Consider for just a moment the modern skyscraper. [...] The Chrysler Building in New York. The World Financial Center in Shanghai. The Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the tallest building in the world. They transform skylines and help define what it means to be a modern metropolis.

But once upon a time, they were just places for people to work. Kate Ascher traces that history in her new book, "The Heights: Anatomy of A Skyscraper." — marketplace.org

It has been the rallying cry of the Occupy movement for the past two months - but is the US really split 99% v 1%? As poverty and inequality reach record levels, how much richer have the rich got? This animation explains what the key data says about the state of America today — The Guardian

Last week, the 19th annual CANstruction competition kicked off, with teams of architects and engineers spending a night building sculptures out of canned food, which will be donated to City Harvest. Mixing art and design, the pieces must be visually compelling but also structurally sound. — New York Observer

The house was just $1. The catch? A delivery charge of nearly $22,000.

.....Moving a house is, in theory, relatively simple. — New York Times

Hard proof that we are living in the future: To promote the recent New York City marathon, Asics hooked up a 60-foot video wall in Manhattan's Columbus Circle subway station, inviting commuters to race against life-sized footage of Olympic marathon runner Ryan Hall. Hall zips by at his average pace while you see if you can match it. — core77.com

Households have evolved. But New York’s housing stock hasn’t. In essence, New Yorkers have increasingly had to adapt to the housing we’ve got, instead of designing and building the housing that suits who we have become. — New York Times

When completed in 2015, Hotel Crescent will stand on the banks of the Caspian Sea, its 33-stories housed in a vast, down-turned crescent. A sister project was proposed called the Full Moon Hotel that would have brought something resembling the Death Star from "Star Wars" to the Caspian coastline. — edition.cnn.com

Mongolia is to launch one of the world's biggest ice-making experiments later this month in an attempt to combat the adverse affects of global warming and the urban heat island effect.

The geoengineering trial, that is being funded by the Ulan Bator government, aims to "store" freezing winter temperatures in a giant block of ice that will help to cool and water the city as it slowly melts during the summer. — guardian.co.uk

Death is not a happy subject, so most of us would undoubtedly prefer not to think about funeral homes. But sooner or later, we're likely to end up in one, if only to attend someone else's service. That's why it's fascinating to step into the newest chapel of Chicago Jewish Funerals, which has two other suburban locations.

This adventurous modernist building, at 8851 Skokie Blvd. in north suburban Skokie, isn't a great work of architecture, but it's a telling one. — chicagotribune.com

Saiman Miah, studying for his Masters degree at Birmingham School of Architecture designed the Olympic coin which features architectural elements of London's skyline and pictograms of athletes around the edge to create a clock face inspired by Big Ben. — telegraph.co.uk

Here in Merced, a city in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley and one of the country’s hardest hit by home foreclosures, the downturn in the real estate market has presented an unusual housing opportunity for thousands of college students. Facing a shortage of dorm space, they are moving into hundreds of luxurious homes in overbuilt planned communities. — nytimes.com

All over Los Angeles, the places where artists, architects and engineers were busy in the postwar years inventing the future are being recast as monuments and historical shrines.

This new attitude toward the city's recent heritage can be seen in increasingly visible battles over the fate of postwar landmarks like Richard Neutra's Kronish House in Beverly Hills and in nascent efforts to preserve and display artifacts from the early years of the computer and aerospace industries in Los Angeles. — latimes.com

When his appointment is officially announced, the British architect – renowned for his cool, clear almost chaste designs, most notably his recent Turner Contemporary in Margate and the Hepworth Wakefield in Yorkshire – will have just eight months to come up with a theme for two huge group shows: one in the former rope works of the Arsenale; the other in the nearby Giardini. — guardian.co.uk

Before the German photographer even snaps a single shot, he is in his studio, creating 3D model subjects—usually industrial grey constructs in still, almost poetic, settings—out of deco boards, plasticine, and paint. It could take weeks, even months, before Frank is fully satisfied that each model is indeed flawless. — trendland.net