AUSTRALIAN ARCHITECTURE AWARDS 2011 On a tiny site measuring only seven by six meters (23 by 20 feet), a compact new home rises four and a half stories amidst the urban fabric of Surry Hills, an inner-city suburb of Sydney, Australia. Designing for himself and his partner, Sue Bassett, architect Domenic Alvaro achieved an unexpected sense of expansiveness within this small space through the use of large precast concrete panels and plate-glass windows, with minimal additional interior detailing. — Published 2012.0125
	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
	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
	AIA EDUCATION DESIGN AWARDS When Canada's Royal Conservatory of Music set about expanding its midtown Toronto campus, a careful balancing act was required. The project combined construction of the new Telus Centre for Performance and Learning with the progressive restoration of historic McMaster Hall. The conservatory also sought to energize a new cultural district for the city in conjunction with major cultural facilities nearby, such as the Royal Ontario Museum and Gardiner Museum. — Published 2011.1116
	AMERICAN LANDSCAPE AWARDS When it originally opened in 1978, the Portland Transit Mall created a transit-focused corridor in downtown Portland, Oregon. For a distance of 11 blocks through the commercial core, a pair of one-way streets combined dedicated bus lanes and limited car traffic with wide brick sidewalks and an abundance of trees, benches, and shelters. But despite being an icon for progressive urban planning, the mall suffered deferred maintenance and deterioration over time. — Published 2011.1102
	UIA WORLD CONGRESS 2011 There were fears that the great earthquake that struck eastern Japan in March 2011 would in some way lessen the UIA World Congress recently held in Tokyo by the International Union of Architects (UIA). — Published 2011.1026
	LEED FOR EXISTING BUILDINGS The Empire State Building made headlines recently for achieving LEED Gold certification following a major green retrofit project that will reduce the skyscraper's energy consumption by more than 38 percent. The building's electric chiller plant was rebuilt, electric meters were installed at the tenant level, and all 6,514 window units were removed, refurbished to improve their energy efficiency, and reinstalled. — Published 2011.1012
	UP ON THE ROOF More than half of all the single-family homes in the United States were built in the last three decades of the 20th century, and it is estimated that half again of the current total number of dwellings — about 80 million — will need to be built in the next three decades of the 21st century. — Published 2011.0727
	CALIFORNIA HOUSES OF GORDON DRAKE Over and over again, Gordon Drake declared that it was his avowed intention to design decent homes for people on minimum budgets. It is natural enough, therefore, that he will be best remembered for his small homes designed for California living. One kind of assessment of his work can be approached through looking at the things that he used. — Published 2011.0713

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