A different kind of FRAC Centre (Les Fonds R'gionaux d'Art Contemporain) opens September 14 in the historic city of Orl'ans, France'it is the first of the some two dozen regional cultural institutions to be devoted to architectural exhibitions as well as art.

In 2004, before the real estate crash, the city of Los Angeles and developer Related Companies had plans for downtown's Grand Avenue that were, well, grand. 

Sitting in Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates' (MVVA) Jacob K. Javits Federal Building Plaza in downtown Manhattan, at Worth and Lafayette streets, you could forget that a former iteration of the quiet plaza sparked one of the most outsized controversies about public sculpture and artists' control over the fate of their work.

As in many American cities, large highways slice through downtown Dallas. Sidewalks seem intermittent, parking lots abundant, and locals respond with strange looks when asked the best way to walk to a nearby bar or restaurant. But Dallas is pouring millions of dollars into changing all that.

Not every architect would compete to renovate a department-store facade situated between a supermarket and an Applebee's on a sign-saturated, multilane highway 6,000 miles from home.

An urban park adds a bustling social center to a newly redeveloped Washington, D.C., neighborhood.