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“The public is invited into the process very late,” said Nicolai Ouroussoff, the architecture critic, referring to the decision by the Museum of Modern Art and its architects, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, to tear down the former home of the American Folk Art Museum, which stands in the way of MoMA’s recently announced expansion. And Ouroussoff was right: Eight hundred people turned out for what was, in effect, a town hall meeting on the demolition of the Tod Williams Billie Tsien building, which heated up a Manhattan auditorium on a very cold night. But then, after nearly two hours of

A competition challenged four architecture firms to come up with new ideas for Long Island downtowns. Utile, Inc.'s scheme for Rockville Centre, where a train station on columns already exists, would add monumental arcades to shelter a garage during the week and a pedestrian plaza on weekends. Proponents of smart growth, which generally involves reliance on mass transit, should find a lot to admire on Long Island, where the nation’s largest commuter railroad carries upwards of 300,000 passengers a day. The trouble is that many of those commuters arrive at local train stations by car. Worse, their trips between home

It’s hard to imagine a country with more varied architecture than Mexico, and a show at the Palacio de Iturbide is devoted to the last century of that diversity. Mario Pani and Luis Ramos Cunningham. Nonoalco Tlatelolco Housing Complex, 1964. Mexico City. One of the challenges facing the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), as it gathers material for its planned 2015 show of Latin American architecture from 1954 to 1980, is that Mexico alone warrants as much space as MoMA is likely to allot to the entire region. For proof, just visit the Palacio de Iturbide, in the center of

New York’s American Folk Art Museum unveiled 'Folk Couture: Fashion and Folk Art,' an exhibition of couture fashion creations framed by the work of fabrication-focused architecture firm Situ Studio.

Photo courtesy Tarantino Studio The Bachman-Wilson House (1954), designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, has been purchased by the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. A Frank Lloyd Wright house that its owners say is imperiled because of frequent flooding will soon be headed for higher ground, and presumably, drier ground, too. On Wednesday, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art announced that it had purchased Wright’s 1954 Bachman-Wilson house, which it plans to relocate from a riverbank in New Jersey to its campus in Bentonville, Arkansas. “It won’t face an issue of rising water here,” said Diane Carroll, a spokeswoman

Using a unique business model, a New York-based designer aims to provide design services for the formerly homeless. Sean Carlson Perry, founder of an eponymous Brooklyn, New York-based full-service design firm, has worked on high-end residential and commercial interiors, luxury retail projects, graphics, and furniture design. Perry, 31, is also the founder of Design Exchange, a new project to create comfortable living environments for those in need. Photo courtesy Sean Carlson Perry Sean Carlson Perry, founder of Design Exchange Working with two part-time interns and a handful of volunteers and subcontractors, Perry helps provide formerly homeless individuals and families, including

School starts, which had been hit hard by the fiscal condition of state and municipal governments, should rebound in the coming year as the country recovers from the recession and voters approve new bond measures to fund construction. Click the image above to view a full presentation of these stats [PDF].

Molenaar & Co, Hebly Theunissen, and Michael van Gessel led a pristine renovation of the Spangen social-housing complex, which pioneered public deck access. The revolutionary Spangen social-housing complex (1919-1921) in Rotterdam, by Michiel Brinkman, has recently been immaculately restored. The project pioneered “street in the sky” deck access, an idea that famously inspired Alison and Peter Smithson’s design of the 1950s Golden Lane housing project in London. The Spangen estate, or Justus van Effen complex, is a rectangular four-story brick urban block, centered around two large courts. Concrete balconies give access to the duplex apartments on the top floors. In

The U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED standard, long synonymous with environmentally conscious construction in the U.S., is being forced to share some of its limelight, first with the Living Building Challenge, which has only certified a handful of buildings since its 2006 launch but is steadily gaining momentum since its 2006 launch, and now with Green Globes. Photo © Jill Richards Jerry Yudelson, president of Green Globes The rating system, which advertises cheaper and faster certification, is winning some important backers. In October the U.S. Government Services Administration (GSA) recommended, for the first time, that federal agencies consider Green Globes

Tomas Koolhaas remembers when his father, architect Rem Koolhaas, was laying the groundwork for his firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in their London apartment. As a youngster, Tomas was allowed to doodle on the office drafting boards and shovel alongside construction workers. Both parties branched out: OMA became a ubiquitous international architecture firm, and Tomas pursued his interest in media and film. Now, after 10 years in cinema, Tomas, 33, is returning to his roots. For the past two years, the Santa Monica–based filmmaker has been piecing together REM, a feature-length documentary about his father, his father’s buildings, and—most