A vice chairman of the Whitney Museum of American Art stepped down on Thursday after months of protests over his company’s sale of tear gas, culminating in the withdrawal of eight artists last week from the prestigious Whitney Biennial exhibition. — The New York Times

A privacy expert tasked with protecting personal data within a Google-backed smart city project has resigned as her pro-privacy guidelines would largely be ignored by participants.

“I imagined us creating a Smart City of Privacy, as opposed to a Smart City of Surveillance,” Ann Cavoukian, the former privacy commissioner of Ontario, wrote in a resignation letter to Google sister company Sidewalk Labs. — Planet Free Will

This is demanding and important work that we have done for 138 years, and continue to do with pride and gratitude, each and every day at the Art Institute of Chicago. We need museums, not just “now more than ever”—but always. — The Art Newspaper

There has never been a more important time in society to celebrate what unites us rather than divides us, and that can be through culture and, more simply, through the creation of public spaces where people can come together. — CNN Style

Students sent each other memes and other images mocking sexual assault, the Holocaust, and the deaths of children, according to screenshots of the chat obtained by The Crimson. Some of the messages joked that abusing children was sexually arousing, while others had punchlines directed at specific ethnic or racial groups. One called the hypothetical hanging of a Mexican child “piñata time.” — The Harvard Crimson

Rael writes that one of the most devastating consequences of the wall is “the division of communities, cities, neighborhoods and families, resulting in the erosion of social infrastructure.” When we talked, he wondered how we might create something positive from something so horrible: “Can reform happen through borderland investment? If you build 150 libraries along the border, you’d get a very different outcome.” — The New York Times

Since they founded Duvall Decker nearly 20 years ago, the Deckers, as they’re known, have focused mostly on neglected corners in and around Jackson, Mississippi’s capital. To pay the bills, the two have redefined for themselves the ambit of a small architectural practice. They have become developers and even branched into building maintenance: a soup-to-nuts strategy that has allowed them more than just financial breathing room. — The New York Times

Philosopher Jason Millar claims to have originated the idea of the ethically challenged self-driving car in a 2014 paper on robotics...

In the “The Tunnel Problem,” Millar’s driverless car (let’s call her Porsche again) is fast approaching a narrow tunnel, the entrance of which is blocked by a child who has fallen in the roadway. The car can either kill the kid or hit the wall of the tunnel, killing the driver (who is really just a passenger). — Daniel Albert | N+1

To understand how strange this pairing of client and architect is, you have to contemplate two things: the deeply embedded social progressivism that has become the standard worldview of international architectural firms such as BIG; and organizations such as the NFL, a private club for 1 percenters that bullies municipalities and treats its own players’ health with indifference. Can this marriage last? Is BIG motivated by naivete or cynicism? — The Washington Post

An independent investigation into the construction of New York University’s Abu Dhabi campus has found that despite the school’s best intentions and efforts, about one third of the workforce at the site — roughly 10,000 workers — was not covered by the school’s labor guidelines, and thus faced unfair and exploitative practices [that were reported in previous allegations]. — Hyperallergic

The technology of supertall buildings is a bit like genetic testing or nuclear energy: a volatile form of power. Technological capacities have outpaced our judgment. We know we can do it, but we don’t know when not to do it. And so some endlessly wealthy mogul [...] will eventually move into a preposterously expensive penthouse so far above the Earth’s crust that the air is thin and gales hammer at the glass. A mile’s not science fiction. It’s not even an outer limit.  — nymag.com

Faced with lawsuits and a growing mountain of damning research, New York City officials decided last month to ban solitary confinement for prison inmates 21 and younger. Just a few weeks earlier, the American Institute of Architects rejected a petition to censure members who design solitary-confinement cells and death chambers. [...]

What are the ethical boundaries for architecture? — nytimes.com