Zaha, you have said that architecture is not for people who want an easy life. Is this not the case for anyone who wants to excel in his or her job?

There are other professions that are very difficult, but architecture is particularly difficult because your career is reliant on the people you work with, and that's the first hurdle. The second hurdle is the people you work with as a client. You have no control over the developer or the economics. — huffingtonpost.com

Does it make sense for Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup? German architect Albert Speer, whose office is in charge of the project, says yes -- and is doing all he can to ensure sustainability. In a SPIEGEL interview, he says how. — spiegel.de

The idea is always that a building like this in a particular light merges with the sky. The building is on a very small site, and has a very small footprint. There was a requirement from a planning point of view, which we fully supported and were actually happy about, that we had to provide a plaza on the ground floor. And that’s actually why the building toward the base, it pulls in its belly and it slopes so that the urban space is adequate and a required size. — nytimes.com

We live in the anthropogenic age, where humans don’t adapt to life, but life adapts to human needs, Ingels explains, which makes his advice to young architects designing tomorrow’s world simple and clear. The key for young architects is to acquire the tools and language to comprehend the human needs outside of the architectural bubble, and understand that they are here to accommodate - and not to be accommodated. — vimeo.com

If there’s anything positive to emerge from the current mess, it’s that local advocates like Cary Moon, who warned against building the tunnel in the first place, are commanding attention again. Moon recently took to the pages of the local alt-weekly, the Stranger, to argue that in light of the tunnel project’s spectacular, slow-motion meltdown, the city should explore other options. — streetsblog.org

And do you live with as much of the collection as you can?

Absolutely. I never keep fewer than five bronzes in my bedroom. It’s incredible that I have these things. I have them all round my bed—my little friends. I have very little money in the bank. I’m a hyper-materialist; enjoy it while you can. So many of my friends collect money in the way I collect art, but I don’t see the point. — theartnewspaper.com

Daniel Campo, an urban planner and professor of planning at Morgan State University, is particularly interested in those recreational spaces that aren’t planned or designed, but are appropriated by residents for their own purposes. [...]

Dylan Gauthier, a public artist, educator, and writer based in North Brooklyn, walked around these parks with Campo to discuss the benefits of unplanned spaces for recreation [...]. — urbanomnibus.net

Q. You’re an established industrial designer. Why the focus now on building design?

A. I’ve always taken a great interest in real estate; in fact, if I had more capital, I’d probably be developing a lot more projects myself. There’s also money to be made in real estate — much more than one can as a designer. [...]

Q. But you’re not a licensed architect.

A. I am doing 11 buildings in the world, but I don’t have a stamp as an architect and I wasn’t educated as an architect. — nytimes.com

Beavercreek, Ohio, nabbed its own infamous place in civil rights history last year, when the Federal Highway Administration ruled that the suburb had violated anti-discrimination laws by blocking bus service from nearby Dayton. [...]

The Beavercreek case illustrates larger, more widespread problems with America’s transportation system [...]. The Kirwan Institute is producing a one-hour documentary exploring the Beavercreek case and how racism can influence transportation decision making. — usa.streetsblog.org

There is a Norwegian word “hildring,” about the boundary between horizon and sky. The colors and variations of the bills were inspired by the interesting things that happen when sky meets sea. When you place all the bills side by side, they also create an interesting pattern, like a mosaic. In our work, we often try to take reality by surprise. — nytimes.com

At 85, the architect Frank Gehry has neither stopped building nor started repeating himself and this month offers plenty of proof. Besides the unveiling of the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, which he designed for the billionaire Bernard Arnault, the explosively coloured Biomuseo in Panama opened on 2 October followed by a retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, which opened on Wednesday, 8 October (until 26 January 2015). Gehry dispels some common misconceptions about his museum designs. — theartnewspaper.com

The São Paulo Biennial, which opened on September 6, is traditionally a contemporary art festival, but this year’s event puts new emphasis on architecture. Chief curator Charles Esche commissioned nearly 70 percent of the exhibition’s artworks, collaborating with a five-person curatorial team that included an architect for the first time in the biennial’s 63-year history (fun fact: it’s the world’s second-oldest contemporary art biennial). — blouinartinfo.com