As I recover from the intense heat and severe foot-pounding of the XIIth Venice Biennale of Architecture, I’m at something of a loss as to what to make of it. Trying to use the theme this year, “People Meet In Architecture,” established by Kazuyo Sejima, overall biennale curator and one half of SANAA… 
A “skyscraper showdown” is in headlines this week, making contentious building projects a recurring theme for the summer. This time we have 15 Penn Plaza vs. the Empire State Building. The City Council has approved plans for a 67-story tower to be built two blocks away from, and just 34 feet shorter than, the iconic Empire… 
Last week Mayor Bloomberg appointed David Bragdon, former president of the Oregon Metro Council — an elected regional planning agency — and a rumored mayoral candidate in Portland, to head up the Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, which is charged with administering PlaNYC. Portland has certainly made… 
Are we growing more than plants? This question — blown up in large pink letters on a white wall in a small gallery on the Lower East Side — frames the core of the Amplify exhibition. Like the Lower East Side, the exhibition, which is the product of over one year of… 
This week we explored how web designers and developers can help city governments serve their constituents more effectively, particularly through thoughtful adoption of apps. Boston is one of the cities working with Code for America to do this, and some of its neighborhoods may be leading the charge. Participatory
Despite the impulse to marvel at Hong Kong’s sophisticated planning for and investment in infrastructure and urban density, might people there welcome some New York-style urbanism? Norman Oder, author of the watchdog blog Atlantic Yards Report, recaps two conferences that suggest that New York’s mechanisms for community input on development projects, imperfect as they are… 
