The first building to win the RIBA Stirling Prize – Hodder Associates’ Centenary Building for the University of Salford – could be converted into a new primary school.

The plans for the currently empty 23-year-old building form part of 5plus Architects’ emerging 99ha development framework for the university’s existing campus and surrounding area. — Architects' Journal

The only profitable games in modern Olympic history, LA 1984 was a case study in public–private partnerships, corporate sponsorship, and municipal storytelling [...] It’s proof, say LA 2028 organizers, that the city can do it again: re-use the city’s wealth of existing and under-construction stadiums and athletic facilities, house athletes and the media at local universities, and host an Olympics that won’t require new publicly-funded infrastructure... — curbed.com

Though Harris County Judge Ed Emmett is the public official most closely tied to the salvation of the Astrodome, many private citizens have played important roles, too.

Without their many letters, petitions, documents and road trips – the tools of architectural preservation – Houston might have lost its most iconic building. — Houston Chronicle

As the country’s crime rate and prison population have steadily declined for years, dozens of correctional facilities have closed altogether. So when the number of migrants started to rise—more than 50,000 entered the Netherlands last year alone—the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) saw a solution. — National Geographic

Italy is giving away more than 100 historic buildings - including castles, houses, and towers - in a bid to boost 'slow tourism' and tempt visitors away from the overcrowded city centres.

The only catch is that those who take up the offer will have to commit to restoring and transforming the sites into tourist facilities, such as hotels, restaurants, or spas. Successful applicants will get an initial nine-year period to work on their project... — thelocal.it

Harris County commissioners have chosen Houston-based Kirksey Architecture to design a project to retrofit the Astrodome by raising its floor and installing parking spaces underneath.
The $105 million project -- unveiled by county officials in September -- is the most recent attempt to secure the building's future. [...]

Many feared then that the world's first multi-purpose domed stadium for sporting events would face the wrecking ball. — Houston Chronicle

The Digital Junkyard is an experiment in virtual salvage. It is a repository of donated digital information that is used to generate real physical and spatial objects...This project is an embodiment of the growing collective intelligence that technology affords us; and an experiment in ideas about digital ecology. It also honours the time and energy that designers put into testing and making mistakes. — digital junkyard

Over the years, the Serpentine pavilion programme quickly became established as an annual christening of starchitects’ baubles, and most pavilions have been sold off to private collectors...The people who buy the pavilions do so in enormously good faith. They need to have a lot of land, as well as the ability to pay for dismantling the structure, moving it and resurrecting it, as well as fulfilling all of the statutory requirements of planning permission. — The Guardian

The bridge, should it be built, would be about a mile long. It would span Sinclair Inlet, connecting Bremerton and Port Orchard, about 15 miles west of Seattle. Today, it’s a 10-mile, often traffic-clogged, drive between the towns. Rep. Jesse Young, whose district includes these two towns, thinks using an old carrier or two would make a fine tourist attraction and tribute to the military. — Wired

Houston’s iconic NRG Astrodome “can and should live on” as a multi-use park that will enhance the quality of life for residents of the city, serve as a popular tourist destination, and catalyze economic development that enhances the greater NRG Park and benefits the region as a whole, according to a report released today from the Urban Land Institute (ULI). — uli.org

"The latest proposal for the aging Astrodome calls for converting the structure into an indoor park and civic space, including an indoor grassy lawn and an outdoor promenade lined with oak trees. An Urban Land Institute panel, comprised of urban planners, economists and designers from around the country, released its preliminary recommendations Friday at the NRG Center." — Houston Chronicle

In keeping with the designer's forest-themed interior motif, a pair of homesteader cabins from the late 1800s are being installed in Twitter's new digs in the historic Western Furniture Exchange and Merchandise Mart building, a 1937 art deco landmark on Market Street. [...]

In this spirit of reuse and reclamation, Lundberg saw the cabins as a novel way of breaking up the wide open spaces of a gutted floor in the old furniture mart that will become a casual dining area. — Marin Independent Journal