Is the proliferation of sophisticated tools for modeling, parametric design, and digital fabrication making the practice of sketching by hand obsolete?

Image courtesy Michael Maltzan Architecture Michael Maltzan Architecture's third project for the Skid Row Housing Trust will connect to its urban context in a variety of ways. For example, the now-under-construction 95,000-square-foot building will incorporate an existing one-story structure slated to house shops and support services for both residents and the larger community. Above this podium, prefabricated apartments will be stacked to define recreational spaces and courtyards, making it the first modularly constructed, multiunit residential building in Los Angeles. ARCHITECT: Michael Maltzan Architecture BUDGET: $19.3 million CONTEXT: When completed in 2013, Star will add 102 apartments to the approximately 1,300

After a deadly tornado tore through Joplin, Missouri last year on May 22, leveling the town’s high school, district officials pledged to be ready for the regularly scheduled start of the academic year—less than three months away.

Photo © David Wakely A city-commissioned, 25,000-square-foot community sports center aiming for LEED Silver (top) takes its stylistic cues from a nearby shipping company's unadorned HQ. Sustainable materials and features (solar-thermal panels, rainwater-collecting bioswales, a solar-heat-gain-reducing brise soleil) prove green can be fun while providing a haven for kids and the elderly. ARCHITECT: ELS Architecture and Urban Design BUDGET: $20 million CONTEXT: In a neighborhood notorious for drug- and gang-related activity, the building allows respite and recreation on a site once proposed for a sports center for San Francisco's unsuccessful 2012 Olympics bid. People Client: City of Oakland Architect: ELS

Image courtesy BNIM The twister that pummeled Tuscaloosa on April 27, 2011, killed more than 50 people and left a trail of destruction a mile wide and more than five miles long. The city's plan for rebuilding calls for neighborhoodscaled commercial centers, improvements to several city parks, and the construction of new municipal facilities like police and fire stations. The scheme also includes a recreation trail that doubles as storm-water-management infrastructure. This greenway dubbed the 'Citywalk,' follows the scar left by the tornado, preserving it as a 'path of remembrance and recovery,' explains Stephen Hardy, BNIM associate principal. ARCHITECT: BNIM

Photo © Yale School of Architecture, Susan Surface Archigram founder Peter Cook gave an energetic keynote address as part of the symposium. Photo © Massimo Scolari In conjunction with the symposium, an exhibition of the drawings, watercolors, and oil paintings of Massimo Scolari opened in the Yale Architecture Galleries. Related Links:Yale Renovation Judging by the number of attendees at a recent Yale School of Architecture symposium Is Drawing Dead?, many architects fear that the computer, and the increasing sophistication of tools for modeling, parametric design, and construction documentation, have made hand drawing obsolete. The event, held February 9 through 11,

At Princeton University's new Frick Chemistry Laboratory, dedicated in April, a highly efficient lighting scheme is one of several tightly integrated strategies that contribute to the building's ambitious energy-saving goals: Frick is designed to use 24 percent less site energy than allowed by the 2007 version of ASHRAE 90.1 standard. This building's configuration is a product of both environmental and programmatic goals, according to its architects, London-based Hopkins and Payette Associates of Boston. The 265,000-square-foot structure has two four-story, largely glass-enclosed wings'one on the east for research and another on the west for offices. The pieces are joined by a