“Why do they come to us? Because of 15 Central Park West,” Mr. Stern, 73, said earlier this month from his office on the West Side of Manhattan. The Chinese “don’t want to go home at night to their three-bedroom shelf on the 44th floor,” he added. “They want to live in a place. That’s what we do: we’re place-makers.” — nytimes.com

Its owners are hoping to sell the house before Nov. 7, when the City Council is scheduled to vote on giving it landmark status, which they oppose. Though they agree that the house ought to be saved — “The property is gorgeous,” Mr. Sells said in its master bedroom one morning — they say they must first safeguard their investment, as well as their livelihood.

“If it becomes a landmark,” Mr. Sells said, “we’re out of business.” — nytimes.com

The man and the legend behind the concrete mecca known as Brasilia is a ripe 104 years of age, and though he was reported to have been “a bit dehydrated” at Rio’s Hospital Samaritano where he was hospitalized last week (he is thankfully “fine,” as doctors told ABC News), Niemeyer’s old age has not precluded his latest project, a collaboration with sneaker mega-brand Converse. — blogs.artinfo.com

Arcosanti, some 42 years after it first was begun in 1970, is just a tiny fragment of what it intends to become — a town for a few thousand people. Right now, we’re at a population of a little less than 100. It’s pretty easy at that small scale to join architecture and ecology, but we have in mind some bigger ideas. While they certainly come from Paolo Soleri, they also come from Henry David Thoreau. — dirt.asla.org

The world is on the threshold of what might be called “peak people.” The world’s supply of working-age people will soon be shrinking, causing a shift from surplus to scarcity. As with “peak oil” theories — which hold that declining petroleum supplies will trigger global economic instability — the claims of the doomsayers are too hyperbolic and hysterical. These are not existential threats but rather policy challenges. That said, they’re very big policy challenges. — dougsaunders.net

... with New York as her project's chosen location, Lau explored the spatial possibilities offered by informal street vending, eventually inverting, in her words, the concept of the floating market. Boat-like structures are, instead, routed through the sky via rails, lifts, and crossings bolted onto or otherwise suspended from the fronts of buildings. — bldgblog.blogspot.com

Although Migliorini, a physical education student, has claimed to media that she planned to donate as much as 90 percent of the auction price to charities that will build homes in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, even auction organizer Justin Sisely, who devised the plan for a proposed documentary, was skeptical. — huffingtonpost.com

One media zeitgeist meets another in a new video posted by artist Ai Weiwei showing himself dancing "Gangnam Style." Ai tweeted the video of himself on Wednesday dancing in the style of Korean pop star Psy's popular music video, which has become an international hit.  — latimes.com

LA-based artist Julian Hoeber created his installation (for a gallery in West Chelsea) which make visitors deliberately uncomfortable by distorting their sense of balance. Without the use of strobe lights or fake skeletons, Demon Hill 2 can make visitors queasy. — thefoxisblack.com

A gangster lives a fast, dangerous life — especially Mexico's brutal narco-chieftains. Just look at their houses. With the prospect of death never far away and plenty of money to burn, it makes sense to spend lavishly on a mansion — especially a fortified one. The locals have a term for the style: narquitectura. — wired.com

We tend to think of architecture as solid, stable, enduring, something that at its best will outlast us and possibly say something about us to future generations. Demolition makes powerfully evident the vulnerability, the mortality, of all things standing. — Places Journal

The latest update brings 25 million new building footprints to Google Maps, making Google’s map offering even more detailed and comprehensive.

The new building footprints have been created by a computer, which processed actual aerial imagery and rendered the shapes of buildings in the maps.

Users can help out and fix inaccurate building footprints in Google Map Maker, as well as assign businesses to existing buildings or even draw the entire building footprints themselves. — mashable.com

a Danish architect and part-time aviation journalist is mapping each claimed shoot-down of Assad’s jets and helicopters, resulting in the first running tabulation of the cost — at least in terms of machinery — of the escalating Syrian air war. Bjørn Holst Jespersen’s map, sponsored by journalist David Cenciotti’s blog The Aviationist, marks 19 possible “kills” by rebel forces, as reported in the press or seen in YouTube videos. — wired.com

It’s true that micro-units are not family-friendly, but it’s less true that a small apartment is inherently inhabitable. While the debate rages on about how much space is too little, there is little talk of how much is too much.

Different constituencies may have their reasons for opposing these tiny units, but however varied they may be, all seem to reflect a distinctly American perception of what qualifies as “enough” space. — opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

The narrowest building in Poland, and possibly the narrowest in Europe, is the brainchild of Israeli writer Edgar Keret. It was conceived as a memorial to his parents' family, who died in Warsaw during the World War II Holocaust.

The house was actually squeezed in-between two existing central Warsaw residential buildings on the edge of the former Warsaw Ghetto.

Polish architect Jakub Szczesny designed the weird construction, which is still a real house with all the necessary facilities. — rt.com