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New architecture's impact on the urban realm, from Los Angeles to Glasgow to Rio In the pages of RECORD, we like to explore a work of architecture not only for the strength of its design but for the impact on its surroundings. In this issue, we look at several new cultural projects that are having a profound effect on urban sites. Steven Holl's controversial addition to the Glasgow School of Art, opposite Charles Rennie Mackintosh's early 20th-century masterpiece, brings a sense of lightness—with its luminous translucent glass skin—to that gritty Scottish city, where it rains more than half the year.

RECORD Houses Connect to Their Surroundings—or Create Their Own Environment T.S. Eliot may have thought April was the cruelest month, but here at Architectural Record, we look on the bright side because it's time for our annual RECORD Houses awards. Now in its sixth decade, the Houses issue is always full of surprises, with our selection of the best new projects by architects who experiment with form and materials on a domestic scale, often in spectacular settings. Photo © Michael Arnaud Renzo Piano never designs houses (not counting the Diogene, a tiny—8 foot by 10 foot—prototype of a sustainable cabin

MoMA rushes to raze Midtown Manhattan gem. Photo © MichaelMoran/OTTO The Folk Art Museum building's stair contained niches for objects in the collection and led visitors through the narrow structure. Next month, RECORD will present projects by architects who give new life to old buildings through thoughtful renovation or adaptive reuse. Unfortunately, that kind of creative thinking wasn't brought to bear to save the acclaimed former home of the American Folk Art Museum from demolition. Designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, and opened in late 2001, this little gem in Midtown Manhattan—six stories high and only 40 feet wide,

Not every work of architecture has to compete for our attention Building a new museum is like making a movie with a big cast of characters. There's the architect as director, the board of trustees (the producers), the curators with a story to tell in the galleries (the screenwriters), and a horde of technical consultants. Looming in the background is the reality of the budget'if value engineering is too severe, it's like canceling an Alpine location to shoot on a soundstage with fake snow. And just as Hollywood rushes to release movies before the end of the year'to be eligible

Young architects deploy new tools to advance common values Design Vanguard, our annual look at the best emerging architectural practices, is a window into the future, a glimpse of where the profession is heading. This year, two of our 10 winning firms are from Spain (despite the country's damaging recession) with work that demonstrates a powerful materiality, such as Venecia Park by Héctor Fernández Elorza Architects, featured on our cover. Other international winners come from Mexico, Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong. We're pleased, as well, to honor four U.S. practices—though young American architects have often had less opportunity to build

The present moment may be full of uncertainties, but this month, RECORD is focusing on the future.

Debra M. Phillips of the American Chemistry Council Responds to “Making Sense of the New LEED” In response to the piece by Nadav Malin (“Making Sense of the New LEED”) that recently ran in your publication, I am writing to make clear that the American Chemistry Council (ACC) strongly supports energy efficiency and green building. In fact, chemistry is responsible for many of the innovations and technologies that make energy efficiency and green building possible. ACC has historically been supportive of LEED. But we are concerned that LEED v.4 has strayed from its original mission of promoting energy efficiency and

The end of an era in New York—and a new future for cities and technology. Two years ago, RECORD published an award-winning feature devoted to the evolution of New York City in the decade since 9/11. We gave much of the credit for the city's newfound vibrancy to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, under whose administration exemplary urban design and architecture have flourished. The vast enhancement of the public realm—hundreds of acres of new parks, especially on the waterfronts; miles of bike lanes; pedestrian plazas; handsome new civic and cultural buildings—have created a dynamic and alluring urban environment for residents and tourists,

Record looks at how interiors bring the outside in. The exhibition Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (through September 23), explores a provocative theme: that the giant of 20th-century architecture is wrongly categorized as an International Style designer whose “machines for living in,” as he termed them, could be plunked down anywhere. Rather, argue the curators Jean-Louis Cohen and Barry Bergdoll, Le Corbusier was a keen observer of nature and landscapes, which informed almost everything he touched, from the master plan for a city to the design of a single