BEST OF BUILD BOSTON Build Boston, the largest regional conference and trade show for the design and construction industry in the United States, recently demonstrated again why it has earned such preeminence. More than 14,000 architects, designers, construction and facility managers, and owners attended the 27th Build Boston conference, hosted by the Boston Society of Architects in November 2011. The trade show floor boasted some 300 vendors — up 6% over last year — who plied their products with the usual vigor. — Published 2012.0111
	HIGH-RISE SUSTAINABILITY A high-level assessment of the impact of the urban tower on the natural environment would conclude that low land use and possible higher density are the chief advantages, with high energy usage being the chief disadvantage. Concepts of density and of energy usage are relative, and should be examined by comparing high-rise buildings with their low- or mid-rise alternatives. — Published 2012.0104
	ANATOMY OF METABOLISM The exhibit "Metabolism, the City of the Future" at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo is a major retrospective looking at Japan's most widely known and perhaps least understood modern architecture movement. Subtitled "Dreams and Visions of Reconstruction in Postwar and Present-Day Japan," the exhibit throws up images depicting a sci-fi world of floating cities, metropolises in the sky, and soaring geometric shapes and patterns repeated over and over with little apparent correspondence to the psychological needs of humans. — Published 2011.1214
	THE STORY OF SAARINEN'S JOHN DEERE HEADQUARTERS Carefully tucking away "the car's fat shine" was integral to the definitive Deere & Company Administrative Center in Moline, Illinois, later renamed Deere & Company World Headquarters. The exemplar for all subsequent corporate estates, it brought together landscape, site plan, and architecture into an elegant and commanding solution. Deere definitively proved the corporate value of the high-image, high-style suburban headquarters. — Published 2011.1207
	WILLIAM WURSTER - HOUSES Thinking back, an image that most endures in my mind is the white tower and compound of William Wurster's Gregory House (1929) in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The Gregory Farmhouse, as it's usually referenced, is a misnomer: it is a country retreat designed and built between 1927 and 1929, a place of the soul, no doubt, for a very sophisticated San Francisco family. — Published 2011.1130
	INNER LIGHT OF THE NATIONAL CATHEDRAL With nave and aisles bearing vast arrays of vivid, intricate stained glass, sunshine naturally washes warm, beautiful color across the stone arches and columns of the National Cathedral, atop Mount St. Alban in Washington, D.C. Since the Gothic masonry structure was shaken by the magnitude 5.8 Virginia earthquake on August 23, 2011, this inner light has taken on another dimension. — Published 2012.0704
	POSTCARD FROM WEST POTOMAC PARK "Light, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant." —Martin Luther King Jr. — Published 2011.1026
	STANLEY TIGERMAN: ARCHITECT AS CHAMELEON A bedrock belief in the classic theology of modern architecture was that architects always had to be original. Architects were to create a new built world that divested itself from the past, from classical architecture and its decoration, and invent brand-new, innovative buildings. In many ways, for a modern architectural designer, being original could be more important than being good. — Published 2011.1005
	WORLD TRADE CENTER - TENTH ANNIVERSARY — Published 2011.0907
	MAISON CARRÉ BY ALVAR AALTO Maison Carré in Bazoches-sur-Guyonne, France, is a private house by Alvar Aalto which is to a major extent stamped by the owner being an art collector: one could say that it is at the same time a private palais and a gallery. — Published 2011.0831

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