For help designing the College of Human Ecology's newest community space at Cornell, college leaders turned to a team of in-house experts: 10 senior interior design students in its Department of Design and Environmental Analysis. The 5,000-plus square foot Human Ecology Commons, which connects Martha Van Rensselaer Hall and the new Human Ecology Building opened . . . and has quickly become the hub of the college. — Cornell University

“It is amazing to realize you could walk around the site not knowing if there is a body underneath you,” Nelson said. “How do you commemorate that?” — The Seattle Times

A new project, “Walking Shelter,” explores what on-the-go housing might just look like. Here, a portable dwelling is packed right into a pair of sneakers. Essentially a tent without a pole (that’s the clever part), the mobile home can be deployed anywhere you’d like it to pop up.

Rather than relying on the old pole standard, the shelter’s frame is provided by the person(s) occupying it, explains Amelia Borg, one-eighth of Sibling, the Australian architectural collective behind the project. — fastcodesign.com

Taipei has high hopes of becoming the next World Design Capital (WDC) designated city in 2016, and so far, it's looking pretty good: The International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid) announced from its Montreal headquarters today that "members of the selection committee identified the City of Taipei as the only municipality to move on to the next phase in the process towards becoming the WDC 2016." — bustler.net

The latest evidence of Philadelphia’s architectural comeback? The Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta is coming to town for a project at Temple University.

“We have a fantastic tradition of quality architeture and urbanism in Philadelphia, but we do go through low ebbs in that tradition,” says Harris Steinberg, the executive director of PennPraxis, the clinical arm of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design. — Next City

New York City leaders have announced the winning prototypes from the Reinvent Payphones Design Challenge which launched last December. [...] The competition had invited architects, students, urban designers, planners, technologists, and policy experts to create physical and virtual prototypes that imagine the future of NYC’s approximately 11,000 public pay telephones. — bustler.net

A new multidisciplinary field has emerged in several universities in which sociologists, psychologists and urban planners work to tailor architectural designs to seniors as that demographic continues to grow.

In America, 54 million people are over the age of 55 and that number is predicted to increase over the next 30 years by nearly 50 per cent. Despite most people’s desire to age in their own homes, most will be required to seek alternative arrangements. — DesignBuild Source

In an industry constantly pursuing innovative design that is both environmentally and ethically sound, the implementation of raw materials is directing interior design in 2013.

Natural materials are being sourced and taking on new forms as designers reinvent familiar items with sustainable credentials. — DesignBuild Source

In an innovative response to the current property squeeze in China, a Beijing architectural and a design firm have combined creative forces to develop a portable house and garden on the back of a tricycle.

The Tricycle House and Garden is a sustainable mobile home with its design and construction inspired by the shape and movement of an accordion. The playful designed is also being described as the “adult cardboard box fort box.” — DesignBuild Source

Construction on Zaha Hadid’s anticipated Softbridge building extension to the University of Oxford building in the UK is set to commence at the end of the month.

The Middle East Centre Project is an upgrade for St. Antony’s College, one of seven graduate colleges that are part of the original building. While the the building’s foundation date is unclear, it is the oldest university in the English-speaking world with teaching on the site believed to have commenced in 1096. — DesignBuild Source

A brand new green building project is set to become one of the world’s most sustainable commercial office builds not for the new and innovative technology it has implemented but for the unique approach to green building the developers have taken. — DesignBuild Source

The budding industrial designer also gave his top picks from the fair, which unsurprisingly all feature bright swaths of primary colors: a Charlotte Perriand bookshelf from Galerie Downtown accented with yellow squares; a Pierre Guariche chair from Demisch Danant, a Riteveld chair from Galerie Vivid; and a desk from Galleria Rossella Colombari by Gio Ponti, whom he was so delighted to have discovered: “He tried to make the office fun!” — blogs.artinfo.com