As architects, it's often difficult for us to accept that the users who inhabit our buildings will modify the design in ways we never intended (or wanted). Of course, one can usually reasonably suspect that, at the very least, an inhabitant will never do this: a Professor Zhang has spent the last six years building a two-story luxury villa (complete with surrounding rocks and trees) on the roof of a Beijing apartment building. Unfortunately for Zhang, however, who legally bought the penthouse apartment, but never requested the planning permission to subsequently doze it and re-build another structure entirely, the Authorities will demolish the villa in the next 15 days, claiming that it places a dangerous amount of extra weight upon the building and increases "the susceptibility of the construction to earthquakes or lightning strikes." Story via the Shanghaiist.

Despite not winning the "People's Choice Award," HASSELL and Herzog de Meuron have, with a unanimous vote, won the competition to design the Flinders Street Station in Victoria, Australia.

As the Guardian reports, Victoria's premier, Denis Napthine, noted that the proposal displayed a "beautiful and compelling integration of aspects of the original station design [...] The design was judged to offer the best experience for rail travellers with a layout that was spacious, comfortable and easy to get around."

Nevertheless, the "People's Choice" poll, which garnered more than 19,000 participants, had preferred a proposal from a team from the University of Melbourne: Eduardo Velasquez, Manuel Pineda and Santiago Medina. Find an image from this proposal, after the break...

Before he leaves office at the end of this year, Mayor Bloomberg has high hopes that his Post-Sandy plans will get off the ground. Most of his ideas have been met with consensus, however, one has stirred quite a bit of controversy: adding acres of land to Lower Manhattan in order to create apartment/office towers-cum-levees. 

Critics have launched a variety of arguments against the "Seaport City": (1) practical feasibility - beyond the "tough regulatory hurdles," the unpredictable nature of rising sea levels makes it difficult to predict how high these levee towers will actually need to be for them to safely withstand future storm surges; (2) economic feasibility - the plan would cost a whopping $20 billion dollars ($5 billion of which has yet too be accounted for); and (3) local character - local businesses are unlikely to care for their waterfront property suddenly becoming inland property, a transformation that would alter the character of the neighborhood entirely.

Bloomberg, on the other hand, maintains that Seaport City, a kind of Battery Park City for Lower Manhattan, will not only provide storm protection, but (unlike many other proposals) actually generate income, thus offsetting the project's considerable price tag: "this approach would provide the protective value of a traditional levee while also providing new land on which commercial and residential buildings could be constructed, both to accommodate the City’s growth and to help finance the construction of the multi-purpose levee.” To really understand the feasibility of the project, however, the city of New York has just released a request for proposals from architects, planners and developers. More info, after the break...

Alix Bossard shares this must-watch video that outlines Le Corbusier's five revolutionary principles of modern architecture. Using gorgeous motion design, the video briefly introduces us to everything from le Modulor to Villa Savoye and Les Cités Radieuses. Enjoy this two-minute recap of the career of one this century's most influential architects.

While the rest of the world scoffs at Detroit’s recent announcement of bankruptcy (using it as an opportunity to bemoan how far the city - and the country - has fallen since its golden Motown days), many Detroiters themselves are embracing the move as a long overdue turning point.

Like Las Vegas, undergoing an urban patronage from Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, Detroit has similarly been the focus of its own CEO: native-Detroiter and Quicken founder Dan Gilbert. By channeling over $1 billion dollars into the city, and inspiring others to follow suit, Gilbert is helping Detroit attract young, tech-savvy entrepreneurs. Throw in the lure of cheap land/rental rates, and it’s no wonder the city’s is host to a burgeoning tech scene.

The only thing that’s been getting in these techies' way - is the city itself. Which is why many are hopeful that Detroit’s bankruptcy is just the beginning.

More after the break...

Videos

UPDATED: Out of 52 exemplars of UK architecture, RIBA has chosen the six buildings that will compete for the prestigious RIBA Stirling prize (awarded to the building that makes the greatest contribution to British architecture that year). See the six contenders, including a video of each, after the break...

In a move to tackle corruption and improve the image of the Communist Party (CPC), China's President Xi Jinping has banned the construction of government buildings for the next five years. The BBC reports that "Glitzy new government buildings, sometimes in impoverished areas, have been a source of public outrage." The ban also includes luxury renovations and expansions "done under the guise of repair work."

A stirring piece by the Philadelphia Inquirer Architecture Critic, Inga Saffron, calls for the preservation—both inside and out—of architecture under threat by “warp-speed gentrification.” Saffron uses as her examples two traditionally black, historic event halls, the Royal Theater and the Blue Horizon, that are “now controlled by developers who would gut their innards and insert soulless structures behind the thin veneer of their facades, a parking garage in the case of the Blue Horizon. That would leave the public with the equivalent of a cardboard cutout of the once-glamorous venues, perfect for photo-ops but lacking in architectural flesh and blood.” The article is a spirited call to preserve not just facades, but also the inner life of architecture: what, according to Saffron, makes a building vibrant and preservation-worthy in the first place.

TED has commissioned architect David Rockwell to mastermind a temporary, pop-up theater inside the Vancouver Convention Centre, designed specifically to "create an even more powerful connection between speaker and audience — and to allow the audience itself to immerse themselves more deeply in the talk.”

In an interview with Charlie Rose, Rockwell, who designed the interior of the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas and the viewing platform at Ground Zero (on which he gave the TED Talk above), expresses his enthusiasm for the project, saying: "I have spoken [at TED] and have had that experience of: your talk is influenced by how you feel in the room. The environment affects how the talk evolves.”

The theater will house 1200 attendees in tiered seating areas that curve around the stage. The layout will be entirely flexible, allowing audience members to choose from multiple seating/standing options — from leaning on rails to traditional theater seats, sofas, or floor seating.

Learn more about Rockwell’s plans for the TED2014 theater in his interview with Charlie Rose (13:15), after the break...

And this week's "punniest" title award goes to Fast Company (there was no contest, really). Beside the pun, of course, the article itself is pretty cool, outlining how Google Street View has followed-up on their latest intrepid capture of the Burj Khalifa with the 1889 classic: the Eiffel Tower. Read the article here and check out the fun video above!