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A conference organized by Brian MacKay-Lyons aims to push locavore design to the forefront. Photo © Manuel Schnell In lieu of his annual "Ghost Lab" design-build workshops, MacKay-Lyons will host a summer conference at his Nova Scotia farm. In the summer of 1994, Nova Scotia architect Brian MacKay-Lyons and a teaching colleague, Richard Kroeker, took their students at Dalhousie University in Halifax to MacKay-Lyons’s farm and taught them how to actually build a structure with their own hands. It was the first “Ghost Lab,” so named because the land’s rocky ruins mark the ghost of a village, a European settlement

Photo © David Hathcox Photography Amanda Burden, the NYC planning commissioner, was one of 15 speakers at the 22nd annual Accent on Architecture Gala in Washington, D.C. She received the Keystone Award. On February 4, more than 400 architects, planners, developers, and journalists attended the 22nd annual Accent on Architecture Gala in Washington, D.C. The black-tie dinner hosted by the American Architectural Foundation (AAF) will likely be remembered as a night of impressive grandiloquence. On the program were representatives from government, the private sector, the AIA, and the AAF. The 15 speakers included Rocco Landesman, chairman of the National Endowment

Organized by the Department of Energy (DOE), the Solar Decathlon is a competition held every two years that invites university teams to design solar-powered homes, which they then construct on the Mall as part of a public expo.

A federal lawsuit filed in October 2010 against the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and other defendants, focusing on allegedly fraudulent claims of the LEED rating system, has been amended. Filed February 7th, 2011, the amended complaint has been boiled down to a claim of false advertising, and is no longer a class-action suit. As with the original lawsuit (see USGBC, LEED Targeted by Class-Action Suit), the amended version focuses on a critique by Henry Gifford, a mechanical systems consultant, that USGBC falsely claims that LEED guarantees energy savings in LEED-certified buildings. Click to enlarge + This graph from the

Three years and $50 million after work first began, the New York Public Library has revealed the fully renovated facade of the landmark Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Fifth Avenue.

Today, the American Institute of Architects announced that it has elevated 104 members to its College of Fellows, in addition to naming six international architects honorary fellows. Fewer than 2,700 of the AIA’s 80,000 members are fellows. The honor recognizes architects who have made a significant contribution to the profession and to society; candidates also are required to have been AIA members for at least 10 years. Honorary fellowships are given to “architects of esteemed character and distinguished achievements who are neither U.S. citizens nor U.S. residents, and who do not primarily practice architecture within the domain of the Institute.”

The White House has launched a package of proposals—including a new tax credit and grant competition among states and cities—that aim to make commercial buildings 20 percent more energy efficient over 10 years. The "Better Buildings Initiative," which President Obama announced on February 3 during an appearance at Penn State University, is targeting commercial buildings, which the White House says account for about 20 percent of total U.S. energy consumption. Obama said the plan could save businesses nearly $40 billion over the next decade in lower energy costs. The plan has several components, some of which will require congressional action.

A final design has been completed for the $150 million New Brunswick Gateway Transit Village, a 632,000-sq-ft mixed-use building located at the intersection of Somerset Street and Easton Avenue in downtown New Brunswick, New Jersey. It will link the campus of Rutgers University, as well as the larger community, to the local train station. Rendering courtesy of Meltzer/Mandl Architects, PC Meltzer/Mandl Architects of  New York designed the transit village and completed the final documents for construction on the project, which first broke ground in January 2010. The development team includes New Brunswick Development Corporation and Pennrose Properties. Gateway Transit Village

After delays attributed to the global economic recession, construction has begun on two of Abu Dhabi’s five planned cultural buildings—the Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi museums. The five facilities will form an emerging cultural district on Saadiyat Island, located 500 meters from the city of Abu Dhabi, which serves as the capital of the United Arab Emirates. Officials at Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development and Investment Co. (TDIC), which is developing the island, say they are using the recession to take advantage of reduced prices in construction materials and equipment. Saadiyat Island is envisioned as the home to

Fumihiko Maki During his many decades practicing architecture, Fumihiko Maki has accrued an impressive collection of awards, including the Pritzker Prize (1993) and Japan’s Praemium Imperiale (1999). Now, the American Institute of Architects has announced that this year’s Gold Medal will honor the esteemed architect, known for such projects as the Sam Fox School of Design and MIT Media Lab.  A graduate of both Tokyo University and the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Maki was one of the first Japanese architects to study and work in the United States after World War II. Following his graduation from Harvard in 1954, Maki