In the upcoming 2nd Istanbul Design Biennial, "The Future Is Not What It Used To Be" questions the role of design, its relationship to society, and how it can potentially bring change. Curated by Zoë Ryan and spanning all five floors of the Galata Greek Primary School from Nov. 1 to Dec.14, the biennial will showcase a designers' exhibition of over 50 projects that ask who defines the future and how it is defined. But the crucial aspect it explores is whose future could be affected. — bustler.net

The Turkish Council of State has ordered three luxury apartment blocks to be bulldozed amid widespread outrage. But will it have any impact on the country’s unstoppable, and often unlawful, construction boom? — theguardian.com

Istanbul is the city of transformation and contradiction. As an urbanist, I am trying to keep record and make sense of this transformation and am especially interested in its winners and losers. At the moment we live in a giant construction site, where skyscrapers, mega projects and urban renewal projects are taking place all around. There is a gold rush to real-estate development. — theguardian.com

The compact, two-level store itself is entirely under the plaza, but is topped by a first-ever rectangular “penthouse” composed of four single panes of glass and a roof. Portions of the store are visible through the windows from the plaza level. The store’s two glass staircases are also visible through huge glass panes over the top of each stair run on the sides of the store. — ifoapplestore.com

“Places of Memory,” a medley of work by five contemporary artists from Turkey, will make up Turkey's first-ever showcase this summer at the Venice Biennale's prestigious architecture exhibition. [...]

Architect Murat Tabanlıoğlu, the curator of the Turkish pavilion, explained during Monday's news conference that they will be putting on a show delving into three areas of İstanbul: Taksim-Salıpazarı, Bab-ı Ali and Büyükdere Avenue, all of which marked a threshold in Tabanlıoğlu's life. — todayszaman.com

Our task — and we should well speak as architects — must be making the invisible visible, uncovering and retracing the concealed limits of the city. We must construct barriers and counter-spaces within and against the processes that tame and dissolve the crucial loci of democracy. — Places Journal

It's one of largest and most popular covered markets in the world -- but now management claims vendors have weakened the structure of Istanbul's Grand Bazaar to the point it may collapse. Merchants view the situation differently. — spiegel.de

Can Atalay, a lawyer for the Chamber of Architects which brought the lawsuit, said the administrative court ruled in early June at the height of the unrest that the plan violated preservation rules and unacceptably changed the square's identity. It was not clear why it had only now been released. — Reuters

As protests have rocked Turkey over the past few days, three Turkish professionals in the U.S. decided on Sunday that they had to take some action. Turning to their technology backgrounds, the trio launched a crowd-sourced fundraising campaign on Indiegogo to buy a full-page ad in the front section of the New York Times in support of their fellow Turkish citizens who’ve clashed with the government across dozens of cities. — forbes.com

In the latest edition of Working out of the Box: Archinect interviewed Larraine Henning who is currently seeking funding for A Practical Guide to Squatting on Indiegogo.

@bawshaw commented "@LandMass - agreed. although the thesis is interesting, this is not out of the box in terms of a career"...Yet Connely Farr disagreed "@ LandMass - yep. you sound like an ass".