Now *that* is a business card.

Worth remembering: most people have a bias towards the left hand side of a piece of paper, so those "1=strongly agree, 5=strongly disagree" surveys may have a built-in bias.

Orphan space rejuvenation, what a great idea. I've seen some neighborhoods in Portland do this sort of thing.

Neat idea: "We will produce a series of 1000 unique postcards, each depicting a single unpublished image from a relatively unknown designer, and we will send them to a selected group of 1000 influential architects, urbanists, academics, curators, journalists, and critics, who will have the opportunity to respond. Our hope is that we will receive images from all over the world and our plan is to randomly disseminate these images back out into a global context, making unlikely connections, and creating unforeseen acquaintanceships. While this is admittedly a utopian proposal, our aim is to connect fresh ideas with those individuals who contribute to the development of independent careers in architecture. "

Sweeeeeet: "a house that engineer, Paul Pedini, built with the design expertise of John Hong from Single Speed Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At a final cost of $150 per square foot, most of the materials for the house were free, minus the expenses to ship the materials (formerly I-93 off-ramps from the heart of the transportation artery through Boston,unofficially known as the "Big Dig") to Lexington, MA"

This year's Pritzker Prize has been awarded to Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha. Da Rocha's work is significant for his poetic use of an utterly simple material -- concrete. In 60 years of practice, the architect has created high-rises, stadiums, houses, museums, and even a chapel from concrete. Da Rocha's choice to work in concrete was a practical one; Brazil was not a wealthy nation and it lacked the highly trained workers required to tackle other building methods. His creative use of this humble material became a major influence helping define "Brazilian Brutalism" as an architectural style for the growing nation. " The pdf photobook is well worth the download; if you like modernist architecture and/or concrete, his work is lovely.