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Berlin, the capital of Germany, acknowledges the darkest chapters in its history by dispersing Holocaust artifacts amid vestigial Communist buildings and parks. New York City is struggling to remember its own trauma—September 11, 2001—amid new towers and fast-changing neighborhoods downtown. What might these cities say to one another? Photos: Courtesy the Center for Architecture The show 'Berlin-New York Dialogues,' at New York City's Center for Architecture, features images of this bridge in Berlin. Wilk-Salinas Architekten with Thomas Freiwald designed this bridge across the Spree River with a swimming pool in a boat whose planes of sight suggest a river dip;

The Four Seasons Hotel New York has unveiled its new 4,300-square-foot penthouse suite with nine rooms, ceiling heights up to 25 feet, and breathtaking city views.

Correction appended January 1, 2008 The word “sustainable” is not often used to describe the pollution-choked cities of Asia, but the continent is poised to host a new generation of green cities that right the wrongs of industrial-era urban planning. The question “Could we do better?” motivated New York-based SHoP Architects to take on one such project, the high-tech Sector 61 node of Gurgaon, India. Images: Courtesy Balmori Associates Balmori Associates' in-house studio Balmorilab teamed with Haeahn Architecture and H Associates to design the Public Administration Town district of Multi-Functional Administrative City in South Korea. Roughly 9.7 million square feet

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is set to release revisions to its A201 contract documents today. These forms, the most widely used in the construction industry, define the legal relationship between building owners, architects, and contractors; the AIA first prepared them in 1887 and issues updates once a decade. The AIA is also releasing a new owner-architect agreement. Chief among revisions to the A201 documents is the removal of mandatory arbitration, which has been specified since the AIA’s first owner-contractor agreement in 1888. Arbitration must now be selected, with mediation as the first option and litigation as the default

After some highly publicized fits and starts, developer Robert Congel’s Pyramid Companies quietly started construction in late July on a 1.3-million-square-foot expansion of the Carousel Center mall in Syracuse, New York. It is intended to be the cornerstone of Destiny USA: a 75-million-square-foot retail, hotel, and entertainment complex touted as the world’s most sustainable project. Hear more about Pyramid's vision for Destiny USA and see additional images in an audio-slideshow. (5:00). Image: Courtesy Pyramid Companies Despite delays, Pyramid Companies has high hopes for Destiny USA. Related Links: One of Largest Projects in U.S. History in Jeopardy Congel is moving forward

Editor’s note: You may read the news digest below or listen to it, plus other news headlines from ArchitecturalRecord.com, as a podcast by clicking this link. Click the play button to begin | Click here to download Santiago Calatrava is suing the city of Bilbao, Spain, for the “cheek, arrogance, and ignorance” of allowing Arata Isozaki to add onto a 10-year-old footbridge that the Spanish starchitect designed near the Guggenheim Museum, the U.K.’s Independent reported on October 26. The suit, which landed in court last week and is expected to be decided “soon,” alleges that Isozaki’s addition “breaks the symmetry

Joe and Lucianne Carmichael were thinking green even before Hurricane Katrina. As the owners of A Studio in the Woods (ASITW), an artists center southeast of New Orleans, they have lived in the bottomland hardwood forests for 30 years using minimal energy resources. They rarely use air conditioning, even during humid Gulf Coast summers, and they always line-dry their clothes. The Carmichaels’ goal is to provide a retreat where artists can hone their craft—and give a lesson in living with nature. “The highest guiding principal of A Studio in the Woods is the opportunity to learn,” Lucianne says. Image: Courtesy

  Gwendolyn Wright   Photo: © Amy Etra / PBS Correction appended November 2, 2007 If you didn’t know better, you might think that the history of women practicing architecture and design began with women’s lib during the 1960s. Earlier figures including Lilly Reich or Catherine Bauer are virtually unknown despite their central role in high-profile projects: Reich co-designed the famous Barcelona chair, usually attributed solely to Mies van der Rohe, and Bauer was as an early hero of social housing who co-authored the Housing Act of 1937, establishing public housing in the U.S. Who better to help uncover these

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is set to launch its LEED-for-Homes program at the organization’s annual Greenbuild conference in Chicago next week.