It comes from speakers inside a 48-by-20-foot inflatable globe, pumped up against the High Line’s steel framework, like an exercise ball smushed under a coffee table. Peru bulges against the eastern wall; the Arctic and Antarctica peer around the edges; Algeria and Mauritania swell near the beltline. The installation is called Tight Spot, and it’s up for two weeks courtesy of the Pace Gallery. — nymag.com

In October 2010, Simon Norfolk began a series of new photographs in Afghanistan, which takes its cue from the work of nineteenth-century British photographer John Burke. Norfolk’s photographs reimagine or respond to Burke’s Afghan war scenes in the context of the contemporary conflict. Conceived as a collaborative project with Burke across time, this new body of work is presented alongside Burke’s original portfolios. — BLDG.BLOG

Rogers Marvel Architects is designing the new, 2,000-square-foot space, which is slated to open in early 2012. — archrecord.construction.com

Demographically and geographically, the members of the Dozen are more diverse and expansive than the Five of 40 years ago. This is certainly not a white-boys-only club. Women architects have principal positions in about half the firms, and many of the firm founders are ethnically and culturally diverse -- just like New York. Many of the Dozen pursue or have built projects on other continents, a reflection of the global stage upon which architecture is practiced today. — theatlantic.com

In February 2003, Daniel Libeskind was named the winning designer of the international contest to rebuild the World Trade Center. After eight years of collaboration, controversy, and the typical cast of characters in any real estate nightmare, the final product that will tower over Lower Manhattan is not, in fact, the design that won the hearts of New Yorkers. — Inhabitat

Grimshaw Architects has revealed designs for two Manhattan city “superblocks” as part of New York University’s city-wide development programme. — bdonline.co.uk

THEY go up, they go down — and that’s pretty much it for any New York building, maybe with one or two alterations. But the French-style Harry Winston store of 1960, at Fifth Avenue and 56th Street, now shrouded in netting, is a ramble through a century of architectural history. The building has been through one-two-three-four-five major episodes, and a sixth was never realized. — nytimes.com

On September 11, 2010 fieldoffice launched an effort that will acknowledge lives lost during the tragedy of September 11, 2001 as well as reconstruct as many views of the city’s lost skyline. Thousands of glass plates, inscribed with a written dedication to a victim and an outline of the missing skyline, will populate New York City from anywhere in the city that the towers would have been visible. — dispersed-memorial.net

A digital dialogue about the practice of tactical urbanism and socially active design. — city-sessions.tumblr.com

Yesterday I checked out the exhibition "Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities" at the Museum of Arts and Design. Below are some highlights from this highly recommended show. — archidose.blogspot.com

After years of controversy and delays, the 16-acre World Trade Center site is finally taking shape. Construction cranes and exposed steel frames dominate the site, towering over the National September 11 Memorial. Here is an update on the major projects — featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com

My idea in the master plan was that this was a place of the spirit. This is where people perished. It was not a piece of real estate any longer. You could not put a building there. — featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com

What hit me there was the awful anticlimax of repetition. A singular moment, the Big Bang that launched a fearful decade, is marked by déjà vu. “Never forget,” this monument exhorts—and then says it again — New York Magazine

at its heart, the memorial has come through at least somewhat intact. And at ground zero, that is saying quite a bit. - Christopher Hawthorne — L.A.Times

We've just discovered Apple will be updating their iconic Cube structure at their midtown Manhattan retail location, replacing the current cube of 90 panes with just 15 massive, and I mean massive, pieces of glass... The slabs will be roughly 10 feet wide by a whopping 32 feet high, and held together using some sort of secret, proprietary connector that will reportedly be embedded within the glass itself, rather than being comprised of mere external clips. — core77.com