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The exhibition "Informal Studio: Marlboro South" at Johannesburg's Goethe-Institut (through May 9) includes four five-minute films. In the heady days after the end of apartheid, the South African government promised to build millions of new houses. These houses would make “informal settlements”—communities of squatters living in deplorable conditions they are unable to change given their lack of legal ownership— a memory. But the national government has delivered two million fewer houses than promised; meanwhile the population of Gauteng, the province that includes Johannesburg, has increased 30 percent in the last 10 years. Informal settlements have not been eliminated—they’ve grown. Thorsten

The announcement that the Architecture Billings Index (ABI), a reliable measure of the industry’s health, had clocked in at a post-recession high of 54.9 in February has many designers feeling that the worst of the downturn is behind them, even if they have made that claim before. The ABI has now surpassed 50 for seven straight months, its best performance since the official 2009 end of the recession. Still, hiring continues to be soft, as firms refocus their energies. Image © Architectural Record ABI Index “We’re still hunkered down, trying to be very efficient at everything we do,” says Steve

Acclaimed Japanese architectural photographer and founder of Global Architecture (GA) magazine Yukio Futagawa died of cancer on March 5, 2013, at the age of 80.

Two years ago, Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, writing in Architectural Record, lamented the “shrinking fraternity” of fellow newspaper critics focusing on the built environment. “At American dailies,” he wrote, “there are fewer than a dozen writers covering architecture with any regularity, and perhaps just four or five full-time critics.” The Dallas Morning News, however, is bucking the trend. In April, Mark Lamster, an editor at Architectural Review and contributing editor for Design Observer, will become the newspaper’s architecture critic. Lamster’s position is a partnership with the University of Texas at Arlington; he’ll teach a graduate seminar at

Construction of the Washington, D.C. memorial to President Dwight Eisenhower, a process more than 10 years in the making, is at a major crossroads. The Eisenhower Memorial Commission’s (EMC) congressional authorization has expired, and Rep. Sam Bishop (R-UT), has introduced a bill to reauthorize it. But Bishop, who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation, is seeking major changes. The bill would withhold $100 million in funding and toss out Frank Gehry’s design for the memorial, starting over the whole process of design selection. On Tuesday morning, the subcommittee held a hearing to discuss

Located inside the 1920s neoclassical Pedder Building, the renovation stripped the interior back to its structure but left some layers of construction from previous renovations visible on a central column and ceiling beam. The spare design by partner David Gianotten and project architect Miranda Lee relies on simple but tough materials, including wood panels for the reception area, bookshelves, and a sliding partition that separates the gallery's two exhibition areas.

Photo © Sharon Farmer/NMAAHC President Obama addressed the crowd at the February 2012 groundbreaking ceremony for the David Adjaye-designed Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. When president Barack Obama held a state dinner for British Prime Minister David Cameron last year, the luminaries at the head table included Warren Buffett, George Clooney, and David Adjaye. Not long after, the British press began referring to Adjaye as the president’s favorite architect. At the time, there was no talk of an Obama presidential library—the election was still months away, and the president had reportedly told friends

The uncertainty surrounding the Affordable Care Act and the future of Medicare and Medicaid has been weighing down health-care construction. Financing constraints have also had a dampening effect. Source: McGraw-Hill Dodge Analytics Click the image above to view a full presentation of these stats [PDF].

Nigerian architect Kunle Adeyemi created an innovative floating school to address the impacts of climate change and the need for safer, more livable buildings in Lagos. This story first appeared in GreenSource. There are no roads or much infrastructure of any kind in the floating world of Makoko, a shantytown flowing out from Lagos, Nigeria’s waterfront. Teetering atop small piers, the maze of tenuous wooden structures is frequently inundated by floods. Like many coastal cities, Lagos’ burgeoning population is faced with the increasing threat of more frequent flooding from rising sea levels. The architecture firm NLÉ, with offices in Lagos