Hello. Do you live in an earthquake-prone part of Southern California? Look at the building in which you live and/ or work. Is it made of brick? Goodbye, my friend.

Imagine if you could afford a house. Now, imagine if you could afford to have porch on that house. Sounds nice, right? Yeah, that's what lots of people are thinking now!

The New York Public Library has abandoned its plan to hollow out its central building and eliminate its research stacks. It was undone by critical and public opposition, and possibly by the fact that the whole scheme—for which Sir Norman Foster took home $7.9 million regardless—was structurally unfeasible.

So far it's a stalemate in the passive-aggressive war between architect Frank Gehry and Dwight Eisenhower's family, the Commission of Fine Arts, and Congress.

Users of China's home-brewed Twitter-alike Weibo have been having some fun this week with photos of the phenomenally phallic Beijing headquarters-to-be of the state-run People's Daily newspaper.

Celebrated Spanish Architect Santiago Calatrava (whose WTC PATH station is interminably under-construction and insanely over-budget), has now been asked by a Spanish winery to fix a leaky roof, after his Ysios winery, with its miraculous undulating roof, has failed to keep out rain.

When Facebook started to plan the Facebook West building, a 433,555-square-foot complex across the road from its current headquarters, the company was looking for anonymity. So they employed the always understated, subtle, visually legible, little known architect of humble homes Frank Gehry.

The annual Evolo skyscraper award celebrates novel, bizarre, and whimsical designs for vertiginous buildings. In its aim to award innovative use of materials, building organization, aesthetics, and technology, Evolo often opts for the most beautifully outlandish structures you ever did see. This preference is obvious in the three winning proposals and the 24 honorable mentions.

This plan from the New York Public Library to have Sir Norman Foster gut its beloved central building and rework it, getting rid of the pesky "books" there in the process, all in the name of modernization and The People and prudent money-management—Michael Kimmelman, holder of the office of New York Times architecture critic, has reviewed the plan, and he has delivered the verdict, and the verdict is: DEATH. The library and its "celebrity architect," Kimmelman writes, have cooked up a plan for a "money pit," an "Alamo of engineering" that will pointlessly deform a vital and important structure to no good or useful end.

New York University has enclosed the atrium of the school's main academic library with randomly perforated aluminum screens, in an effort to curb suicides while completely mindfucking the NYU population, reports The New York Times' City Room.

One World Trade Center dominates the New York skyline once again — but it's only the tallest building with a caveat.

MVRDV, the Rotterdam-based architectural firm that caused an uproar last week when they unveiled plans for a building that reminded a lot of people of 9/11, would like it very much if you would stop calling their offices and threatening their lives, please. Well, not you per se — because you presumably do not breathe exclusively through your mouth and have a "United We Stand" tattoo etched across your torso — but whoever has been leaving those kinds of messages, kindly stop.

"AAAAAGH! YOU HAVE ERECTED A TERRIFYING MONUMENT TO THE NIGHTMARES OF 9/11!!!" was probably not the reaction that Seoul-based Yongsan Dream Hub corporation had in mind when they unveiled their plans today for an ambitious new construction project: Two high-rises connected by a "pixelated cloud" structure that, tragically, calls to mind the kinds of images you don't really want to call to mind when looking at a new set of twin towers. The design is by Dutch architectural firm MVRDV, who seemingly had no ill will when they envisioned the cloud as a kind of oasis in the sky, with "a large connecting atrium, a wellness centre, conference centre, fitness studio, various pools, restaurants and cafes." (Rendering here.) Actually, now that I've sat with it for a little while, a floating sauna inside a pixelated cloud sounds pretty relaxing — the kind of place Mario and Luigi might go to unwind after a hard day...

Forty-three years after his assassination, Martin Luther King, Jr., has taken his place on the National Mall: the MLK Memorial in Washington, D.C., was unveiled to the press today, in advance of its official dedication next week. It captures the great civil rights martyr just as he was in life: Trapped in a big white rock, like Han Solo frozen in carbonite, with some other rocks piled up behind him.

The U.K. riots of the past week have done incalculable damage to businesses and homes. After the cleanup come the longer-term task of rebuilding—and many of the people who have been hit the hardest (i.e. small business owners) can't afford the high costs involved.

Did you know Chicago has an architectural boat tour that sends visitors around—and through—the city? You don't need to make a trip to the Windy City to experience it. Just watch this time-lapse video that Philip Bloom made, who whittled the nearly four-hour adventure down to a cool three minutes. [via Doobybrain]

These people may look like they're on the surface of Darth Vader's planet destroying laser, but they're really just workers completing the roof of Singapore's new avant-garde ArtScience Museum. Another photo is on the right. [Photos: Getty]

Just three days ago the pride of the Emirates, the 160-floor Burj Khalifa hotel, celebrated its first birthday. The next day, a Chinese official announced plans to build a $1.3 billion knock off of the "seven star" hotel in Beijing.

According to today's New York Times, an increasingly important factor in real estate dealmaking is feng shui, the ancient Chinese rules governing energy flow and really picky interior design.

Dumpster pools? Yesterday's news. The latest innovation in the field of urban swimmin' holes is + Pool, a floating pool design we've become obsessed with in the five minutes since we discovered it.