Why is it that the Bay Area can suffer a 6.9 earthquake and lose just 63 people, while Haiti suffers a slightly stronger quake and loses about 100,000? The answer: shoddy construction. As Bryan Walsh of TIME points out, “We tend to focus on the size of an earthquake, but death toll has more to do with the quality of buildings. [...] Poverty — and even more, poor governance and corruption — is the multiplier of natural disasters. [...] That’s why one of the most vulnerable places in the world is south-central Asia.” Learn more about the dangers of poorly constructed buildings here and see what the "true value" of architecture is here.

Focusing on the subject, 'architecture in metamorphosis,' the 13th edition of The Architecture Days festival will include over 150 events taking place in various places throughout Alsace, France, Bade-Wurtemberg in Germany and Basel in Switerzland. WIth about 50,000 visitors expected to attend, exhibitions, workshops, lectures, movie screenings, tours, etc. will be going on from September 25 - November 7. The festival is the result of the work of the association Maison européenne de l'architecture - Rhin supérieur (European House of Architecture), its more than 200 volunteers, and cultural and institutional partners. The opening ceremony will take place at 6:00pm in Mulhouse. At 7:00pm, 2012 Pritzker Prize winner Wang Shu will give a lecture about his work and his view of change and metamorphosis in architecture. For more information, please visit here.

Launching August 22 at 6:30pm at the Center for Architecture, the QueensWay Connection: Elevating the Public Realm Competition supports Friends of the Queensway and The Trust for Public Land in their efforts to transform an abandoned rail right-of-way into a greenway serving diverse neighborhoods in central and southern Queens. Presented by The Emerging New York Architects (ENYA) committee of the AIA New York Chapter, this sixth biennial competition seeks to supplement the ongoing feasibility study for the railway’s transformation by proposing ways the future park can be activated in addition to recreation and leisure. With emphasis on the park’s access points the competition brief provides an opportunity to speculate about programming and design to extend street activity onto the railway. Submissions are due in January. For more information, please visit here.

gmp Architekten's touring exhibition, 'Designing in Dialogue: The Architecture of von Gerkan, Marg and Partners' is currently being hosted by the Chinese National Museum in Beijing until August 25. In this exhibition, gmp will provide an overview of their work: sketches and drawings provide an idea of the conceptual thoughts, models present designs in three dimensions and photos document the completed buildings. The exhibited gmp projects are grouped regionally by continent and in six categories which cover important fundamental, practical and theoretical aspects of gmp’s work. More information after the break.

Despite its drastic evolution in the past 50 years, New York's historic Garment District remains one of the most authentic neighborhoods in the city. From August 5 through October 31, The Skyscraper Museum is presenting a free exhibition on its architecture and urban history in a pop-up space at 1411 Broadway. The installation reprises the exhibition The Skyscraper Museum originated last year in its lower Manhattan gallery. This exhibition is a great opportunity to explore a place that was once known as having the largest concentration of skyscraper factories in the world with more than 100,000 manufacturing jobs. For more information, please visit here.

Rome’s new mayor, Ignazio Marino, is leading a crusade for walkability by eliminating noisy, out-of-control traffic surrounding the ancient monuments. Starting with the Via dei Fori Imperiali - a major avenue connecting the Piazza Venezia to the Colosseum - Marino plans to ban private traffic so pedestrians will have a place to “bike, walk, enjoy this incredible archaeological site.” More on the story at NPR.

Inspiring builders of all ages, MoMA has released their first storybook, following the adventures of a young, New York City architect and his architect grandfather: Young Frank and Old Frank. The creative pair - with matching bow ties, straw boater hats and, of course, Le Corbusier-inspired glasses - optimistically views the world as an endless supply of inspiration and possibilities. Everything, from macaroni to old boxes, inspires them to create - especially after discovering the works of Frank Gehry and Frank Lloyd Wright at The Museum of Modern Art.

Young Frank, Architect was written by the renowned children’s author and illustrator Frank Viva. More information can be found here on MoMA.

Established by Fenn Designers in 2008, and open to all young creative minds from all parts of the world from the ages of 18-33, their annual Fenn Young Designers Awards celebrates excellence in creativity and innovation in the world of design. With this year's focus on 'a new learning environment,' entries can be made across a very broad spectrum of project types. Buildings, interiors, landscaping, refurbishment, urban projects, fine art, furniture and product designs are all eligible. This year's main challenge is: How can the “library” be re-imagined and re-engineered to provide such an environment for the Millennials? This comes at a time where advances in technology are changing our lives dramatically. The registration deadline has been extended to September 6, and submissions are due November 6. For more information, please visit here.

Renowned architect, urban design consultant, and founding partner of Gehl Architects, Jan Gehl will participate in a 30-minute audio interview on August 14 with UBM’s Future Cities. During the program, and in advance of his keynote at the upcoming Future of Cities Forum, Gehl will discuss building cities for people, the importance of public spaces that promote public life, and how to design cars out of our future cities. Listeners can stream the conversation live and directly ask Gehl questions via a live chat discussion here.

This year's Seattle Design Festival, hosted by Design in Public and AIA Seattle, will feature large scale installations, home tours, walking tours, films, lectures, exhibitions, competitions, activities, pop-up parklets, and more which is open to the general public. The city-wide event takes place September 13-22 with the hub of the festival at the ‘Design Block’ in Pioneer Square. This year's theme is ‘Design in Health’ exploring the connection between environmental design and health & well-being. Design can improve health by: promoting physical activity, increasing access to healthy food, reducing injuries, improving air and water quality, minimizing stress, and strengthening the social fabric of communities. More information after the break.

Having wrapped up their three part series And the Winner is...?, The Architecture Foundation has launched another trio of evening discussions, this time around the ever-encroaching commercial values which are increasingly threatening cultural venues in London. The series, entitled Culture + Commerce, will explore how culture can fight against commercial homogeneity in the face of reduced public funding.

Read on to find out more about the Culture + Commerce series

Russian Green Building Council just announced the start of the international competition for the concept and financial model for Park "Russia" which is to become the largest theme park in Europe. Destined to become a unique tourist cluster, oriented to both domestic and foreign tourists, the park will be the first entertainment and educational park where visitors will have the reason to stay for more than one-two days. “Russia” Park will become a trademark of the country, where the promotion of healthy living, entertainment and educative functions are closely related to educational and recreational infrastructure, which, moreover, will be commercially attractive. The park will fully reflect the positive developments in the Russian society in recent years. The deadline to register is September 1. To register, and for more information, please visit here.

Beyond 2012 is a new website launched by the British Design Council to tell the story of how the London 2012 Olympic Games were designed. The site explores how the best British designers were brought in to create the products, fashion, graphics, digital design, and of course the architecture that made the 2012 games a fantastic worldwide spectacle. See the full website here.

Designed by AVA (Andrea Vattovani Architecture), their proposal for the Museum of Bavarian History not only creates an icon for the city, but their intervention is able to emphasize and further develop the city structure. Since a box-like form didn‘t seem to be the best solution for integrating the museum in its surroundings, they took special notice of the urban surroundings and protected monuments in the development process. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Taking place August 31-September 14, the 3rd annual AA Visiting School Tehran will be examining the quality of our urban spaces, we will be looking at infill sites, leftover spaces which have been generated as a result inefficient use of public roads to examine the potential for the generation of usable public space, or in other words the third place (the first being the home, the second the workplace). Using the theme 'The Third Place-Urban Machines,' they will be using our experiences from past years in regards to prototyping and simplex manufacturing to inform proposals for urban machines and interventions. These Proposals will attempt to specifically address site concerns and conditions. Our ambition is to produce and implement these proposals on site across the city. Applications are due no later than August 17. For more information, please visit here.

nycobaNOMA (New York Coalition of Black Architects and New York Chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects) is inviting all to come out and join professionals in the design, architecture, development, real estate, and construction fields for an evening of networking at the Urban Office Showroom in New York City. Taking place Tuesday, August 20th, from 6:30-8:30 EST, participants can expect not just networking, but good spirits at the beautiful midtown showroom. Fore more information, please visit here.

Taking place at the Hartell Galley at Cornell University, 'Vers un climat: Building (with) the Unstable' is an exhibition by AWP Architects focusing on the nocturnal face of architecture - how buildings contribute to the urban nightscape. From August 26 - September 16, the exhibit features both realized and proposed projects by AWP while revealing the practice’s in depth research on the many ways in which the intangible dimensions of architecture – such as atmosphere, climate, and light - materialize in buildings. Part of AWP ’s ongoing challengeis to translate recurrent themes of impermanence, evolution, and the uncontrollable into design. More architects' description after the break.

Developed for the architectural competition organized by real estate company, STI Immobilienmanagement, HENN's design for the Glazed Software Factory was just announced as the winning proposal. The company's new office building, located in Karlsruhe, consists of open, transparent spatial structures allowing for a varying range of office types. This strategy combines areas of communication and concentration with one another to provide a bright and diverse working environment for customers and staff. More images and architects' description after the break.