As Kushner sees it, the advent of social media changed architecture in the same way it has changed other industries. It’s a real time barometer for how the public feels about any given project. He sees this as a good thing. The beauty and frustration of architecture is that it’s unavoidable; we’re all stakeholders, even if we don’t want to be.

In the past, the voices of only a select group of these stakeholders would be heard. Today, anyone with an internet connection can be a casual critic. — wired.com

Driverless pods, gliding above city streets using a network of elevated guideways. This is SkyTran -- but is it the future? SkyTran wants to do away with train schedules and central stations to develop a grid system above the ground with multiple "off ramps" acting as stations where users can board pre-booked pods – a cab service for the skies. Call for SkyTran on your smart phone and a computer-controlled, magnetically levitating pod arrives. It will whisk you across the city... — CNN

Dubai continues to treat city planning like a simulation game with the cheats turned on, unveiling its latest architectural wonder: the Museum of the Future. The building is set to open in 2017, and while we're not quite sure how to describe its shape (a lopsided torus? An aerodynamic donut?) it serves an interesting dual purpose as both museum and research lab. — theverge.com

These were the words of the year in architecture: Basic. Fundamental. Primitive. Ancient.

If fashion had normcore — the flaunting of a bland, practical and Gap-like aesthetic, the plain sweatshirt as statement of principles — architecture reset itself this year in an even more fascinating (if occasionally desperate) way.

In a culture and an economy being dizzyingly remade by technology, architecture chose to embrace not the future, where architects [...] can seem superfluous, but the past. — latimes.com

The undoing of the master narratives of modernism should not be taken as an opportunity for an architecture of spectacle and fantasy, but instead one that, utilizing the lessons of the past, speaks to the complexities of the present and the forces that shape us. It is crucial to deconstruct the idea that design can be universal and instead, to think in terms of an architecture that derives inspiration from the specificity of geography, culture and place. — huffingtonpost.com

Ahead of a special Guardian Cities event, the renowned urban ‘rethinker’ says cities should be six or seven storeys high, Helsinki is on the verge of revolution, and that he’s sceptical of London’s cycle superhighway plans [...]

Practice partner Søholt puts forward one way of improving a city’s liveability: “Mix the city and assemble the people rather than dispersing them.” — theguardian.com

City Hall. It's traditionally the place where technology gets stuffed into a drawer and forgotten. But as budgets recover from the Great Recession and smartphone-toting citizens prod municipal officials, cities are now more Boston Dynamics than Boss Tweed. Soon the pols will be promising sensor-driven pots that cook the chicken for you, just the way you like it. — wired.com

City Realty made the rendering above, which they say gives us an idea of what the city will look like in 2018 based on projections for buildings currently being planned or already in construction: "New York City skyline circa 2018 2,500 feet above Central Park. Image features upcoming supertall skyscrapers such as One Vanderbilt, 53W53, 432 Park Avenue, 225 West 57th, and 111 West 57th Street are completed." — gothamist.com

As technology evolves, what today seems science fiction may become the job market of tomorrow. Experts predict that 60% of employments in the next 10 years haven’t even been invented yet. — nextnature.net

In the upcoming 2nd Istanbul Design Biennial, "The Future Is Not What It Used To Be" questions the role of design, its relationship to society, and how it can potentially bring change. Curated by Zoë Ryan and spanning all five floors of the Galata Greek Primary School from Nov. 1 to Dec.14, the biennial will showcase a designers' exhibition of over 50 projects that ask who defines the future and how it is defined. But the crucial aspect it explores is whose future could be affected. — bustler.net

The Information reports that Page started up a Google 2.0 project inside the company a year ago to look at the big challenges facing humanity and the ways Google can overcome them. Among the grand-scale plans discussed were Page's desire to build a more efficient airport as well as a model city. To progress these ideas to fruition, the Google chief has also apparently proposed a second research and development lab, called Google Y... — theverge.com

A collaboration consisting of Foster + Partners, FR-EE (Fernando Romero Enterprise), and NACO (Netherlands Airport Consultants) won the international competition to design the new Mexico City International Airport in Mexico. The airport's design is surely aiming to set the standard for the airport of the future. Not only is the new structure expected to be one of the world's largest airports at 555,000 sq. meters, it also aims to be the world's most sustainable airport. — bustler.net

[...] One of its latest projects: Inviting a North Korean architect to imagine the future of local design for travel.

The Jetsons-style results include hovercraft hotel rooms and cone-shaped mountain villas connected by ski slopes. Nothing looks like it would be that out of place in a 1950s magazine, down to details like an old-fashioned rotary phone. This is what the future looks like to someone living in a place that's been cut off from the rest of the world since 1948. — fastcoexist.com

While YIMBY recently revealed Extell’s Nordstrom Tower, the first glimpse lacked a perspective of the structure’s impact on the broader Midtown skyline. Now, with the help of illustrator Armand Boudreaux, YIMBY has fresh images of the skyscraper’s position on the skyline, including nearby developments like 220 Central Park South, 111 West 57th Street, 432 Park Avenue, and 53 West 53rd Street. — New York Yimby