PROVIDENCE RECLAIMS RIVERS

During the past decade, Providence, Rhode Island has worked to incorporate its past into its future. Concentrated efforts to restore historic buildings, unearth "buried" rivers, and redesign the public realm have revitalized the downtown area. Central to this rebirth is Waterplace Park, a walkable and attractive urban landscape.

CURRENT ISSUES IN COLLEGE LIBRARIES

There is no shared facility more central to the purpose of a modern college or university than its library system. Whether as a collection of print materials, as an electronic database, or as a place of individual and group activities, the campus library provides a core of resources and services for learning and research that is vital to every discipline. Increasingly, academic libraries also serve a community of users beyond the campus, as information networks link them to a worldwide system of knowledge.

HIPPER BANKING IN PORTLAND

According to the designers of a bank branch in the once-industrial, now-chic Pearl District in Portland, Oregon, button-down bankers in marble-columned buildings are now passé. Such old-fashioned symbols of stability and conservatism are being supplanted by new ideas about banking — and by comfortable, artsy spaces for customers.

This new branch office of Umpqua Bank is the creation of architecture firm Thompson, Vaivoda & Associates and ZIBA, a design and branding

HADID'S BERGISEL SKI JUMP

Cobra, high-heeled shoe, golf club... Quite a few nicknames have emerged for the new Bergisel Ski Jump since its opening in September 2002. Time will tell if one of these nicknames will stick, but already the ski jump by the London firm Zaha Hadid Architects has become an important point of reference for the surrounding mountain landscape.

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