Image courtesy Van Alen Institute A rendering for the redesign of the Van Alen Institute's storefront by Collective-LOK (Jon Lott, William O’Brien Jr., and Michael Kubo). In 2008, after holding several positions in design publishing and communications in both Rotterdam and New York, David van der Leer shifted gears, becoming the first member of the Guggenheim Museum’s architecture and urban studies–focused curatorial team. At the Guggenheim, van der Leer steered the museum on a course of public outreach on city-related issues, including the BMW Guggenheim Lab, the recently concluded project in which experts and residents in New York, Berlin, and

This article first appeared on GreenSource. Courtesy Dubai Expo 2020 Last Tuesday officials from Dubai declared they would transform the city into one of the most sustainable municipalities in the world by 2020. Although Dubai has expressed the aspiration before, namely as part of an initiative to expand parkland, this latest statement incorporates multiple kinds of environmental performance. Speaking locally at an event sponsored by the Dubai Chamber, city directors Hussain Nasser Lootah and Mohammad Mashroom laid out strategies for increasing solar production, capturing energy from waste, and mandating more rigorous green building. Dubai’s first photovoltaic plant went online in

“By the time I was 12 or 13 years old, I knew that someday I would have something to do with influencing place,” says Carol Coletta of growing up in South Memphis. From co-developing the first condominium conversion in downtown Memphis to serving as executive director of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, Coletta has proven her 12-year-old self right. As CEO of CEOs for Cities, she helped gather ideas for improving the urban realm via text messaging. While director of ArtPlace, a collaboration of 13 national and regional foundations and six banks, Coletta tapped Impresa Consulting to measure economic,

The dean of Syracuse University’s School of Architecture talks to RECORD on the occasion of his first midterm review. Photo © J. Seo Michael A. Speaks Earlier this year, Michael A. Speaks took over as dean of Syracuse University’s School of Architecture. As dean of the College of Design at the University of Kentucky, Speaks focused his school's energy into a series of multi-stakeholder community revitalization projects, not unlike the legacy left by his Syracuse predecessor, Mark Robbins, whose tenure was defined by numerous efforts to revive the Rust Belt city. On the occasion of Speaks's first midterm review, he spoke

A large cruise ship emerges out of the Giudecca Canal in Venice, behind the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, 2009. The World Monuments Fund (WMF) has released the 2014 World Monuments Watch, its biennial list of cultural heritage sites at risk of damage or loss. This year’s list includes 67 sites in 41 countries, shortlisted from 248 nominations. The type and scale of selections are equally expansive; they range from all of Syria to the gas lamps of Berlin. Despite such breadth, WMF president Bonnie Burnham, in introducing the 2014 class at a Tuesday press conference in Manhattan, said that

To win the commission for the recently completed John and Frances Angelos Law Center at the University of Baltimore, Behnisch Architekten, Boston'in partnership with architect of record Ayers Saint Gross'gave daylight a starring role.

Salt & Straw in Portland, Oregon Ice cream won’t solve global warming, but the sweet stuff can offer personal relief from the grips of a fiery summer day. Served in a thoughtfully conceived retail environment, a scoop of ice cream may even offer design inspiration. We went in search of such dessert oases on two continents. The journey revealed several parallel vernaculars within the project type, which range from artisanal to mad-scientist to whimsical. Click the image above to view a slide show.

Encompassing a mere square mile of area, the City of London exemplifies a dense urban fabric. Commercial real-estate developers have typically responded to crowded conditions by reaching skyward: two of London's three tallest buildings'the KPF-designed Heron Tower and Renzo Piano's Shard, both completed in 2010'are within this downtown core. The opening of One New Change that same year demonstrates that not every contemporary icon requires a place in the skyline. Located directly across from St. Paul's Cathedral (itself a onetime record holder in building height), Jean Nouvel's mixed-use complex comprises 560,000 square feet on only six floors. The low-slung arrangement

Behnisch Architekten and Ayers Saint Gross consolidate the School of Law's program under one roof for the first time in its 88-year history. The University of Baltimore's John and Frances Angelos Law Center, designed by Behnisch Architekten and Ayers Saint Gross. Vice President Joe Biden, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, and other legal luminaries convene in midtown Baltimore today to attend a preview of the John and Frances Angelos Law Center at the University of Baltimore. The 192,000-square-foot building, designed by Behnisch Architekten in partnership with Ayers Saint Gross, consolidates classrooms, offices, clinics, and a library for the first time in

The Shape of Green by Lance Hosey. Island Press, 2012, 216 pages, $30. Did you know that a clean neighborhood experiences one-fifth less crime than an untidy one, that profit margins for businesses near Rem Koolhaas's Seattle Public Library have risen 50 percent since it opened in 2004, that birdsong stimulates carbon sequestration by trees? Lance Hosey is on a mission to prove that society places value on beautiful environments, which makes them more enduring. His new book, The Shape of Green, leaves no case unturned for recognizing beauty as a valid consideration in green building. The Shape of Green