The architect spent 11 years traversing the continent, working on a book and reconnecting with his past. David Adjaye Photo: © courtesy Adjaye Associates Since starting his own firm in London in 2000, the award-winning David Adjaye has designed artists' studios, retail spaces, and public buildings such as the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, currently under construction in Washington, D.C. Born in Tanzania to Ghanaian parents (his father was a diplomat), he grew up in various parts of Africa before studying architecture in London. Deputy Editor Clifford A. Pearson sat

The noted urban planner is heading up the new Bond Design Center at the City College of New York. Photo courtesy CCNY Griffin is heading up the recently launched J. Max Bond Center on Design for the Just City.  Architect and urban planner Toni L. Griffin has introduced progressive ideas to mainstream planning over her 25-year career. Her test beds have included Detroit, where she has dealt with depopulation strategies, and Newark, where she worked to spur job growth. Earlier, she held positions with the District of Columbia and Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation, in addition to Skidmore, Owings

RECORD sits down with the new architecture critic of the New York Times to discuss his plans for covering the designs of buildings, New York, and the wider world. Michael Kimmelman Photo: © Marco Tambara Last fall, Michael Kimmelman, the longtime chief art critic of the New York Times, became the architecture critic at the paper and immediately set a new agenda. Rather than write about the latest starchitect building, he began with a piece on a mixed-income housing project in the Bronx by Grimshaw Architects and Dattner Architects called Via Verde, and followed up with articles that focused largely

Photo courtesy SHoP The noted urban planner Vishaan Chakrabarti (second from right) recently became a partner at SHoP Architects. No one has a résumé like Vishaan Chakrabarti, a planner who has darted between the public and private sectors: as a top executive at Related Companies; a director at the New York City Planning Commission; an associate partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; a transportation planner for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; and, most recently, as the director of Columbia University’s Center for Urban Real Estate (CURE). In March, Chakrabarti became a partner at SHoP Architects. He

The following excerpts are from a conversation included in Park Avenue Armory, a limited-edition publication edited by Gerhard Mack for the Park Avenue Armory Conservancy.

Henry Urbach Photo © Winni Wintermeyer Henry Urbach, a one-time gallery owner who most recently was curator of architecture and design at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, will be moving to New Canaan, Connecticut. He has just been named director of the Glass House, the Philip Johnson estate now owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. (He succeeds the interim director, Rena Zurofsky, and founding director, Chisty MacLear.) Fred Bernstein: Did you visit the Glass House while Philip was alive? Henry Urbach: In 2001, when I was running the gallery in New York [Henry Urbach Architecture], I was invited

The architect discusses winning this year's Driehaus Prize, which honors classical architecture and traditional urbanism, and how he plans to spend the $200k award. 2012 Driehaus Prize winner Michael Graves Photo courtesy University of Notre Dame School of Architecture Michael Graves is better known for appropriating traditional forms in his monumental Postmodern compositions than for being a strict classicist, so it may seem surprising that in December he was named the winner of the 2012 Driehaus Prize, which celebrates architects who advance classicism in their work. Graves, the founding principal of the New York- and New Jersey-based firm Michael Graves

Photo courtesy Tina di Carlo Tina di Carlo, Founder of ASAP Tina di Carlo is on a mission for architecture: Having served as a curator in the architecture and design department at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) from 2000 to 2007, and as a contributing editor at LOG: Observations on Contemporary Architecture and the City, di Carlo is now launching an organization called Archive of Spatial Aesthetics and Praxis. The group’s acronym, ASAP, a riff on the phrase “as soon as possible,” was chosen to underscore the urgency di Carlo feels should be given to elevating and promoting

The Architecture 2030 founder and recent Purpose Prize winner speaks with Architectural Record about being a green building pioneer and how he's faring in his mission to make all buildings carbon-neutral. Photo © Civic Ventures Edward Mazria, a sustainable design pioneer, recently won a $100,000 Purpose Prize. Conversation With Ed Mazria Santa Fe Architect Calls for Carbon Neutrality Architecture 2030 Reveals New Guide to Reduce Consumption This month, Edward Mazria and his crusade to “greenify” the built environment got a major boost: the 70-year-old architect was named one of five winners of the Purpose Prize. The $100,000 award is given