Related Companies founder Stephen Ross has commissioned London designer and architect Thomas Heatherwick to design what could be, according to the Wall Street Journal, “one of the most expensive works of public art in the world.” Planned to be the centerpiece of Related’s Hudson Yards project in Manhattan’s West Side, the estimated $75 million artwork and its surrounding 4-acre public space aims to become “new icon for the city.”

The Documentation Center of Cambodia’s (DC-Cam) has commissioned Zaha Hadid to design the much-anticipated genocide studies institute in Phnom Penh. The new campus, known as the Sleuk Rith Institute, will serve as an extension of DC-Cam’s work as the country’s go-to archive for Khmer Rouge history as well as a leading center for genocide studies in Asia. Within a modest campus, the institute will house a “cross-section of pursuits,” including a genocide studies center, a school, a museum for memorial and education purposes, and more.

"Youk Chhang's vision is inspirational,” stated Zaha Hadid. “His brief for the Sleuk Rith Institute calls for beauty and an optimism for the future to heal and reconnect a country, with the Documentation Centre of Cambodia being key to that process."

Banksy, the pseudonymous United Kingdom-based graffiti artist who is currently making his rounds in New York City, has proclaimed the One World Trade Center as the city’s “biggest eyesore.” In a brief op-ed piece, Banksy describes the SOM-designed tower as a “shy skyscraper,” one that declares New York’s “glory days” are gone.

“You really need to put up a better building in front of it right away,” stated Banksy. “... because you currently have under construction a one thousand foot tall sign that reads, New York - we lost our nerve.”

Criticism of the One World Trade isn’t new, as many leading critics have bashed its design for being “meh” - a watered-down version of Daniel Libeskind’s original proposal.

Read Bansky's full op-ed, after the break.  

UPDATE: The Washington Post reports that Japan's minister of education, Hakubun Shimomura, has announced a plan to trim the budget proposed for the Olympic stadium (now expected to cost $3 billion) designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. While he did not reveal the details of the scale-down, he maintained that the "design concept will be kept."

Pritzker Prize laureate Fumihiko Maki has rallied together a number of Japanese architects - including Sou Fujimoto, Toyo Ito and Kengo Kuma - to oppose the massive scale of Zaha Hadid’s competition-winning National Stadium. Planned to be Tokyo’s main venue for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic games, Hadid’s 290,000 square meter stadium is accused of being “too big and too artificial” for the surrounding context.

Think traffic is bad now? One billion cars are already on the road today and another billion is expected to join in the coming decade. Pollution and stressful commuting is at an all time high, empowering many politicians and bicycle activists to declare war on the multi-billion dollar car industry which has profoundly impacted city development worldwide.

Swiss architect Peter Zumthor has been selected as the next architecture mentor for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. He will be the second architect to participate in the program, following Kazuyo Sejima’s inauguration in 2012. After choosing a protégé early in 2014, Zumthor will spend a year offering his expertise to support, guide, and collaborate with the young talent.

Expressing his desire to learn from the mentorship, Peter Zumthor stated: “I agreed to be a mentor because I believe in the professional exchange of people of different backgrounds, talents, skills and age. I highly appreciate the fact that Rolex offers funding for this professional artistic exchange and research outside of everyday economics.”

The City Design Review Board has approved NBBJ’s tri-sphere biodome planned for Amazon’s downtown Seattle headquarters. Reaching up to 95 feet, the glass cluster of “Spheres” was designed to create an alternative work environment within the 3.3 million-square-foot office and retail campus that is currently under construction.

Gehry Partners and Foster + Partners have been selected to design phase three of the Battersea Power Station redevelopment project in London. Together, the prestigious duo will design a retail pedestrian street that will link the power station to the new Northern Line extension. In addition to this, each practice will design a residential building along the avenue, which will be Gehry’s first residential project in London.

“Our goal is to help create a neighborhood and a place for people to live that respects the iconic Battersea Power Station while connecting it into the broader fabric of the city,” Gehry stated. “We hope to create a design that is uniquely London, that respects and celebrates the historical vernacular of the city.”

Demand for design services in the U.S. continues to increase, as the Architecture Billings Index (ABI) has reached its second highest level this year. According to the American Institute of Architects (AIA), September’s ABI score was 54.3, up from 53.8 in August. In contrast, the new projects inquiry index fell a few points from 63.0 in August to 58.6 in September.

The Indonesian Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy has partnered up with the Indonesian Institute of Architect to appoint architects Avianti Armand and Setiadi Sopandi, along side architectural historian David Hutama, Arsitek Muda Indonesia (AMI) founder Achmad Tardiyana, and writer Robin Hartanto as the curator team in charge for the first ever Indonesian Pavilion at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale.

The team, selected through a nation-wide open competition, will curate a pavilion that will tell stories about Indonesian experience on building things during the last one hundred years. As the team described, “It is inevitable that our way of building things – nowadays – is pretty much (still) dominated by handy works, through the hands of our skilled and unskilled laborers as well as well-trained artisans. Some utilize intricate and sophisticated tools, but many are relying on the touch of the hands and fingers.“ 

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has collaborated with Vienna’s Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) to launch a 14-month initiative that will examine new architectural possibilities that address the rapid and uneven growth of six global metropolises: New York, Rio de Janeiro, Mumbai, Lagos, Hong Kong, and Istanbul. 

Organized by Pedro Gadanho, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities enlists six interdisciplinary teams of international architecture and urbanism scholars, experts, and practitioners to participate in a series of workshops, with each team focusing on a specific city.