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

The investor behind a controversial luxury housing complex in the German capital has suspended construction after thousands protested plans to remove a section of the Berlin Wall to accomodate the building. He will try to find a compromise at a meeting with officials later this month. — spiegel.de

I went travelling through Japan, China, Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia with my girlfriend. Since getting back to the UK I've condensed some of the video footage from that time into a 5 and a half minute video. — archinect.com

In Santa Barbara, Calif., the hot architect in town is George Washington Smith. In Charlottesville, Va., it's Eugene Bradbury. And in the small town of Washington, Conn., homes by Ehrick Rossiter are prized. These architects have a few things in common: They're long dead, they're relatively unknown outside the small, affluent pockets where they practiced in the early 20th century and they've all made a comeback. — online.wsj.com

Nick Lembo, the president of Monadnock, recruited nArchitects for the competition. “Some architects shy away from modular construction, and some are intimidated by micro-units,” he said. “But Mimi and Eric were excited by the creative challenges. They created an incredibly space-efficient unit with an open design that will make it feel larger than its square footage.” — nytimes.com

Facebook recently got a big blue thumbs up from the Menlo Park Planning Commission to build its sprawling Frank Gehry-designed headquarters. Along with the requisite rezoning for the design, the commission approved the project’s environmental impact report, an official statement concluding that the new development would have more positive than negative effects on the area, and a cartographical change that will create a private road in front of the property called “Facebook Way.” — blogs.artinfo.com

It is in empty spaces like [under Hong Kong's overpasses] that a group is campaigning for the government to build youth hostels, arts performance venues, offices for small- to mid-sized businesses and, most intriguingly, temporary housing. The group sees this unused land as an opportunity to alleviate Hong Kong’s problem of young people not being able to afford to rent in the world’s most expensive property market. — smartplanet.com

In an effort to foster the creative debate on urban recovery after Hurricane Sandy, MoMA PS1 and MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design are calling out for ideas to create a sustainable waterfront.

Artists, architects, designers, and others are welcome to present ideas for alternative housing models, creation of social spaces, urban interventions, new uses of public space, the rebuilding of the boardwalk, protection of the shoreline, and actions to engage local communities. — momaps1.org

window views of landscapes, research shows, can speed patient recovery in hospitals, aid learning in classrooms and spur productivity in the workplace. In studies of call centers, for example, workers who could see the outdoors completed tasks 6 to 7 percent more efficiently than those who couldn’t, generating an annual savings of nearly $3,000 per employee. — nytimes.com

Harry S Truman inherited a White House that was in horrendous shape. After the British nearly burnt it to the ground in 1814, the construction of 20th-century innovations—indoor plumbing, electricity, and heating ducts—had also taken its toll on the structure. The building was nearly 150 years old, and it showed its age. In November 1948, the building was in a near-condemnable state... So it had to be gutted. Completely. — nationaljournal.com

Daniel Libeskind, who has built a reputation working on historically and culturally sensitive projects such as the Jewish Museum in Berlin and the reconstruction of New York’s World Trade Center site, said beautiful architecture was no excuse for working with “morally questionable” clients.

“Even if they produce gleaming towers, if they are morally questionable, I’m not interested,” he said in the interview with The Architects’ Journal. — independent.co.uk

Tens of thousands of people resumed mass demonstrations in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka, on Saturday, intensifying their demands for more severe punishment for war criminals from the country’s 1971 liberation war, while also demanding justice for the slaying of Rajib Haider, an architect and blogger, who had been a leading organizer of the protests. — NYT

Just over a decade ago, Richard Davies, a British architectural photographer, struck out on a mission to record the fragile and poetic structures. Austerely beautiful and haunting, “Wooden Churches: Traveling in the Russian North” is the result. — nytimes.com

There is only so far the gap between the migrant workers and the local Shanghainese they serve can grow before the foundations of the city buckle — and only so many well-educated, English-speaking, computer-literate, world-traveling young people the city can welcome before they demand change. Modernity is about more than fast trains and tall buildings. Despite the authorities’ strict controls, some among Shanghai’s millions have surely figured this out. — Places Journal

As formerly boho environs of Brooklyn become unattainable due to creeping Manhattanization and seven-figure real estate prices, creative professionals of child-rearing age — the type of alt-culture-allegiant urbanites who once considered themselves too cool to ever leave the city — are starting to ponder the unthinkable: a move to the suburbs. — New York Times