It is with great sadness that we report that Australian/British architect and public interest designer Ross Langdon, 32, was among those killed in the terrorist attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi in recent days. He was killed alongside his partner, Elif Yavuz, who worked for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Kenya, and was just two weeks from her due date to give birth to their first child. — publicinterestdesign.org

Mark Simon, a founding partner of Centerbrook Architects and Planners, agrees. “I think [bars and other fortifying techniques] send the wrong message to both kids and teachers,” he says. Based in Centerbrook, Connecticut, Simon has designed 20 school buildings, including five public elementary schools, though none in Newtown. “Buildings tell stories, and when a building is designed that way, it tells you that it doesn’t trust you. And kids intuit that they’re not trusted,” he says. — archrecord.construction.com