While officials in Boston push ahead with plans for a new city hall, advocates are stepping up efforts to save the existing structure. The Boston Landmarks Commission agreed this spring to review a petition seeking protections for the building’s exterior and main lobby. Supporters view the case as a local and national bellwether for preserving Modernist architecture, which increasingly finds itself in developers’ crosshairs. Photo: © Chris Mottalini Boston City Hall, designed by Kallmann McKinnell and Knowles, could be sold if the city’s mayor has his way. Kallmann McKinnell and Knowles’s Boston City Hall has been controversial since its completion

The supersizing of printer technology could significantly extend the limits of concrete. By adapting technologies similar to those used in ink-jet and 3D printers and rapid prototyping machines for large-scale use, researchers in the U.S. and the U.K. are developing automated systems capable of rapidly constructing houses and other structures. Photography courtesy of Loughborough University (top and above left). Renderings: University of Southern California (above right and below) Plans by USC researchers include a simple gantry (below) for constructing a house, as well as a combination scaffold/ gantry for high-rises (above right). Loughborough University’s gantry (above left) could eventually produce

Efforts to take Boston’s skyline spectacularly vertical have snagged in political and business realities.

Damage figures become clearer, while officials grapple with what can be save.