The idea of creating a low-line companion to Philadelphia's planned high line has so gripped imaginations that a team of top designers has volunteered to sketch ideas for a belowground trail on the west side of Broad St. Tours are now practically weekly events conducted by Paul van Meter, who first proposed a low-line park.

There's one hitch: A new city plan just earmarked the low-line trench for a high-speed bus route that would connect a string of cultural venues to the heart of downtown. — articles.philly.com

While the design industry may not pay as much heed to star architects – or starchitects – as it once did, on a consumer level, they clearly still pack a punch.

This is exemplified by the sale of an apartment in the Frank Gehry-designed Opus Building in Hong Kong which, according to William Lau of Midland Realty, reached a record-breaking sale price of nearly $60 million due to its ‘unique’ architectural design. — DesignBuild Source

Developers in San Francisco are loath to take architectural risks because the city’s approval process for new development is long and rigorous, perhaps the most onerous in the country, architects say.

It’s hard to fault their caution when you consider how small San Francisco really is — 47 square miles (Manhattan alone is 23 square miles) — with much of the area consumed by neighborhoods zoned for single-family homes. — The New York Times

Led by Architekturzentrum Wien director Dietmar Steiner, the curators traveled around the former Soviet Union over a three-year period in search of their often elusive and quickly decaying subjects. Focusing on the former republics—from Estonia to Belarus, Armenia to Uzbekistan—they interviewed the still-living actors of the time and foraged in bookshops for archive material. They eventually uncovered major Soviet typologies... — online.wsj.com

"Some of the most important architects of the 19th and 20th centuries were commissioned to construct fair pavilions, dazzling, unusual structures incorporating the most cutting-edge materials and engineering prowess possible at the time," Doskow writes in an artist statement. "Among them are McKim, Mead and White, Louis Sullivan, Gustave Eiffel, Le Corbusier, Ando, Mies van der Rohe and the landscaping of Frederick Law Olmsted." — wbaa.org

The Downtown Market, in effect, is the newest piece of civic equipment built here since the mid-1990s to leverage the same urban economic trends of the 21st century — higher education, hospitals and health care, housing, entertainment, transit, and cleaner air and water — that are reviving most large American cities. — New York Times

Remarkable projects come from remarkable people and Inhotim is the creation of Bernardo Paz, a mining magnate who has lavishly installed his contemporary art collection across several hillsides in Minas Gerais, an estate of some 5000 acres. Paz has commissioned many architects, to make pavilions specially designed for individual artists, and others that house several artists’ works, all cushioned within the lush vegetation of a botanic garden. — tate.org.uk

Zaha Hadid on growing up in Iraq, getting the architecture bug, and the legacy of her Olympics Aquatics Centre — guardian.co.uk

The Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to pursue the project recording the accomplishments of 50 women architects practicing before 1980. — bwaf.org

In the 1950s, Soviet engineers built a massive city in the Caspian Sea off the coast of Azerbaijan. It was a network of oil platforms linked by hundreds of kilometers of roads and housing 5,000 workers, with a cinema, a park and apartment blocks. Gradually disintegrating but still closely guarded, this astonishing place inspired a fiery scene in a James Bond movie. — Spiegel

“While the prospective buyer strongly supports efforts to preserve the David and Gladys Wright house, he has concluded that for personal and business reasons, this is not an opportunity he will pursue at this time. He has every confidence that a preservation minded buyer will be found, and that the house will be preserved," representatives of the prospective buyer told Joffe. — bizjournals.com

what’s being called the world’s first 3D printing photo booth is set to open for a limited time at the exhibition space EYE OF GYRE in Harajuku. From November 24 to January 14, 2013, people with reservations can go and have their portraits taken. Except, instead of a photograph, you’ll receive miniature replicas of yourselves. — spoon-tamago.com

The reason for all this quarrying is not the discovery of a coal-rich seam beneath the Wrenaissance streets, but the local enthusiasm for subterranean development. Over the past four years, this local authority alone has granted planning applications for more than 800 basement extensions, refused 90, and has a further 20 outstanding. It is the most densely populated borough in the country, with no room to build outwards, and no permission to build upwards – so the only way is down. — guardian.co.uk

The Pop-up HAWSE (Homes through Apprenticeships With Skills for Employment) is a proposal to convert disused lock-up garages in London's Hackney into temporary accommodation for homeless people.

Conceived by Levitt Bernstein Architects for the Building Trust's Home competition, the scheme would allow an 11.5sq m bedsit to be created within a disused garage for around £13,000. — guardian.co.uk

The argument for preserving old buildings is a very strong one that I wholeheartedly support myself. However. On the rare occasions that I get to visit a forgotten building as magnificent as this one, I can’t help day dreaming about some of the incredible monumental relics I know back home and quietly wishing that a few more of them had been left to grow old and perish naturally rather than being unceremoniously hooked up to the proverbial life support machine of modern tourism... — humanplanet.com