Of all the roles of government, emergency response may be the least controversial. When disaster hits, we expect our fire, police, and other public services to provide immediate relief. But as James McConnell, Assistant Commissioner for Strategic Data at the New York City Office of Emergency Management (OEM), reminds us, tactical effectiveness in a crisis requires more than boots on the ground, ready at a moment’s notice. — urbanomnibus.net

A new condo building is going up in Manhattan's Hudson Square neighborhood — the triangle on the river between Tribeca, SoHo, and the West Village that has until recently been mostly commercial and industrial buildings.

15 Renwick isn't just any building: it's a steampunk-themed luxury development. Steampunk-themed. Luxury. Development. — Business Insider

The current, temporary trade center station serves... only 10,000 more than use the unassuming 33rd Street PATH terminal in Midtown Manhattan.

In fact, the hub, or at least its winged “Oculus” pavilion, could turn out to be more of a high-priced mall than a transportation nexus, attracting more shoppers than commuters. The company operating the mall, Westfield Corporation, promises in a promotional video that it will be “the most alluring retail landmark in the world.” — nytimes.com

"The tradition I’m coming from is not pleasure. It’s a certain shamanistic excess" — NYT

“It’s not so bad,” offered an architect who has a window facing the building.

Alas, it is.

Like the corporate campus and plaza it shares, 1 World Trade speaks volumes about political opportunism, outmoded thinking and upside-down urban priorities. It’s what happens when a commercial developer is pretty much handed the keys to the castle. — The New York Times

Josef Albers’s Manhattan, a mural that enlivened the lobby of New York’s Met Life (previously the Pan Am) Building from 1963 until its controversial removal in 2000, could make a triumphant return to the city. Possible sites include the World Trade Center Transit Hub, The Art Newspaper understands. Finding a suitable home for the work is not the only obstacle: the original mural is in a landfill site in Ohio. — theartnewspaper.com

Bridging the aspirations of developers and the firm’s architects, Mr. Katz negotiated into existence some of the tallest mixed-use buildings in the world, among them the Shanghai World Financial Center and the International Commerce Centre in HK.

His other projects for KPF included Roppongi Hills, a huge complex in Tokyo encompassing an office tower, apartments, shops and restaurants, movie theaters, a museum, a hotel, a television studio, parks and an outdoor amphitheater. — nytimes.com

Between 2008 and 2013, I photographed the branch libraries of New York City’s three public library systems: 212 branches in all[1], spread across the five boroughs. Through arrangements with each of the library systems, I worked mornings before the branches opened to the public. I traveled by subway and bus and made six to twelve pictures of each branch, interiors and exteriors, using a 4×5 inch view camera. My archive, to date, holds over 2,000 negatives. — urbanomnibus.net

The Whitney Museum of American Art announced today that it will open its new home in Chelsea on 1 May 2015. With double the exhibition space of its "old" Marcel Breuer-designed building, the museum will be able to show far more of its collection of Modern and contemporary American art in its Renzo Piano-designed new space in the Meatpacking District. [...]

Weinberg told us that Piano saved the institution from making one decision that it would have lived to regret. — 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

Five finalists have been selected for the MoMA PS1 2015 Young Architects Program. The popular yearly program shines the spotlight on emerging architects and invites them to develop an innovative, temporary outdoor urban installation for the MoMA PS1 courtyard in Long Island City, New York for summer 2015. — bustler.net

Developed with the help of a team of volunteer researchers, urban planners and designers, this new online tool allows anyone to view the staggering amount of publicly-owned lots that once had an urban renewal plan in the pipeline but were scrapped due to bureaucracy. By mapping out all of the vacant spaces across the city, 596 hopes that we as a community can take a top-down approach to turning these urban blights into public gardens, play lots, and spaces where people can “co-create.” — 6sqft