📢 Brazilian authorities say a small aircraft has crashed in Brazil, killing four people including distinguished Chinese architect and urbanist Yu Kongjian.

Fossil fuel drilling, refining, and transportation already occupied huge amounts of land, as expertly documented by the photographer Edward Burtynsky. These land uses are much more destructive than solar panels!

I'm still so perplexed by Tin Can. This article says it gives kids a chance to learn phone etiquette with people they don't know, but also that most parents are buying them in "pods" and supervising the call list. nymag.com/strategist/a...

This is awesome! Whyte’s work on plazas is eternally relevant

My next @bambrooklyn.bsky.social program CLASSROOM REBELS runs from 9/26-10/2! As the first month back to school comes to a close, we explore stories of teenage students who push back against the status quo. Info & tix available at www.bam.org/film/2025/cl...

It is fun to go to archives but there is also something to be said for deciding you want to write about a building on a Monday morning and by Tuesday afternoon you've requested the key texts from NYPL, found the state and federal landmark applications online, and read an oral history w the designer

The first artist in residence for this program (organized by my friend Angelyn) just published his work with Inventory Press, among my favorite presses...

Oh! Congrats to Barry Bergdoll. He really did some great smart shows at MoMA on housing and climate change nbm.org/national-bui...

Din Tai Fung has an earring collab if you were still thinking the mall was dead studs.com/collections/...

AI data scraping is causing major problems for digital archives. Many publishers of cool historical material (free for the public), like @hagleycenter.bsky.social, are being hit w/ bot swarms akin to denial of service attacks. Latest in The Lint Trap linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/when-ai-da...

I just read a personal essay from a mom who dropped her son at college and called him at 6:30??? AM??? on the weekend??? This is not someone who should be giving advice even if she’s now channeling her energy into pickleball.

It’s not like Ford is short on land … every generation of corporation cycling between box and swoop … another Natalie de Blois design disappears

Whenever I read a NYT column telling parents what they should do I am reminded that the best lesson you can teach your children is skepticism www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/o...

I've got a story up at @bloomberg.com on rennovations to Columbus, Indiana's era-defining set of Modernist public schools. Here are some of my photos of these absolute gems, starting with John Johansen's Smith Elementary, 1969. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Why shouldn't Queens have a beautiful up-to-date park? "Instead of taking on those unsexy necessities piecemeal, the city should finally embed them into a vision that stirs the blood: a park transformed rather than tweaked." www.curbed.com/article/flus...

For the first issue of Lila Allen's Wrong House, I wrote about how "Trading Spaces" was an early indicator of where the US retail, home decor media, and housing markets were headed in 2000, and interviewed THEE Genevieve Gorder about her experience on the show! www.wrong-house.com/p/how-tradin...

This is my dream! I’m surely not the only person in Brooklyn who went to Mexico City, rode the BRT, and thought “Why not Atlantic?”

18yo is now at college in the suburbs, visited the comic store at the mall: “Mom, I love you but I do not think I like the mall.”

"More than 80% of history teachers report using free resources from federal museums, archives and institutions including the Smithsonian, according to an American Historical Association survey last year." apnews.com/article/smit...

I just noticed this countdown on the Department of the Interior site ... that ribbon 250 is so bad when we once had this

“By having packaged content, the big and the small together, you could funnel the eyes there for the big shiny things to the less shiny thing" (architecture reviews always last in the section) nymag.com/intelligence...

I am late to the Murderbot Diaries party but I needed something that would instantly grab my attention and four days later I'm on book 4 (they are short)

Thank you! Ray left me the task of writing a sequel to The Great Good Place and while he'd be glad "third place" has become a popular term (he died in 2022), I'm going to reinforce his explanation of what makes a third place. greatgoodplace.org

This is great news Sesame Street is the last remnant of the idea that television could educate and uplift kids and instruct them on how to be decent citizens and make them feel understood rather than persecuted It needs to be where everyone can see it

Court showdown over parents' vs children's rights in NJ (as well as the chaos parental rights activists can sow in schools) "Heaps ignores that parental rights must be balanced with a child’s right to privacy, they added." (Children are people) www.newsfromthestates.com/article/stat...

I wrote a bit about boba tea x mall culture in the mall book, so I was delighted to see this excerpt from Ruby Tandoh's All Consuming on the British part of the story. Still think someone should write a boba book! observer.co.uk/style/drink/...

In additional media mentions: Quoted in this History Channel entry on my beloved Jungle Gym www.history.com/articles/jun...

Fun to be included in @pinehillsreview.bsky.social special issue on (what else?) The Mall pinehillsreview.com/2025/09/01/a...

This is incredible work. In a just world it would win some major reporting awards. I’m saying that now bc I don’t think it will. There’s a particular kind of scoop you only get by being a really effing good beat reporter for a long time who sources trust. Investigative reporting doesn’t prize that.

Grrrrr these are not third spaces! The randomness is part of the point! It's fine (even great) if people want to join clubs by other names but leave Ray Oldenburg out of your branding!

Hilarious that they offered Adams a position at the US Department of the only thing they hire black people for

"The poll also found that 61% of kids want to play in person with their friends and without adults, while 87% said they wished they could spend more time playing with their friends in person and outside of school." www.scarymommy.com/parenting/ha...

Late to this news via @mlamster.bsky.social but: Muji in the D/R Building is excellent work www.cambridgeday.com/2025/07/22/h...

Yarn lovers are facing higher prices, delays, and supply issues as new U.S. import rules take effect. With parcels under $800 now taxed and many postal services halting deliveries, several beloved European yarn brands have already paused shipping to the U.S. 😿 Read it: 👉 archive.is/lxp1v

Teens calling Idaho's suicide hotline are being told they can't proceed with the conversation without parental consent. Many of the callers are then hanging up. Idaho approved a strict parental consent law last year. idahocapitalsun.com/2025/08/29/i...

It's that time of year again, welcome back to school kiddos! This week we're going to address Toronto's back to school/micro mobility campaign & ask that they direct all available resources at dangerous drivers who cause hundreds of serious injuries & deaths each year in TO. 📷 @tomflood.bsky.social

"It took her nearly two decades to find a permanent academic position. She found occasional work as a visiting professor, filling in for someone on leave for a year or two. She earned grants to fund her research... but she was often living on unemployment benefits" www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/s...

Trump take LEGO www.404media.co/lego-stops-s...

This is good: With Trump/RFK destroying CDC, JB Pritzker's officials are exploring the possibility of buying Covid vaccines from manufacturers and distributing them in-state themselves, source tells me. Dem govs must step up and fill the void. New piece from me: newrepublic.com/article/1998...

In response to my rant yesterday, I was asked how we can make better parks and other public places for teenage girls? What do they want? I have answers to this, so now a positive 🧵. Starting in Sweden, where this was co-designed by teenage girls.

Checking the proofs for the ***new edition*** of THE DESIGN OF CHILDHOOD with all of my Pulitzer Prize winning essays! Out in November. www.bloomsbury.com/us/design-of...

Moomins merch (in good colors!) to support the library shop.bklynlibrary.org/shop

Edwin Heathcote on some museum-worthy playgrounds www.ft.com/content/a17f...

Maybe all you bike nerds already knews this but TIL about Bikecentennial '76 www.adventurecycling.org/blog/bikecen... Does anyone happen to have a road sign?

I have to ask re: vacation planning optimization if this isn't also typically More Work for Mother.

"Women weren’t just victims of the storm, they were also the ones coming up with solutions." @jkutzie.bsky.social explores the effort post-Katrina to employ women in the trades — and how the Trump admin is now rolling it back. Fascinating story worth a read: 19thnews.org/2025/08/hurr...

It's so exhausting. I never want to have to strategize a vacation this way and it goes way, way beyond Disney.

wrote about my recent obsession with counting TREES

The idea that someone could use the word "dawg" wrt Gavin Newsom with a straight face is truly a sign that there is no use for pundits anymore.

NYT: Joe Gebbia wants to make government services more “satisfying.” Some peers in the design industry are skeptical Me: that's me, I'm one of the peers “"It looks a little bit like a stunt hire,” Mr. Hon said." www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/s...