Banfield’s dedication to environmental issues was born by chance in 2000, when she moved with her husband and three children to Clayton...Together with Carlos Varela, her legal-minded neighbor, Banfield created a community association to defend the rainforest. She remained on the front lines for years, sacrificed her architectural career and eventually began public campaigns for a variety of environmental causes. — Ozy

Parisian designer Stéphane Malka Architecture has suggested creating affordable housing in the French capital by adding prefabricated elements on top of and between existing buildings.

The “3box” system does not require the purchase of sites. Instead, the right to build is obtained in exchange for renovating existing buildings.

According to Stéphane Malka, the housing would cost 40% less than the usual market price and could be built quickly and cheaply in workshops. — Global Construction Plan

The hamburger stand is part of southern California’s rich tradition of roadside architecture. These buildings are typically 100 square-foot boxes, with an outdoor window to order and pick up food. Next to the structures are rudimentary dining areas, often consisting of no more than a plastic tarp and a few fold-up chairs and tables [...]

The hipsterfication of LA’s hamburger stands may... prove the final chapter in the saga of these half-century-old structures. — The Guardian

The people understood that the monster’s power was fed by liquid gold. It could go anywhere and set up a tower, even in the middle of an old neighbourhood where nobody had asked it to come. [...]

The city, however, was not about to go down without a fight. After all, it had survived many a bad period across the centuries, and was still alive – unlike those kings and queens and powerful companies of old. The neighbourhoods could see they had to get together and fight this monster. — theguardian.com

Chinese citizens have for decades been limited in public services they can access by their household registration [...]

The problem is especially acute for the millions of migrant workers who are often forced to either leave their children in the countryside or place them in unregistered and often sub-standard schools in the city. [...]

“The move is to improve basic public services in urban areas and provide conveniences for residential permit cardholders” — theguardian.com

After a boom in construction and investment in real estate projects in recent years, work is drying up amid a slowdown in the world’s second largest economy. Property developers are cutting back on new projects, and with construction starts down 16% in the first half this year from a year ago, many firms are cutting salaries or letting staff go. [...]

“We are adjusting to a slower pace of urbanization in China with a recovery of the American and Middle East markets” — blogs.wsj.com

All of America’s cement consumption during the [20th] century adds up to around 4.4 gigatons (1 gigaton is roughly 1 billion metric tons).

In comparison, China used around 6.4 gigatons of cement in the three years of 2011, 2012 and 2013 [...]

The country is urbanizing at a historic rate, much faster than the U.S. did in the 20th Century. More than 20 million Chinese relocate to cities each year, which is more people than live in downtown New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago combined. — washingtonpost.com

The undoing of the master narratives of modernism should not be taken as an opportunity for an architecture of spectacle and fantasy, but instead one that, utilizing the lessons of the past, speaks to the complexities of the present and the forces that shape us. It is crucial to deconstruct the idea that design can be universal and instead, to think in terms of an architecture that derives inspiration from the specificity of geography, culture and place. — huffingtonpost.com

The region of Ordos made headlines in 2010 for the pre-built metropolis that had everything but people. Now, however, Kangbashi city is rapidly filling up with country people who are being encouraged to live in cities and diversify China’s economy. For ageing farmers who’ve spent their whole life on the land, however, becoming “urbanites” is a tall order. — theguardian.com

By the end of next year one-in-three of the world’s 100m+ skyscrapers will be in China, as its state-orchestrated urbanisation drive prompts a megacity building bonanza [...]

China now has over 140 cities of more than one million people; America has nine — theguardian.com

Hanoi has faced the same population pressures as other Asian cities. But thanks to vague and informal conventions, the state has been able to avoid extreme levels of disservice, even to the most impoverished new urban areas. And the construction of homes themselves has remained at least loosely connected to the regulations of the more formal suburbs. Together these factors have prevented the formation of slums as they are typically defined. But how has this come about? — theguardian.com

The Chinese government issued proposals on Wednesday to break down barriers that a nationwide household registration system has long imposed between rural and urban residents and among regions, reinforcing inequality, breeding discontent and hampering economic growth.

Yet even as officials promoted easier urbanization [...], they said changes to the system [...] must be gradual and must protect big cities like Beijing. — nytimes.com