Image courtesy Miller Hull Partnership Robert Hull was a Peace Corps volunteer in Afghanistan in the 1960s and 1970s. Now, he’s returning to the country to build a health clinic for a nonprofit organization. Seattle architect Robert Hull remembers Afghanistan in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a poor but peaceful country, with people who were kind and tolerant of foreigners—a far cry from the war-torn nation of today. Image courtesy Miller Hull Partnership Hull’s design for the 20,000-square-foot clinic is based on a traditional caravanserai, a kind of walled roadside inn for weary travelers. Related links Special Report:

Though London's Games have yet to leave the starting block, work on Rio's Olympic venues is well under way. Image courtesy AECOM AECOM’s master plan for the waterfront site of the 2016 Olympics in Rio includes several venues adapted from use in previous events, like the 1950 World Cup and the 2007 Pan-American Games. The 2012 London Olympics are still a month away, but in Rio de Janeiro, the city is already gearing up for the 2016 Games. In February, the Samb'dromo, home to the city's official samba-school parades, reopened in time for this year's Carnival with the addition of

The History Colorado Center, designed by native David Tryba, opens this Saturday. Photo © Frank Ooms The architect clad the 200,000-square-foot History Colorado Center in limestone. Photo ' Frank Ooms Related Links: Clyfford Still Museum by Allied Works Denver Art Museum Shop by Roth + Sheppard Denver Art Museum by Libeskind Denver’s Golden Triangle neighborhood, just south of stately Civic Center Park, has become something of an architectural showcase, with an eclectic assortment of works by Gio Ponti (the 1971 Denver Art Museum), Michael Graves (a 1995 addition to the Denver Public Library), Daniel Libeskind (a 2006 art museum expansion),

Photo courtesy Stephen Sandstrom (left) / S'ren Simonsen (right) Utah Rep. Stephen Sandstrom (left) and S'ren Simonsen (right). Thomas Jefferson may be the most celebrated American architect, albeit an amateur one, to lead a political life, but he certainly wasn’t the last. According to the American Institute of Architects, there are currently about 1,250 AIA members serving in elected and appointed positions, including six mayors, 55 city council members, 135 historic preservation commissioners, and 226 planning commissioners. But oddly, there are no architects currently serving in the U.S. Congress, and according to the AIA, there was only one during the

Architect Sergio Palleroni, founder of BaSiC Initiative, has dedicated his career to helping communities in need. Image courtesy BaSiC Initiative Click on the slide show button to view images of BaSiC Initiative’s work in various communities. Related Links: Special Report: Building for Social Change Humanitarian Design: The New Frontier in Education To Sergio Palleroni, humanitarian architecture is nothing new. In the 1980s, long before public interest design became fashionable, Palleroni was working on sustainable architecture projects for the World Bank and the United Nations in Nicaragua, Mexico, and Africa. Then, in 1995, while teaching at University of Washington, he co-founded

Image courtesy Jack DeBartolo 3 Click to view additional images. Related Links: Humanitarian Design: The New Frontier in Education Special Coverage: Building for Social Change Resources for Socially Conscious Designers Prayer Pavilion by DeBartolo Architects Every April, faculty members at Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts meet with graduate architecture students to present options for a half-dozen or so international studio courses. It’s a chance for professors to “sell” their programs, but adjunct professor Jack DeBartolo 3 takes a somewhat different approach. “I spend most of my presentation trying to discourage students from coming,” says the

Photo ' Rob Pyatt University of Colorado students will design housing for the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Click on the slide show button to view images of projects by architecture students at additional schools. Yale graduate students have been required to design a low-income house since 1967. This dwelling, at 12 King Place, was built in 2010. Related Links: University of Colorado Students to Design and Build Native American Housing ARCHIVE House Aims to Curb Disease Through Design DesignBuildBLUFF: Drawing on two-by-fours Teaching By Example Like a lot of architects and architecture students these days, Nathan Hammitt believes design has

After a period of neglect, efforts have grown to rescue the Oklahoma City theater that Harvard Five architect John Johansen considers his masterwork. Click on the slide show button to view additional images. In Oklahoma City, John Johansen’s 1970 Mummers Theater has long been one of those love-it-or-hate-it buildings. Now called the Stage Center, the structure is a whimsical assemblage of brutalist concrete forms and brightly colored steel ramps. Hovering above it all are three corrugated metal boxes containing the building’s mechanical systems. A member of the Harvard Five, Johansen, now 95, called the theater “not a building as we

Photo courtesy Rob Pyatt The students will build the first four homes on this site, located on the OLC campus in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Related Links: Design Build Bluff Teaching by Example The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, in South Dakota, home to an estimated 40,000 members of the Oglala Sioux tribe, is one of the poorest areas in the country. The unemployment rate is well above 80 percent, and an astonishing 97 percent of the population lives below the federal poverty line. Many of the houses on the reservation are considered substandard and lack basic water and sewage

Shigeru Ban talks to Architectural Record about his design for the new 30,000-square-foot building in central Colorado. Shigeru Ban is designing a new art museum for Aspen, Colorado. Related Links: Newsmaker: Shigeru Ban Ban Conceives Post-Disaster Solutions for Japan, New Zealand Metal Shutter Houses by Ban Ban Centre Pompidou-Metz At nearly 8,000 feet above sea level, Aspen, Colorado, is known for its mountain splendor. The ski slopes of Ajax Mountain rise from the heart of the resort town’s central business district, with its high-end shops and restaurants. It’s fitting, then, that Japanese architect Shigeru Ban brings up skiing when describing