Bridging the aspirations of developers and the firm’s architects, Mr. Katz negotiated into existence some of the tallest mixed-use buildings in the world, among them the Shanghai World Financial Center and the International Commerce Centre in HK.

His other projects for KPF included Roppongi Hills, a huge complex in Tokyo encompassing an office tower, apartments, shops and restaurants, movie theaters, a museum, a hotel, a television studio, parks and an outdoor amphitheater. — nytimes.com

Mildred Friedman, a curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in the 1970s and ’80s who helped both the museum and the contemporary design and architecture it celebrated become objects of international acclaim, died on Sept. 3 in Manhattan. She was 85. [...]

Ms. Friedman executed a curatorial hat trick: She elevated design even as she made it more accessible — and she did it in Minnesota, far from the traditional sanctums of aesthetics. — nytimes.com

The idea of the Future Cemetery is to create a place for people to connect with death. What that actually means and looks like is still in development, Troyer says, but in the first stage of the project they did everything from projections to audio installations. Now, they’re working on developing augmented reality experiences in cemeteries—elements that are only visible with certain devices and if you know they’re there. The idea is to allow people to add to their own cemetery experience... — theatlantic.com

We are very sad to learn of the passing of amazing designer Deborah Sussman, who died this morning after a battle with cancer." — @DesignObserver — Twitter

Randall Stout, an environmentally sensitive architect who earned a national reputation for designing dynamically shaped regional museums, mostly in his native South, died on Friday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 56.

His brother, Steven, said the cause was renal cell cancer. — nytimes.com

Kahn was one of three founding members of IDEA Office, formerly the Central Office of Architecture. He originally opened the office in 1987 together with fellow architects Ron Golan and Russell N. Thomsen. In 2009, he renewed his long-standing partnership with Thomsen to form IDEA Office. Their work includes design at all scales, from graphic design to installations and industrial design, to architecture and urban planning — sciarc.edu

Frederic Schwartz, an architect whose plan to rebuild the World Trade Center site finished second among hundreds of entries, and who went on to create memorials in New Jersey and Westchester County to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, died on Monday in Manhattan. He was 63. — nytimes.com

It is with great sadness that The Miller Hull Partnership today announces the recent passing of beloved colleague and founding partner, Robert Hull FAIA, from complications related to a stroke suffered while on sabbatical in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. — millerhull.com

If liberal cultural and educational institutions are to operate with any integrity in that environment, they must insist on a change of the rules: abolish the recruitment debt system, pay a living wage, allow workers to change employers at will and legalize the right to collective bargaining. Otherwise, their gulf paymasters will go on cherry-picking from the globalization menu [...] while spurning the social contract that protects basic human rights. — nytimes.com

Yesterday, March 19, Horace Havemeyer III, Metropolis’s founding publisher passed away peacefully at his home in New York City. Death released him from the suffering brought on by complications from CIDP, a chronic neurological disorder that rendered him quadriplegic in mid-2011. He was 72. — metropolismag.com

"I have nothing to do with the workers," said Hadid. "I think that's an issue the government – if there's a problem – should pick up. Hopefully, these things will be resolved."

Asked if she was concerned, Hadid added: "Yes, but I'm more concerned about the deaths in Iraq as well, so what do I do about that? I'm not taking it lightly but I think it's for the government to look to take care of. It's not my duty as an architect to look at it. — theguardian.com

British architect Kathryn Findlay, Co-Founder and Principal Director of London-based Ushida Findlay Architects, has died. Findlay had been suffering from a brain tumor.

Unaware of her recent passing, the jury of the 2014 Jane Drew Prize just announced her as this year's award recipient. The Prize, awarded annually by The Architects' Journal, recognized Kathryn Findlay ‘for her outstanding contribution to the status of women in architecture.' — bustler.net

Madeline Arakawa Gins, a poet-turned-painter-turned-architect who publicly forswore mortality — and whose buildings, by her own account, were designed to pre-empt death for those living in them — died on Wednesday in Manhattan. She was 72.

The cause was cancer, said Joke Post, the manager for architectural projects at the Reversible Destiny Foundation, which Ms. Gins and her husband, the Japanese-born artist known simply as Arakawa, established in 1987. — mobile.nytimes.com