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This story originally appeared on ENR.com Photo courtesy Wikipedia The Statue of Liberty and Liberty Island. The Statue of Liberty reopens today, Oct. 28, with a celebration of its 126th birthday and the substantial completion of a one-year, $30-million upgrade to meet current life-safety codes. The majority of the renovation work was in the 145-ft granite pedestal that Lady Liberty stands on, with further work on the rails and protective glass on the stairs leading up to the crown. The project team is putting the finishing touches on a few elements including commissioning of the new HVAC system and on

RECORD chats with SOM’s Partner in Charge of Urban Design and Planning about the firm’s master plan for the Great Lakes. Photo © Jill Paider Photography/Courtesy SOM The Great Lakes and surrounding environs could sink well below the definition of “great” if this unique but often abused region of North America is ignored. That is the informal warning issued by Vision for the Great Lakes & St. Lawrence Region, a master plan recently crafted by the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). Philip J. Enquist, leader of the firm’s global city design practice, spearheaded the project. For drafting

The Making of a Landmark, New York Style Image courtesy dbox for Foster + Partners/L&L Holding Company An interior view of Foster + Partners' winning design for 425 Park Avenue.

The three-year-old crowdfunding website Kickstarter could very well be called a design incubator.

Photo © Sasha Brück/Wikipedia Columbine High School’s library was redesigned after the 1999 shootings. What do you do with a building that's been the site of a mass shooting? Tear it down? Remodel it? Turn it into a memorial for the victims? How do you make a decision? Nearly three months after the horrific shooting at an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater, which left 12 people dead and dozens injured, the theater remained closed. A chain-link fence covered with green privacy fabric surrounded the Century 16 theater, located next to a shopping mall. In August the theater owner, Texas-based Cinemark Theatres,

Opponents of a vaiduct connecting Panama City to outlying suburbs say that it will destroy the atmosphere of a neighborhood protected by UNESCO World Heritage status. Courtesy facebook.com/CintaCostera3 A rendering of the Cinta Costera, a planned ring road around Casco Viejo, the oldest section of Panama City and a UNESCO World Heritage site. More than 300 years after it was settled, Casco Viejo, the oldest section of Panama City, is a picturesque, if sometimes slummy, neighborhood protected by UNESCO World Heritage status. But the limits of that protection are unclear. Residents of Casco Viejo, including several American property owners, have

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