Fred A. Bernstein

Under African Skies: The first phase of an ambitious national university creates a community of buildings and outdoor spaces adapted to a hot, dry climate. When Perkins+Will's Ralph Johnson first visited the site of the new campus of Universidade Agostinho Neto, near Luanda, Angola, in 2001, the five-mile drive from the city center involved military checkpoints, refugees living in squalid camps along the road, and warnings to steer clear of land mines. Back then, the country was still in the throes of a decades-long civil war. But Angola was beginning to use oil revenue to improve its social infrastructure. At

Image © OMA A rendering of OMA's plan for a New York City Coach store shows a system of illuminated transparent blocks of glass and acrylic. Between its Fourth of July fireworks and its Thanksgiving Day parade, Macy’s will unveil another spectacle: A 2,000-square-foot Coach outlet designed by OMA, the firm founded by Rem Koolhaas in 1975. The outlet, on the ground floor of Macy’s Herald Square flagship, is scheduled to open in September and will be followed in 2013 by another in Tokyo’s Omotesando district. Image © OMA A rendering of OMA's plan for the Tokyo Coach store in the

The American pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale will document design for public spaces. Leasing an empty site from the city, San Francisco firm Envelope a+d's Proxy redeveloped two large lots to become a kind of urban living room, with food stands, a temporary art gallery, a beer garden, and an area for food trucks. With a little more than a month before the opening of the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale, firms around the world are finalizing contributions to the massive show, a grab bag of architecture and architecture-related exhibitions that will run from August 27 though November 25. As

Websites are a vital marketing tool. Unless you’re a superstar design firm, steer clear of archispeak and tricky graphics. Users want a site that is clean and simple. Julie Snow is a terrific architect. But you might not know it from her website. Say you’d like to see her residential projects. From a series of tiny images darting across the bottom of the screen, you have to pick the ones that look like houses, and click before they disappear—like playing a video game. Simultaneously, the words “transparency enclosure veiling lightness structure detail assembly material surface performance technology transformative connection release”

The New York architects recently won the bid to design a condo-hotel building on the Brooklyn waterfront. Image courtesy Rogers Marvel Rogers Marvel has designed a 550,000-square-foot building that steps back from the Michael Van Valkenburgh-designed Brooklyn Bridge Park. Twenty years ago, when Jonathan Marvel and Rob Rogers founded Rogers Marvel Architects, they decided to forego the route taken by many young Manhattan firms—designing residential and commercial interiors—preferring, Marvel says, “to cut our teeth on New York City’s’ bricks and mortar.”  They negotiated a city contract to oversee repairs to schools, libraries, and armories, which were jobs that left little

Photo courtesy Wikipedia Architects should connect with their city leaders to enter a competition that calls for big ideas that “address serious social or economic problems” or “create efficiencies that make government work better, faster, and cheaper.” Michael Bloomberg, New York’s rich and resourceful mayor, has unveiled a competition that may give architects a chance to share their best ideas—and make money. Last week, the mayor announced a contest meant to improve civic life in the United States through ideas that “address serious social or economic problems” or “create efficiencies that make government work better, faster, and cheaper.” Judges will select winners

Image courtesy KPF Seaport Square, Boston. Click to view more images. Related Links: Another Grand Plan for South Boston Waterfront Boston Society of Architects Headquarters Record Reveals: Boston If every journey begins with a single step, Seaport Square, a 23-acre mixed-use development along the Boston waterfront, is starting with a single-story building. In early May, Mayor Thomas Menino held a groundbreaking ceremony for the Boston Innovation Center, an angular, 12,000-square-foot structure designed by local architects Hacin + Associates and budgeted at $5.5 million. The building will give tech masterminds a place to meet with venture capitalists—much as they do at