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KieranTimberlake The 613,000-square-foot embassy, set to break ground in 2013 and finish in 2017, will be the centerpiece of a 4.9-acre park site in Nine Elms, now comprised of warehouses and low-rise offices. Image courtesy KieranTimberlake/Studio AMD United States Embassy

Photo © Oli Scarf/Getty Images After the Deluge How have past Olympic cities measured up for reuse, post-Games? Barcelona Now Beijing Now Sydney Now Atlanta Now For the Greeks, the 2004 Olympics in Athens and the aftermath have become a symbol for everything that has gone wrong in their country. Workers struggled up to the last minute to finish many venues as Olympic officials fretted. The cost of the effort was more than $11 billion, double the original projections. After the Games, plans to convert sites to new uses stalled as money ran out and political will evaporated. Santiago Calatrava's

Photo © Oli Scarf/Getty Images After the Deluge How have past Olympic cities measured up for reuse, post-Games? Barcelona Now Beijing Now Sydney Now Atlanta Now For the Greeks, the 2004 Olympics in Athens and the aftermath have become a symbol for everything that has gone wrong in their country. Workers struggled up to the last minute to finish many venues as Olympic officials fretted. The cost of the effort was more than $11 billion, double the original projections. After the Games, plans to convert sites to new uses stalled as money ran out and political will evaporated. Santiago Calatrava's

Photo © Keven C. Rose After the Deluge How have past Olympic cities measured up for reuse, post-Games? Barcelona Now Athens Now Beijing Now Sydney Now For the city of Atlanta, the legacy of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games goes deeper than the moments of triumph and tragedy, including the pipe bomb attack that killed two and injured 110. The $1.8 billion spent on infrastructural improvements and construction has actively contributed to Atlanta's transformation into a modern-day metropolis. While some of this funding was directed at infrastructure, much went into new facilities, including the 17-building Olympic Village, built on the

After the Deluge How have past Olympic cities measured up for reuse, post-Games? Athens Now Beijing Now Sydney Now Atlanta Now Barcelona used the investments and positive energy generated by the 1992 Olympic Games as a tool for long-term strategic planning—a model that London studied closely. With the Olympics, the city's young government shook off the gray legacy of the Franco dictatorship to present a new modern image to the world. The Olympic Village transformed the obsolete industrial waterfront into a glittering beach, redirecting future growth into the city's neglected eastern districts. Other improvements included the renovation of the historic

The Beijing National Stadium Photo © John Gichigi After the Deluge How have past Olympic cities measured up for reuse, post-Games? Barcelona Now Athens Now Sydney Now Atlanta Now China's powers that be probably wish it wasn't Ai Weiwei—the artist, activist, and, after his nearly three-month detention by Chinese authorities last year, international cause célèbre—who collaborated with Herzog & de Meuron on the design of Beijing's Olympic National Stadium. But at first glance, the Bird's Nest, as it's better known, is the gift that keeps on giving: Four years after the Beijing Olympics, crowds still flock to the Olympic Green

Photo © Oli Scarf/Getty Images After the Deluge How have past Olympic cities measured up for reuse, post-Games? Barcelona Now Athens Now Beijing Now Atlanta Now When the Sydney Olympic bid was initiated in 1990, the then director of the New South Wales Department of Planning said that although the former abattoir site in outer Sydney's Homebush neighborhood was indeterminably toxic and miles from, well, anywhere, it was available, easy, and cheap. There was no attempt to locate Sydney's Olympic Park to achieve strategic benefits for the city. This expediency resulted in a site that remains excruciatingly difficult to reuse.

Richard Koshalek / Photo courtesy Richard Koshalek Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden / Rendering courtesy Diller Scofidio + Renfro National Mall / Courtesy Wikipedia Smithsonian Institute / Coutresy Wikipedia DCMetrorail / Courtesy Ben Schumin via Wikipedia Jefferson Reading Room / Carol M. Highsmith Leopold's Kafe / Courtesy Lauren Shia Richard Koshalek is the director of the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. He oversees a collection of 11,500 objects that span the late 19th century to the present day, including paintings, sculpture, photography, works-on-paper, and film, as well as a growing collection of video and digital media. Best New Architecture

Yolanda Cole / Photo courtesy Yolanda Cole Newseum / Courtesy Wikipedia National Cathedral / Courtesy Wikipedia Logan Circle / Courtesy Wikipedia Rasika Restaurant / Courtesy D.C. Cityblog Yolanda Cole, senior principal at D.C.’s Hickok Cole Architects, merged her practice with Hickok in 2003. Since then, the duo’s office has specialized in commercial architecture and interiors. Best New Architecture Newseum We’ve chosen to host the Washington D.C. AIA chapter party at the Ennead-designed museum, both because of the beauty of the building’s architecture and because people have usually not been. It’s a good example of a new museum and new building