One problem with our obsession with gentrification as the end-all of urban equity issues is that it discourages us from talking about other important things happening in our cities. In some instances, gentrification has become such a dominating narrative that it has completely erased broader trends that we really ought to be concerned about.

Case in point: Brooklyn is getting poorer. — danielkayhertz.com

Among the most pressing issues facing New York’s new mayor is how his administration will pick up the mantle of the ambitious agenda established by Michael Bloomberg. How will the de Blasio administration address climate change and increase the resilience of those areas of the city most severely impacted by Superstorm Sandy? [...] The Rockaway peninsula, in particular, has been a veritable laboratory for designers exploring the implications of “resilience.” — urbanomnibus.net

Inside a warehouse at the Brooklyn Navy Yard steel beams and flat metal sheeting rest atop a workbench. A diagram–which looks an awful lot like IKEA furniture assembly instructions–spells out where each beam and metal screw belongs. [...]

The metal may not look like much yet, but it’s on its way to becoming part of the world’s tallest modular residential high-rise. [...]

“This is bringing the best of manufacturing and construction together.” — forbes.com

Willoughby Square, in Brooklyn, NY, however, will bring together both beauty and utility by topping an automated underground parking garage with street-level greenery in a smart new project targeted for completion in 2016.

Over a decade in the making, Willoughby Park is being called the “crown jewel” of the 2004 Downtown Brooklyn Redevelopment Plan, a scheme to help improve Brooklyn’s public spaces and foster neighborhood community and culture. — buildabetterburb.org

The way it works is each loop, outside and in, is equipped with a bed, study, kitchen, bathroom, and little dresser, arranged so that when the wheel stops the matching item is available to each person at the same time. To switch over to a new activity, they both have to walk in tandem... — hyperallergic.com

The art and technology center Eyebeam has selected WORK Architecture Company (WORKac) to design its future home in Brooklyn, another addition to the Brooklyn cultural district in Fort Greene.

“It’s a great moment in Eyebeam’s trajectory to think about the relationship between art and technology,” said Dan Wood, a principal in WORKac, with Amale Andraos — both of whom worked on the cultural district’s master plan. — artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com

Gowanus has become the most obvious touchstone for fears surrounding the rapid evolution that has overwhelmed so much of Brooklyn in recent years. It is also a test case for how democratically an area once colonized by industry might evolve into something like a modern Jane Jacobs vision. Dumbo is both a point of reference here and in one view, the representation of a nightmare outcome, given the area’s distinction as a nexus of multimillion-dollar lofts and budding tech empires. — nytimes.com

David Boyle did not build his house out of shipping containers to be hip, though he does live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He left the water pipes exposed not in pursuit of an industrial chic aesthetic, but to make them easier to fix. [...]

Their goal, he said, was not style, but a place immune to the neighborhood’s rising rents, built out of materials cheap enough that it could inspire other urban homesteaders to do the same. — nytimes.com

Hope for Detroit would seem far-fetched if you had been on the "pornography of ruins" tour I have been going on for years, led by various residents over the years. But, it turns out that those tours were provided by folk who had lost their beloved city. I recently began to hang around with a younger crowd: Mark Nickita, for example, an architect and a maniacal optimist, and a serial small-scale entrepreneur who runs Archive DS, an architecture and urban design firm in downtown Detroit... — features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com

Holm Architecture Office was recently commissioned for an idea proposal to revive the existing buildings of the Domino Sugar Factory in the Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. The factory opened in 1856 and was once the sugar processing center of the U.S. before it shut down in 2004. The factory has been empty since then. — bustler.net

Dwell Media recently honored the finalists at the Dwell Vision Award 2013 ceremony at the historic Jane's Carousel in DUMBO in Brooklyn, New York. The DVA acknowledges the best of progressive technical and artistic innovation in modern design. — bustler.net

The Principals, a Greenpoint-based design studio, set off to explore that intersection of interactive design and technology with an art installation for MoMA PS1's summer Warm Up series. Hit the jump to see how the Spatium Yamamoto installation grooved to the beat for an unforgettable, psychedelic experience this past summer. — Inhabitat

Following a strong architectural language of repetition, movement, rhythm, and proportion the ‘weeksville heritage center’ designed by American firm caples jefferson architects PC serves as a gateway to a 19th century african-american freedman’s settlement. the sustainably built complex is located in brooklyn, new york and features a new two-story, 23,000 sq ft building and 41,000 sq ft of landscape that redefines the site’s context. — designboom.com