A year ago, former England captain Rio Ferdinand, West Ham United skipper Mark Noble and ex-Brighton striker Bobby Zamora [unveiled] their Legacy Foundation – a regeneration charity with a plan to build a series of social and privately rentable housing schemes, backed by private investors.

The stars (all three of whom have played for West Ham) are coming back to present their first project, worth £400m, to build 1,300 homes on a 22-hectare site in a run-down area in Houghton Regis near Luton. — the Guardian

Protesters gathered in Sydney’s historic Rocks district on Saturday to rally against the New South Wales government’s plans to sell off the Sirius building – which contains 79 social housing tenants – to developers for more than $100m. The 1970s Brutalist building was nominated for heritage listing by the NSW National Trust in 2014 but the government has refused to grant it, saying the proceeds from the sale are needed to build more public housing elsewhere in Sydney — The Guardian

Los Angeles-based developer CIM Group has agreed to buy Tribune Tower for up to $240 million, marking the end of media ownership for the historic North Michigan Avenue building and the beginning of a new chapter, likely as part of a mixed-use redevelopment. [...]

Tribune Media unveiled conceptual plans last year to redevelop the parcel, adding several buildings to maximize the space with residential, retail and hotel components. — chicagotribune.com

You’ve always wanted to call Brooklyn home. But it’s complicated. You’re not really the pioneering type. Brooklyn can be rough around the edges. Amenities are lacking. We understand. Industrial-chic finishes are important in life. So are 25-year tax abatements. And European-style, car-sized parking turntables. — failedarchitecture.com

“One day at around eight in the morning, I was returning from the market when six of the developer’s thugs tackled me outside my home and pushed me into a car,” remembers Xi.

Several others, she says, climbed a ladder to her balcony. Xi says she screamed for her husband, but it was too late. There was a scuffle inside, and then black smoke poured out of their balcony window before the house went up in flames. Xi’s husband burned to death, and the developer’s men escaped. — marketplace.org

While zoning is a perfectly fine strategy to map new suburban cul-de-sac subdivisions and to stop growth, it backfires when we try to use it to guide the future of an evolving, dynamic city like Los Angeles. Zoning is a 20th century relic designed to “protect” existing residents from the encroachment of people and buildings they see as “undesirable.” [...]

we should be following Chicago’s approach by focusing on public spaces, infrastructure and other common assets. — latimes.com

Bunker Hill, an area of roughly five square blocks in downtown Los Angeles, holds a place in city lore similar to that of the water wars or the construction of Dodger Stadium: beginning in 1959, it was the subject of a massive urban-renewal project, in which “improvement” was generally defined by the people who stood to profit from it [...] subject of this short film by Keven McAlester, which compares what the same streets in downtown Los Angeles looked like in the nineteen-forties and today. — newyorker.com

It’s not a new argument to say that cities are increasingly morphing from social configurations to investment vehicles. [...]

“Self-builds”, “Baugruppen”, and “zelfbouw” are just a few ways to define variations of building-it-yourself (BIY), whether done individually or as a collective. The end users (who are the commissioners), together with architects, decide on the design of their homes, and then take care of the construction themselves or have contractors do it. — failedarchitecture.com

Hoping to show the world his country is doing just fine despite sanctions and outside pressure over its nuclear weapons program, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has put his soldier-builders to work on yet another major [skyscraper] project

Pyongyang’s new Pyonghattan, officially called “Ryomyong Street,” is to have the country’s tallest apartment building, at 70 stories, along with a 50-story building and a handful of smaller ones in the 30-40 story range. — The Japan Times

Frustrated by a succession of boring glass boxes, Mayor Marty Walsh has called for one more: adventurous architecture.

[...] the city tries to sell off a decrepit garage in Winthrop Square. Earlier this month, each of six development teams presented its ideas in an open house at Faneuil Hall. On Monday, the Boston Redevelopment Authority revealed each team’s bid for the garage. — bostonglobe.com