

The award is one of five given out annually by the Academy to recognise the best, most enduring or most improved urban environments. Voted on by Academicians, each award covers a number of social, economic and environmental factors, including good governance and commercial success. — Academy of Urbanism

Erecting such a building “without authority of the General Assembly will diminish or impair the beneficial interest of plaintiffs and other Illinois citizens” [...]

such a designation conflicts with the trust, which calls for preserving property as “a natural resource and as a free and open space not occupied by a giant building.” [...]

by acting without the approval of state lawmakers, the city and park district would have excessive power over the property “for which they have no authority.” — chicagobusiness.com

The region of Ordos made headlines in 2010 for the pre-built metropolis that had everything but people. Now, however, Kangbashi city is rapidly filling up with country people who are being encouraged to live in cities and diversify China’s economy. For ageing farmers who’ve spent their whole life on the land, however, becoming “urbanites” is a tall order. — theguardian.com

In 2010, the Fondazione di Venezia—a well-endowed and entrepreneurial foundation with its historic roots in Italy’s regional banking system—launched an architectural competition for a cluster of buildings in the centre of Mestre, one of the mainland urban areas of Venice. [...]

The three accompanying essays, by Marco De Michelis, Aaron Betsky and M9 architect Matthias Sauerbruch, are less granular. They provide an overview of and perspectives on the museum-building boom [...]. — theartnewspaper.com

Two window washers' lives are literally hanging in the balance - they're stuck on scaffolding at 1 World Trade Center, officials said Wednesday afternoon.

The shaky scaffolding, which is suspended around the 69th floor, was seen dangling at an unstable angle, according to images that surfaced of the scene.

The workers are dangling at a 65-degree angle, according to NYPD counterterrorism czar John Miller. — nydailynews.com

Q. You’re an established industrial designer. Why the focus now on building design?

A. I’ve always taken a great interest in real estate; in fact, if I had more capital, I’d probably be developing a lot more projects myself. There’s also money to be made in real estate — much more than one can as a designer. [...]

Q. But you’re not a licensed architect.

A. I am doing 11 buildings in the world, but I don’t have a stamp as an architect and I wasn’t educated as an architect. — nytimes.com

Through six decades of assault [...] the apartment building on Upper Pansodan endured, its graceful arches and colorful patios sacrificing little of their elegance and charm to the torments of time, nature, and repression.

Then in 2013, three years into Myanmar's unprecedented political and economic opening up, the building succumbed to a force that proved too great to resist: development. — news.nationalgeographic.com