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Glen Searle: City planning suffers growth pains of Australia’s population boom: Financial benefits are behind the development industry’s push for a continuous rapid population growth. But our poorly planned cities are ill-prepared and already struggling: ...attempts to reduce infrastructure costs and save agricultural land by imposing urban growth boundaries have foundered.- The Conversation (Australia)

Christopher Hawthorne: Wilshire Grand Center, the new tallest building in L.A. and a schmoozer in the skyline: For all its aesthetic wobbles, its unresolved quality as a work of architecture, the tower has a certain guileless charisma; it tries so hard to please that it winds up being tough to dislike...the imperfect emblem, the boisterous marker in the skyline, for this new city. -- AC Martin Partners- Los Angeles Times

Four firms join forces for ‘once-in-a-generation’ $800-million Melbourne tower: Woods Bagot will join forces with London’s Seventh Wave, Dutch practice UNStudio and Paris-based Jouin Manku...Dubbed 80 Collins Street... [image]- Architecture & Design (Australia)

Rebecca McLaughlan and Alan Pert/NORD: ‘A dramatic and disruptive impact on the world’: Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre...evokes optimism and inspires hope: Without [the numbers] it is easy to lose sight of the magnitude of this architectural achievement. But this is no warehouse. It’s a building about people...and establishing a relationship with the city...[and] the wider contribution of this building to the development of the healthcare typology. -- Silver Thomas Hanley; DesignInc; McBride Charles Ryan- ArchitectureAU (Australia)

Inga Saffron: Logan Square's handsome new parks can't fully cover scars left by I-676: PennDot went above and beyond its usual standard to include a trio of public spaces that help mitigate some of the damage done to the...neighborhood when the highway was rammed across the northern rim of Center City...could have done so much more...a once-in-a-generation opportunity to cap the crosstown trench... -- Ground Reconsidered [images]- Philadelphia Inquirer

Oliver Wainwright: The V&A's £55m new courtyard: Amanda Levete’s dazzling new porcelain piazza brilliantly reunites the museum with the Kensington streets. But the giant new jewellery box of a gallery lurking below ground is the real star of the show: It’s hard to shake off the sense that it’s all a bit naff...Things tend to clunk more than glide. Thankfully, it gets better inside. [images]- Guardian (UK)

Rowan Moore: Exhibition Road Quarter: the V&A digs deep: ...bold £55m design delivers space, light and spectacle: Don’t forget your sunglasses...The whole is dynamic and sometimes balletic, a spectacle of human movement that weaves in and out...It is a positive, energetic, hopeful place. It comes with a touch of bling, in which the decorative traditions of the museum meet the showbiz of modern exhibitions, but it’s delightful nonetheless. -- Amanda Levete Architects/AL_A [images]- Observer (UK)

Rowan Moore: Serpentine pavilion 2017: Francis Kéré’s cool shades of Africa: Inspired by his roots in Burkina Faso...It feels less lavish than previous pavilions...There was a danger of folksy hokum, of presenting a Lion King version of Africa...but Mies van der Rohe helps here...a very pleasurable building; thru October 8 -- Hans Ulrich Obrist; Aecom [images]- Observer (UK)

Patrick Sisson: Studio Ma brings desert-inspired architecture to the masses: It’s not just some New Age desert minimalism...when done correctly, architecture can be a restorative medium that can make a place work better...focuses on campuses...Microcosms of the urban fabric and different types of building typologies, they become small urban experiments... [images]- Curbed

Driverless Future Challenge finalists envision autonomous transit solutions for NYC: ...organized by Blank Space...and the City of New York. Participants from over 25 countries sent proposals...finalists will publicly present to NYC Commissioners at the “Pitch The City”...on July 11... -- FXFOWLE Architects/Sam Schwartz Engineering; Lily Shi/Yodai Yasunaga/Jiaming Zhang; Daniel Hui/Danil Nagy/Spencer Wright; IBI Group [images, videos]- Archinect

Announcing the Recipients of the 2017 Arnold W. Brunner Grant for Architectural Research: Dr. Stephanie Ryberg-Webster, Shaker Heights, Ohio: “Restoring the Rustbelt: Historic Preservation amid Urban Decline, Cleveland, Ohio: 1970-1985,” and Seher Erdogan Ford, AIA, Philadelphia: “From Church of Studius to Mosque of Imrahor and Beyond: Architectural Heritage in VR.”- Center for Architecture / AIANY (NYC)

"Design on Stage - Winners Red Dot Award: Product Design 2017": Objects from 47 categories of product design...illustrate how designers and manufacturers shape peoples’ everyday lives through high quality and innovative power; at the Red Dot Design Museum Essen, Germany, thru August 6- Red Dot Design Museum Essen

Christopher Hawthorne: Architecture catches the acting bug: Of all the ways that architecture has tried to reconstitute itself after the economic collapse of 2008...one of the most fascinating has involved the intersection of buildings and performance...projects that either tell stories about architecture and its history or use architecture or public space as a kind of temporary stage. "Vernacular Environments: Part 1" at Edward Cella Art & Architecture, Los Angeles -- Bryony Roberts; Andres Jaque; Schweder Office of Architectural Performances/SOAP- Los Angeles Times

This interactive woven canopy at MoMA PS1 changes colors as the sun sets: "Lumen"...integrates...biology, materials science, mathematics, engineering and design, to produce an artistic micro-climate...environmentally responsive and beautiful...made of over 1,000,000 yards of digitally knitted and robotically woven fiber...morphs into a photoluminescent wonderland. -- MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program; Jenny Sabin Studio [images]- Inhabitat

2017 Young Architects Pavilion Now on View in MoMA PS1’s Courtyard: ...Jenny Sabin Studio takes weaving to another level: composed of over one million yards of robotically woven mesh..."Lumen" shifts color and emits a warm glow with the waxing and waning of the sun...incorporates photo-luminescent and solar activated yarns... -- MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program [images]- Architectural Record

U.S. architect creates paper 'forest' inside museum: ...architect noticed how difficult it was to hear someone standing just 10 feet (3 meters) away in the Great Hall of Washington's cavernous National Building Museum...Her answer: building three tall, interconnected domed structures using more than 2,500 interlocking wound paper tubes..."Hive; thru September 4 (AFP) -- Jeanne Gang/Studio Gang [images]- Daily Mail (UK)

2017 Kuala Lumpur Architecture Festival/KLAF2017: *POWER is/and/to/with/of/for ARCHITECTURE*: ...agendas to focus on the public and the city at large...re-configured as an extended and expanded programme to be launched city-wide in various locations; thru September 3- Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia (PAM) - Malaysian Institute of Architects

Zaha Hadid's Legacy Will Be Honored in a New Exhibition: The Kuala Lumpur Architecture Festival takes a look back at the architect's impressive career: Hadid's intrepid approach to re-defining architecture and innovative design over the course of her 40-year career will be on view July 10-26 at Publika's White Box.- Architectural Digest

Michael Webb: "Like a critically ill patient, Venice’s wounds are proof of a widespread disease": A deeply depressing and urgent analysis offers a few glimmers of hope that must be seized if Venice is to survive: "If Venice Dies"...Salvatore Settis is a scholar with a mission...demands action to avert the destruction of a unique city; "Dream of Venice Architecture" by JoAnn Locktov- Architectural Review (UK)

ANN feature: Norman Weinstein: Book Review: Reading the Grain: "Wood" by William Hall: Designer Hall's photographic essay of wood architecture spanning a 1,000 years broadens thinking about a trendy material so it appears as an ever-changing, perennial, and crucial one.- ArchNewsNow.com

TALLER | Mauricio Rocha + Gabriela Carrillo: Criminal Courts for Oral Trials, Patzcuaro, Mexico: Mexico's judicial system has long been in crisis...In 2008, a series of constitutional reforms were passed...The main challenge was to represent the ideals of the new system - 'transparency, equality, democracy, justice and dignity', while complying with the strict security requirements... [images]