Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates and Thomas Phifer & Partners As the culmination of an international competition, a team led by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA) and Thomas Phifer and Partners has been chosen to design a 1.5-mile-long linear park in downtown Austin. The competition jury’s selection, which was announced on October 18, hinged on the team’s elegant vision for the transformation of the blighted banks of Waller Creek into a chain of large outdoor gathering spaces. The urban park is expected to be the capstone for a massive public works project intended to spur dramatic redevelopment of 15 blocks in

A new mobile device app digitizes a tool long cherished by architects and designers. The Morpholio Trace app allows users to sketch on layers of tracing “paper.” Mobile devices have seen unprecedented growth recently. Apple alone has sold over 84 million iPads in the last two years. It is clear these devices have changed the culture of digital-media consumption, but have they changed the way designers work? The Morpholio Project, a digital-media company started by practitioners and academics in the design professions, enters the currently limited field of design-oriented mobile-device apps with the goal of expanding productivity beyond the studio

This story originally appeared on ENR.com An aerial view of the planned Roosevelt Island campus. New York City began the seven-month uniform land use review procedure (ULURP) today, Oct. 15, for the 12-acre Cornell NYC Tech Center planned for Roosevelt Island. The action initiates the public review phase of Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology's updated master plan of their 30-year, $2-billion-plus planned applied sciences project. Cornell has also released new renderings of the 12-acre tech campus that, when completed in 2037, will include up to 2.1 million sq ft of development. First-phase plans call for breaking ground in

Norman Foster will present his winning scheme for 425 Park Avenue at the 2012 MAS Summit in New York City on Friday. Finalists' designs will also be on display. Foster + Partners' winning scheme for 425 Park Avenue in New York City. Norman Foster will discuss his winning scheme for an office tower at 425 Park Avenue on Friday morning at the 2012 Municipal Arts Society (MAS) Summit for New York City, a two-day event kicking off today that features panels and presentations about making the city more livable. L&L Holding Company, the developer of the 650,000-square-foot Manhattan tower, named

For 15 years, Architectural Record has made it easy to earn Continuing Education credits. In our print issues and online, we offer our community of readers editorial articles for credit as well as sponsor-supported courses. We know lots of you have to fulfill your requirements by the end of 2012, but if you take one of our courses before the end of October, you’ll be part of our celebration of the one-millionth Architectural Record CEU test taker—and have a chance to win prizes in a sweepstakes. Click here to access the CEU section of the Record site. From our October

Photo © Nigel Young/Foster + Partners Foster + Partners’ Langley Academy, with its curved facade, would not be sanctioned under new rules. Michael Gove, Tory member of Parliament and the U.K.’s secretary of state for education since 2010, has declared a controversial war on “curves or ‘faceted’ curves” in school buildings—as well as “minimal indents, ‘dog legs,’ and notches in the plan shapes.” Folding partitions, glazed walls, roof terraces, and ETFE roofing are also banned. In a series of new Design Templates for prototype schools published at the beginning of October—a document intended to steer architects bidding for $4 billion

This story originally appeared on ENR.com. Courtesy Center for Architecture Left to right: Greg Lynn, Ben van Berkel, Frank Gehry, and Dennis Shelden at AIA's Center for Architecture in New York on Tuesday. As more powerful processor cores are harnessed into cloud computing services, collaboration using massive data files is gaining in use and sophistication—especially in the design and construction disciplines that work in 3D files. One example is the latest launch from Gehry Technologies, which has gone to market with its GTeam platform following six months of testing. The firm calls it a cloud based 2D and 3D file

Pelli Clarke Pelli adds a modest house of worship to its sky-scraping portfolio. Pelli Clarke Pelli's St. Katharine Drexel Chapel at Xavier University in New Orleans, Louisiana. With the completion earlier this month of the St. Katharine Drexel Chapel for Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, Cesar Pelli and the architectural firm he heads have added the first house of worship–among its smallest projects at 12,000 square feet–to their vast portfolio. The project represents a long-held goal of the firm’s founder and of the university as well—the original blueprints for the university, founded in 1925, included a chapel that

The U.S. Department of State's new Design Excellence program is coming to fruition. Courtesy Davis Brody Bond Architects and Planners Davis Brody Bond Architects and Planners' U.S. Embassy in Jakarta is under construction. The project was commissioned before the State Department's Design Excellence program, but embodies the principles of the new initiative. After years of building standardized embassies and consulates on the edges of cities, focused solely on security and the bottom line, the U.S. Department of State launched an ambitious Design Excellence building program two years ago. It is now coming to fruition. Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects has