Articles by Josephine Minutillo

There are times when a site is so perfect, so breathtaking, there is nothing for an architect to do but surrender to it.

The success of a building is not often measured in quantifiable terms. But when Aaron Miscenich, the executive director of the New Orleans BioInnovation Center, embarked on a new building laden with energy-intensive labs on a former brownfield site in a depopulated area of the city's downtown, he needed hard numbers to make the gamble pay off. Begun in 2007—two years after Hurricane Katrina—the center was conceived as an incubator for biotechnology start-ups. “There was a stigma to the city,” says Mark Ripple, partner at New Orleans–based Eskew+Dumez+Ripple. “It was seen as contaminated goods, both literally and figuratively. Graduates from

Architects take center stage at the biggest furniture show of the year.

The 191,500-square-foot mixed-use development incorporates permanently affordable housing, pre-kindergarten classrooms, and the new Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio joined with community leaders in Harlem on a rainy Monday morning to celebrate an innovative housing development nearing completion in the neighborhood’s historic Sugar Hill enclave. Designed by David Adjaye, the 191,500-square-foot mixed-use development incorporates permanently affordable housing, pre-kindergarten classrooms, and the new Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling. “It is so rare to see a city do this kind of project,” the London- and New York-based Adjaye explained at

The Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, reopened last week after a $24 million renovation and addition. Situated prominently at the eastern end of The Hague—not the city in the Netherlands, but a crescent-shaped inlet that feeds into the Elizabeth River as it passes through Norfolk, Virginia—the Chrysler Museum of Art’s newly renovated and expanded Italianate pile opened to the public again last week after 17 months of construction. Local firm H&A Architects designed identical, two-story porticoed gallery wings that flank the main entrance and added 10,000 square feet of exhibition space for American and European painting and sculpture

Theaster Gates will present the 10th annual Lewis Mumford Lecture at The City College of New York on May 1. Theaster Gates is a performance artist, potter, object maker, educator, urban planner, and innovator, and he has become a catalyst for renewal on Chicago’s South Side by putting his background to use in a unique way. His Dorchester Projects transformed abandoned houses into small cultural centers. He partnered with the University of Chicago, where he is a lecturer in the Department of Visual Arts, to create the Arts Incubator for artists-in-residence in a neglected building. And he’s now working on