The Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations chose 11 very different firms from among 88 applicants to design new embassies, consulates, and diplomatic buildings. Nine others were chosen for renovation and rehabilitation projects. Image © Alan Silverman, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill The street entry of the U.S. consolate in Guangzhou, China, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. It is scheduled to open in May. The U.S. Department of State has named the architects selected to compete for commissions in its new Design Excellence program. The Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO), under the direction of Lydia Muniz, chose 11 very different

The U.S. Department of State's new Design Excellence program is coming to fruition. Courtesy Davis Brody Bond Architects and Planners Davis Brody Bond Architects and Planners' U.S. Embassy in Jakarta is under construction. The project was commissioned before the State Department's Design Excellence program, but embodies the principles of the new initiative. After years of building standardized embassies and consulates on the edges of cities, focused solely on security and the bottom line, the U.S. Department of State launched an ambitious Design Excellence building program two years ago. It is now coming to fruition. Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects has

What does architecture have in common with writing a novel? If you ask Peter M. Wheelwright, the answer is a lot. The principal of PMW Architects in New York City, Wheelwright recently released his debut novel, As It Is on Earth, which was published in September by Fomite Press. Wheelwright is also a professor at New York’s Parsons the New School for Design, where he teaches design studios mixed with heavy doses of theory, history, and philosophy—subjects that play a major role in his novel, about a young professor delving into his family’s past. Photo © Eliza Hicks Peter M.

Photo courtesy Venice Architecture Biennale The Venice Architecture Biennale opens on August 29. “The emphasis of the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale will be on what we have in common,” explained British architect David Chipperfield, who is directing the main exhibition at this year’s Biennale, via satellite television to a group of press assembled in New York last month. “The ambition is to reassert the existence of an architectural culture made up not just of singular talents, but a rich continuity of diverse ideas united in a common history,” he said. Photo © Francesco Galli David Chipperfield Along those lines Chipperfield

Monadnock Summer: The Architectural Legacy of Dublin, New Hampshire, by William Morgan. David R. Godine, 2011, 160 pages, $30. Tomorrow’s Houses: New England Modernism, by Alexander Gorlin. Rizzoli, 2011, 256 pages, $65. Together, these very different books on New England houses provide an intimate introduction to American domestic architecture and the values it embodies. Architectural historian William Morgan’s Monadnock Summer focuses on one quietly elite, very small town but explains how the buildings there exemplified some of the aspirations and achievements of the nation. Architect Alexander Gorlin’s Tomorrow’s Houses concentrates on houses in New England built between 1912 (Purcell &

'Shifting Suburbia,' a recent panel discussion organized by the Forum for Urban Design, brings visionary thinking down to earth. Photo © Daniel McPhee/courtesy Forum for Urban Design During a recent panel, two developers, an architecture professor, and a real estate lawyer reacted soberly to the adventurous and optimistic schemes presented in MoMA's current exhibition, Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream. MoMA's Barry Bergdoll moderated the discussion. Related Links: Activist Exhibitions Interview: Cynthia Smith, Cooper-Hewitt Curator of Social Design “Small Scale, Big Change” at MoMA"Foreclosed" Reopens the American Dream Last summer, six teams of architects of architects, economists, public policy experts, and

By Jonathan Coulson, Paul Roberts, and Isabelle Taylor. Routledge, 2010, 264 pages, $125 This ambitious history chronicles campus design from the founding of the first European universities in the 11th century until last year. Although buildings for higher education are often among the most significant ones we build, surprisingly few good studies of them exist. There are numerous books on individual campuses, some good ones on architects who design college buildings (such as Robert A. M. Stern on Campus), and plenty of guides for facilities managers (even this one has a chapter on how to plan a campus). But only