Young LA-based architect Samuel Pitnick has shared with us his entry to the 2012-13 Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) competition for architecture students and recent graduates. This year's competition, titled TIMBER IN THE CITY: Urban Habitats Competition, was a a partnership between the Binational Softwood Lumber Council, the ACSA and the School of Constructed Environments at Parsons The New School for Design. — bustler.net

Back in February, we had published the winners of Gowanus by Design's second design and planning competition, WATER_WORKS. The intent of the competition, according to David Briggs, co-founder of Gowanus by Design, was to design a new community resource in Douglass/Greene Park that shares the site with a Combined Sewer Overflow [CSO] retention facility. — bustler.net

This Brooklyn Heights playground is named for Adam Yauch, an artist, a filmmaker, an activist, and one of Brooklyn’s most influential musicians. Most famous as ‘MCA’ of the legendary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees the Beastie Boys, Yauch grew up playing in this playground, then named State Street Park and later Palmetto Playground, as a child. — nycgovparks.org

In recent years developers putting up a forest of residential towers have been accused of turning the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront into Miami-on-the-East-River. With his new plan for the 11-acre Domino Sugar refinery in Williamsburg officially unveiled on Sunday, Jed Walentas has crafted something that might better be described as Dubai-on-the-East-River. — Crain's

The couple bought a 20-by-40-foot piece of land at 351 Keap St. in 2008, trying to get ahead of the wave of gentrification they feared would soon price them out of Williamsburg. Initially, they planned to build a tiny home out of bricks and mortar, but when they put out a bid, it came back as potentially costing half a million dollars. — dnainfo.com

As formerly boho environs of Brooklyn become unattainable due to creeping Manhattanization and seven-figure real estate prices, creative professionals of child-rearing age — the type of alt-culture-allegiant urbanites who once considered themselves too cool to ever leave the city — are starting to ponder the unthinkable: a move to the suburbs. — New York Times

Winning projects in three categories have been announced in Gowanus by Design's latest competition, WATER_WORKS. The brief called for solutions specific to Brooklyn's Gowanus area that simultaneously explored the role of water in recreation, quotidian uses, and in contaminated urban environments, and demonstrated how a redesigned community center and retention facility represent a more progressive view of the city's infrastructure. — bustler.net

Modular construction has long been a dream of architects, for its efficiency and control, and now it could be a boon for New York City developers as well, since prefab methods can save 20 to 30 percent from traditional design methods. — New York Observer

The arena was always a Trojan horse: its stars (Jay-Z), its original starchitect (Frank Gehry), and its semi-public function (bringing pro basketball to Brooklyn) have been used to make the development of the Vanderbilt rail yard seem like a reward rather than an imposition. In 2009, Gehry left the project, adding his arena and tower designs to the long list of New York’s famous unrealized buildings. — newyorker.com

Brooklynites might consider themselves lucky. In Manhattan, Madison Square Garden’s owners are renovating, spending nearly $1 billion. Judging from results so far, it won’t be enough. The Barclays Center is no Garden disaster, just an extraordinarily expensive lost opportunity. — bloomberg.com

Ratner & Co. believe Brooklyn as a whole is already well on its way to super-premium status and will never go back. They believe Ratner has built exactly the sort of architectural showpiece and modern sports-and-entertainment megaplex that the newly gentrified Brooklynites want. — New York Magazine

One of the biggest pieces of outsider art in New York City, the Broken Angel, is confronting the latest stage of its gradual decline, from a 10-story distorted jumble of wood and glass, to a now more subdued house that still retains the creative energy of its builder, Arthur Wood. Wood’s son Christopher recently launched a Kickstarter project, with supporters paying for their original art to adorn the facade, the ultimate goal being to turn the building into a museum. — blogs.artinfo.com

As expected, a team of Toll Brothers and Starwood Capital won the right to develop Pier 1 at Brooklyn Bridge Park today. They will be building a new hotel of 200 rooms and a neighboring apartment building with 159 units, a complex that peaks near Fulton Street entrance and sloping down toward the park. The project is designed by Rogers Marvel Architects, whom Toll has initially tapped, with Dumbo-based Bernheimer Architects apparently getting the boot. — New York Observer