Panicky cost-cutting measures during construction left out elements that would have made the exterior and lobby more dazzling and the hall more flexible. The Music Center, which maintains the hall, seems in danger of taking the venue for granted, not eager to invest in it when it can bask in glory by doing nothing. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is planning a subway line under the hall, raising concerns that train vibrations will spoil the sound. — latimes.com

Although the Bay is a natural entity borne of great rivers draining the entire Central Valley of California, every inch of its shoreline today is the product of human activity, by either intent or incident. — Center for Land Use Interpretation

Instead of specially engineering spacecraft components to fit into a rocket, NASA could densely pack materials like fiber and polymer into existing spacecraft and create the components while orbiting the planet. This cuts down on cost and opens up the possibility for larger spacecraft. — gigaom.com

And just as prisons in the U.S. are now designed to look not just secure and largely windowless but so nondescript that they practically disappear, architecture firms often coat their prison-design work in several layers of euphemism.

Prisons and jails become "correctional facilities." On the website of the large corporate firm HOK Architects, which designed the 1997 Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown L.A., they are tucked into a broader portfolio of "justice buildings." — latimes.com

The design called for a series of rectangular buildings skewed on an axis comprised of ground-floor retail, office development and proposed residential and flex office space and the upper section would be a hotel, according to city officials.

“I have to say that the Metro Pacific is a beautiful project and you look at it and it’s stunning architecturally,” Davis said. “The affordable housing is kind of an afterthought … . It’s a little unclear of how many units we are going to get.” — smdp.com

President Barack Obama is appointing a known critic of the planned Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial design to serve on the federal commission that oversees the project.

The White House announced Obama’s intent to appoint former National Endowment for the Humanities chairman Bruce Cole last month, but it drew little attention while Congress was in recess. Cole led the humanities endowment under former President George W. Bush. — washingtonpost.com

Renzo Piano, the award-winning architect who gave London the Shard and Paris the Pompidou centre, has been granted one of his country's highest honours, being named a senator for life by the Italian president.

Giorgio Napolitano said the 75-year-old was among four distinguished Italians whose achievements in the cultural and scientific fields would allow them to contribute to the nation's parliament "in absolute independence of any party political considerations". — theguardian.com

Developers have promised urgent action to “cover up” the Walkie Talkie skyscraper in the City after an ultra-bright light reflected from the building melted a Jaguar car on the streets below.

The 525ft, £200 million building has been renamed the “Walkie Scorchie” after its distinctive concave surfaces reflected a dazzling beam of light which blinded passers-by and has now caused extensive damage to vehicles parked beneath it. — independent.co.uk

In 2012, ​filmmaker Leon Gerskovic chronicled the journey of 16 design/buildLAB students as they conceived and realized the Masonic Amphitheatre. The project consisted of the complete redevelopment of a post-industrial brownfield into a public park and performance space. Reality Check is their inspirational story. — Reality Check Film

Rod Serling, creator of the 1950s television series "The Twilight Zone", defined science fiction as "the improbable made possible." The same might be said for the practice of architecture. After all, architects by trade conceive of spaces, places, and worlds that do not (yet) exist. Furthermore, the ability to make the improbable possible is held in especially high regard today and is oftentimes what defines an architectural practice as “innovative” in the first place. — CLOG

Architects Alice Kimm, FAIA; John Mutlow, FAIA; Lorcan O’Herihy, FAIA; Warren Techentin, AIA; Patrick Tighe, FAIA; and Ed Woll, Ph.D. will present housing projects in development and discuss the potential of micro-housing units, transit oriented development and changing lifestyles to create livable density in LA. — USC Architecture

The memorial to Mexico’s victims of violence looks like it has been dropped from the sky by an angry God. Welcoming it is not, with its rusted slabs the size of movie screens standing next to a busy intersection.

Nor is its mission clear. [...]

But then, you walk a little closer and the slabs begin to speak. — nytimes.com

The fate of five Picasso murals on buildings damaged in the Anders Breivik bombing in Oslo in 2011 has led to a heated debate in Norway.

A panel of experts has recommended demolishing the buildings and removing the murals.

But art experts say that as the murals were designed by Picasso for those specific buildings, they should remain where they are.

The artworks were Picasso's first attempts at concrete murals. — bbc.co.uk

New York-based artist Thomas Doyle has made a career of crafting minuscule models of houses [...] and uprooting (sometimes literally) a handful of them via apocalyptic chaos. Sometimes, wrap around porches of butter yellow farmhouses fall into sinkholes and blue country homes get caught by tornados. — curbed.com