Elon Musk’s Space Exploration and Technologies Corp. plans to build the world’s first commercial launchpad near Brownsville in South Texas [...]

The state is providing $2.3 million from the Texas Enterprise Fund to bring an estimated 300 jobs to the launch site, which will bring about $85 million of capital investment into the economy [...]

In the region near the proposed launch site, at Boca Chica Beach in the state’s southernmost tip, two of five residents live in poverty. — businessweek.com

Houston’s Bayou Greenways plan is perhaps the largest active transportation project in the country right now — if residents can actually use it for transportation when it’s completed.

Jen Powis of the Houston Parks Board has described the greenway project as a cross between the Atlanta Beltline and the Portland Bike Master Plan, which “re-envisions transportation” in the city. — usa.streetsblog.org

A $700,000 home was teetering over the edge of Texas' Lake Whitney — until officials set it on fire.

The home, which had been gradually crumbling into the lake for weeks, was set on fire shortly after 10 a.m. local time after authorities deemed it the safest and cheapest option. Officials had considered pulling the home closer to land using a giant net — deemed unsafe — or letting it fall into the lake on its own — too expensive to clean up. — mashable.com

Since 3xLP by Christopher Romano and Nicholas Bruscia won the most recent TEX-FAB SKIN Digital Fabrication competition, the installation was exhibited at TEX-FAB 5 in Austin and will travel to Houston and Dallas along with the other competition finalists this fall.

The SKIN competition paired emerging design research practices with fabrication industry leaders to create innovative solutions for facade systems using digital fabrication and parametric design tools. — bustler.net

Rice University has picked the New York architectural firm Diller Scofidio & Renfro to design an opera theater scheduled to open in 2018.

The 600-seat theater will stand in what now is a parking lot between Alice Pratt Brown Hall, the home of Rice's Shepherd School of Music, and Rice Stadium. Besides serving the school's Opera Department, the theater will be used for chamber music concerts and other events, Rice said.

Charles Renfro, a 1989 Rice graduate, will be the lead architect. — chron.com

A city that is connected -- in all senses of the word -- is a good city. The finalists of the Dallas Connected City Design Challenge offered numerous solutions in how Downtown Dallas can be linked to the Trinity River.

To guarantee a variety of ideas for Dallas' future development, the competition invited submissions in a Professional Stream and an Open Stream. Three Professional and 4 Open entries won. — bustler.net

The Modernism in America Awards have announced this year's winners. The national awards program highlights the documentation, preservation and re-use of modern buildings, structures and landscapes in the U.S. or U.S. territory [...] One Award of Excellence was given in the categories Design, Advocacy, and Inventory/Survey. Five Citations of Merit were also awarded.

Winners will receive their prizes during the Docomomo US National Symposium on March 13-15, 2014 in Houston, Texas. — bustler.net

If you're in the Houston, Texas area and want to "add in" some well-in-advance weekend plans, Rice Design Alliance from Rice University will be hosting their 38th Annual Architectural Tour "Additionally" on March 29-30, 2014. — bustler.net

Texas has seen the future of the public library, and it looks a lot like an Apple Store [...].

Even the librarians imitate Apple’s dress code, wearing matching shirts and that standard-bearer of geek-chic, the hoodie. But this $2.3 million library might be most notable for what it does not have — any actual books.

That makes Bexar County’s BiblioTech the nation’s only bookless public library. — washingtonpost.com

So what happens if an architect in good professional standing is revealed to have a minor crime on his record due to being fingerprinted? Could he lose his license, despite the quality of his work? The TBAE absolutely reserves that right. — theatlanticcities.com