AN EXCELLENT ADDITION Designing an appropriate addition to almost any National Historic Landmark should be seen as a challenge. When the landmark building is by Frank Lloyd Wright, the challenge acquires its own dimension in history. In their new addition to an American masterpiece of religious architecture — Wright's First Unitarian Society Meeting House in Madison, Wisconsin — The Kubala Washatko Architects has risen beautifully to such a challenge. — Published 2011.0525
	BNIM - AIA FIRM OF THE YEAR To become one of the first two buildings to receive full recognition under the Living Building Challenge, the Omega Center for Sustainable Living in Rhinebeck, New York, had to meet a stringent set of criteria, including generating all its energy from renewable resources, and capturing and treating all water used onsite. — Published 2011.0511
	BILLION-SQUARE-FOOT GREENBUILD "The USGBC has just reached a historic milestone," announced Rick Fedrizzi, president and CEO of the U.S. Green Building Council. "We have one billion square feet [93 million square meters] of LEED-certified construction." Speaking to an audience of thousands at the organization's annual Greenbuild conference and expo, held in Chicago in November 2010, Fedrizzi also cautioned the cheering crowd, "We're still at the beginning of the journey." — Published 2011.0126
	POSTCARD FROM BERLIN Dear ArchitectureWeek, The SOLON factory and headquarters building on the outskirts of Berlin, by local firm Schulte-Frohlinde Architekten, seems to embody a green golden moment for the German startup company specializing in efficient assembly of photovoltaic cells into modular solar panels. — Published 2011.0112
	POSTCARD FROM PASSIVE HOUSE PORTLAND Dear ArchitectureWeek, There were 345 attendees (including me) at the North American Passive House Conference in Portland, Oregon, held from November 4 to 7, 2010. Twenty-six sessions focused on all aspects of the Passive House building energy-efficiency certification system, ranging from detailed conceptual overviews led by Passivhaus cofounder Dr. Wolfgang Feist to technical sessions about specific aspects of certification in our region. — Published 2011.0119
	RIPPLE EFFECT Your first reaction to seeing Aqua Tower as it commands the Chicago skyline might be, "What happened to that skyscraper?" It looks as if some of its concrete floor fins might have been worn away over years of exposure. Or perhaps some kind of pervasive organism has taken over a sleek glass tower, crawling all over its facade — the Blob meets Howard Roark's Enright Building. — Published 2011.0105
	POSTCARD FROM LOS ANGELES Dear ArchitectureWeek, I recently ventured to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) to see the new Resnick Pavilion designed by Renzo Piano. As I approached the pavilion from Wilshire Boulevard, I was impressed by how impeccably it seems to mimic the adjacent Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM), another recent LACMA building by Piano. Both structures are clad in travertine slabs, both sport fanlike roofs to allow daylight into the galleries, both are accented with bright red exterior elements — staircases on BCAM and sculptural HVAC equipment on the Resnick Pavilion — and yet the two buildings manifest entirely different takes on museum typology. — Published 2010.1020
	ULM MÜNSTERPLATZ Just over 100 miles (170 kilometers) from Freiburg, Germany, the city of Ulm straddles the banks of the Danube River, and although the two cities' cathedral squares — Münsterplätze — have slightly different birthdates, they are virtual twins. They grew up over the same five-and-a-half centuries, only to be laid low in the same bombing raids of 1944. — Published 2010.0929
	POSTCARD FROM TRENTON Dear ArchitectureWeek, It was a hot day and a long bus ride from Midtown Manhattan to Ewing Township, New Jersey, to get a sneak peek of the restoration in progress of Louis Kahn's Bath House, forever geographically misplaced near Trenton. Two dozen or so intrepid architecture and design journalists, including yours truly, munched on box lunches and watched My Architect on the bus's overhead TV monitors as we rumbled down the Jersey Turnpike toward one of Kahn's pivotal projects from the early 1950s. — Published 2010.0811
	POSTCARD FROM MANHATTAN Dear ArchitectureWeek, As I walked through west Chelsea, near the Hudson River shoreline of Manhattan, a palpable sense of change was afoot — especially striking considering the impact of the recession on new construction across the nation. Among an aging urban fabric of midrise warehouse and residential buildings, many in various stages of renovation and repair, several new projects stood out. — Published 2010.0728

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