It is a thoroughly cynical piece of work, a building that uses a frenzy of architectural forms to endorse the idea that architecture, in the end, is mere decoration. Mayne's design appears to put innovative architecture on a literal pedestal — or a plinth, to be exact — while actually allowing it to become peripheral, noticeably separate from the heart of the museum and its galleries. — latimes.com

Thom Mayne of the Los Angeles firm Morphosis Architects wants to inspire curiosity about science, the natural world and technology. And he succeeds. The Perot’s architecture evokes wonder, the way ancient ruins, animal skeletons or petroglyphs do.

A lot of people wish wilfully spectacular architecture like the Perot’s would die off. Mayne, who recently received the American Institute of Architects’ Gold Medal, shows us what it can do at its best. — bloomberg.com

The American Institute of Architects today selected Thom Mayne to be honored with the 2013 AIA Gold Medal, the organization’s highest honor that an individual can receive. — bustler.net

The building is alluring but unsettling. Is the museum’s 10-story concrete cube splitting apart or being pieced together? Is it being held intact by an enormous brace — a transparent protrusion on the cube’s side containing a 54-foot-long escalator — or is that a destabilizing gash that pierces the building’s body? — NYT

The fairly rectangular structure, located just a few feet from the new light rail Expo Line’s elevated tracks in Culver City, gets most of its energy from photovoltaics—a 2,800 sq ft array sitting on top of a shaded parking canopy outside. But what makes it all work are the energy savings: It significantly reduces loads through several low-tech, high-tech, and even revolutionary techniques, most of which were developed with engineers at Buro Happold, whose LA offices are just down the street. — archpaper.com

“Google didn’t exist 25 years ago, Facebook didn’t exist 25 years ago, even AOL didn’t exist 25 years ago,” Cornell's Andrew Winters said recently. “The challenge is how do you create a tech campus today that is still flexible enough to grow and evolve for the next 25 years?” — New York Observer

Thom Mayne of Morphosis Architects beat out some serious competition yesterday when he was awarded the honor to design the first CornellNYC Tech academic building on Roosevelt Island. The six candidates included Diller Scofidio + Renfro of High Line fame; One World Trade Center designers Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), and Steven Holl Architects. — Inhabitat

Before a city becomes a thing of steel, concrete, and glass it is a theater of visions in conflict. As a city ages, the visions do not die but come up against the physical and ideological resistance of the place and its people. This is an account of a Manhattan that could have been – might have been. A phantasmagorical Manhattan where the visionary meets the everyday. The island as we know it is but a pale reflection of a city designed by visionaries – a city of mad, incongruous utopias.

The innovation offered by a new tech campus on Roosevelt Island is not limited to New York’s technology sector but the design one, as well. Almost every bid had soaring renderings and flashy flythroughs, most notably the winning entry from Cornell. Now the upstate university has announced six of the world’s top firms, including a few local favorites, are in the running to design the new tech campus. — New York Observer

The international competition for the concept design of the new Eni Exploration & Production Business Center in San Donato Milanese, Italy, was won by Morphosis Architects with Nemesi Partners (architectural design partner), Setec TPI (structures designer), Setec Batiment (plants designer) and Pasodoble (landscape architect). — bustler.net

The Museum of Fine Arts Houston has selected three architecture firms—Morphosis, Snøhetta and Steven Holl Architects—to submit conceptual design proposals for an expanded MFAH. The project entails the construction of a building intended primarily for post-1900 art, a parking garage and the integration of surrounding MFAH buildings and public spaces. — bustler.net

Just six months after the death of its longtime director, Peter C. Marzio, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston has chosen three architects to submit designs for the new building he envisioned and hired a firm to search for his successor. Selected from an international list of 10 candidates, the firms are Morphosis, Snøhetta and Steven Holl Architects. Each will develop a concept for a building to house post-1900 art as well as a parking garage. — chron.com