Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the city's major airlines have struck a deal to build the final runway envisioned in the city's multibillion-dollar modernization of O'Hare International Airport, but new gates that experts agree are key to significant reductions in long-standing flight delays are not part of the pact.

The agreement, which the mayor formally announced Saturday, calls for spending $1.3 billion to build a sixth east-west runway at the airfield’s north end [...] — chicagotribune.com

Dubai’s iconic sail-shaped hotel, the Burj Al Arab Jumeirah, is about to undergo a dramatic expansion of its footprint with the addition of a huge deck extending out over the waters of the Gulf.

In what’s being called a “world first” in marine design and engineering, the so-called North Deck has been manufactured at a shipyard in Finland and is now undergoing an 8,000-nautical-mile journey by ship, in six sections. — globalconstructionreview.com

The Milwaukee Art Museum is due to reopen on 24 November after a 14-month, $34m renovation that brings the institution back from the brink. When the museum made the unorthodox decision to begin planning an expansion at the height of the recession in 2009, mould flourished, floors buckled and ceilings leaked in the two buildings that housed the permanent collection. [...]

Roberts says: “People who know our museum will not believe that this is the same museum.” — theartnewspaper.com

On Tuesday, the City of Los Angeles announced that the team of Populous and HMC Architects had been selected to design the $350 million expansion of the Los Angeles Convention Center, beating out other proposals from teams lead by Gensler and AC Martin. — urbanize.la

The Frick Collection has yielded.

Facing a groundswell of opposition to a proposed renovation that would have eliminated a gated garden to make way for a six-story addition, the museum — long admired for its intimate scale — has decided to abandon those plans and start over from scratch. [...]

With the proposed renovation, designed by Davis Brody Bond, the Frick, on East 70th Street in Manhattan, had sought to increase its exhibition space [...]. — nytimes.com

Cornell alleges that the firm Pei Cobb Freed & Partners committed 'architectural malpractice' in its plans for the new wing of the museum, leading to structural deficiencies, cavities in the roof, cracks in the ceiling and other problems. The university says it has suffered 'at least' $1.1 million in damages as a result of the flawed designs. Pei, who also designed the original museum in 1968, was hired by the university to build the addition in 2006. — The Ithaca Voice

While the museum describes the 42,000-square-foot addition as something that would “further fulfill Henry Clay Frick’s long-standing vision to offer public access to its works of art," others, including a group of 51 prominent artists and architects — Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman [...] among them — think it would undermine exactly what they love about the place.

Under the banner of Unite to Save the Frick, this group sent a letter to the city, copied to the museum, expressing their displeasure. — vulture.com

Wilshire Boulevard Temple, famous for its ornate 1929 synagogue, is trying to create another Los Angeles landmark, negotiating with the Pritzker Prize-winning Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas to design a building next door for special events. It would be open for use by the public as well as by congregants.

“Architecture is a form of prayer,” said Rabbi Steven Z. Leder of the Reform congregation, which is in Koreatown. — nytimes.com

As the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida, prepares to break ground on its Foster + Partners—designed expansion in 2016, the institution has launched the second phase of its capital campaign, which has already raised nearly $34 million, more than half of the museum's $60 million goal. [...]

"Foster + Partners' plan pays homage to the Museum's past by restoring the clarity and symmetry of the original building, but also looks to its future as a leading museum in Florida" [...] — news.artnet.com

Buoyed by some of the largest donations in the city's history, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston will unveil a $450 million project today that envisions its campus as the cultural heart of the city. [...]

The project, by Steven Holl Architects, is the most exciting in the institution's 90-year history, board chairman Richard Kinder said. The plan, named the Fayez S. Sarofim Campus, is so transformational that in five years Houstonians might not recognize the 1000 block of Bissonnet. — chron.com