At a meeting of the County Legislature on May 1, Kaufman offered to purchase the Rudolph building, which has been closed since 2011, and convert it to private use, perhaps as artists’ studios. Kaufman, who bought Gwathmey Siegel & Associates in 2011... and now calls his firm Gwathmey Siegel Kaufman & Associates Architects, wants to design a new government building adjacent to the Rudolph masterpiece, completed in 1970 on Main Street in Goshen, New York. — archrecord.construction.com

We might ask ourselves the question, why is it that so many communities want to disguise the utilitarian cell phone tower as a fake tree? They fool no one and actually call more attention to them. Or why are there hundreds of parking structures that have false façades that make people initially think they are foreclosed buildings with all the windows broken? There seems to be much cultural confusion about the beauty of the utilitarian. — buildabetterburb.org

The rivalry between the South Korean tech giants Samsung and LG isn't just played out over sales of smartphones and curved television screens. Both companies are building new American headquarters, Samsung in north San Jose, Calif.; LG in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. And on this score, the contest isn't close. Buildings are corporate symbols and advertisements, after all. Samsung comes across as a good citizen here; LG as a lousy neighbor. — The New York Times

The ten Rebuild by Design finalist teams spent the past eight months doing intensive research and engaging with local communities to find local and resilient solutions to rebuild the Eastern Seaboard cities affected by Hurricane Sandy...Each team presented their final proposals to the public at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, NJ late last week.

Secretary Shaun Donovan of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will announce the winning projects later this spring. — bustler.net

In city after city, U.S. transit advocates face a similar problem: What to do with bad, or at least less-than-perfect, public transportation proposals? Big transit projects don’t come around every day, and rejecting a proposal, perhaps one with support in high places, in the hopes that something better will come along can leave you with nothing. — nextcity.org

As Jersey City has cast off its stigma as a back-office-and-apartment haven of cheap rents and cheaper-looking buildings, more and more professionals and families are calling “Chilltown” and “JC” home. They’re ditching the suburbs of their parents, but also the stratospheric prices and stuffy attitudes of Manhattan and, increasingly, Brooklyn.

The so-called sixth borough has finally become a destination in its own right [...]. — nydailynews.com

Balancing Meier’s familiar white metal panels with a rich, iron spot brick, the architects were careful to break down the massing of the contemporary buildings, not exceeding a height of 60 feet in front, in keeping with the Newark Living Downtown Plan. — Architectural Record

What does it take to build a livable home for under $100 per square foot?

For a group of architecture students at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, that question was answered in a semester-long project that ended last week.

The project culminated with two students winning top honors among their classmates by having their projects selected for construction by Habitat for Humanity. — nj.com

As the tri-state area continues to recover from Hurricane Sandy's devastation, the cast of the "Jersey Shore" is teaming up with the nonprofit organization Architecture for Humanity for "Restore the Shore," a special benefit set to air live on Thursday, November 15. — mtv.com

Oyster Creek, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of Atlantic City, generates 630 megawatts (MW), or enough electricity to power 600,000 households. Situated about a mile inland from the brackish inlet of the Atlantic Ocean known as Barnegat Bay, it shares the same design as Japan's tsunami-crippled coastal nuclear plant, Fukushima Daiichi. — news.nationalgeographic.com