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American urbanites are showing little inclination to give up their cars in favor of alternative modes of transit. Nonetheless, a revolution in communication technologies is changing our transportation landscape. Traffic congestion on our highways continues to increase, and improving safety is always a priority, so to address these concerns, technological solutions known as Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) are being rapidly developed.

Summersville Dam, in south central West Virginia, is the second largest rock-fill dam in the eastern United States and exemplifies the way a dam can provide multiple enhancements, such as recreational activities, flood control, and electricity generation, to the local community.

David Adjaye, the designer of the National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall in Washington DC, also designed some of the most affordable housing in Manhattan. Harlem's Sugar Hill Housing Development by Adjaye Associates is now accepting applications.

Broadway Housing Communities, a nonprofit developer of supportive housing, alters the urban landscape of northern Manhattan by building affordable housing projects that showcase the work of local artists. They selected London-based Adjaye Associates -- founded by David Adjaye, who is leading the team behind the Smithsonian African American Museum of History and Culture on the Washington Mall -- to design their seventh housing project in Sugar Hill, a historic district of Harlem.

In this gift buying guide, we look at innovative DIY tools that any DIYer or weekend warrior would love to have. The tools included range from a flooring saw that will allow you to make cuts in the same location you are installing your floor to a multifunctional sawhorse that has over one ton of clamping force. Each tool listed is a winner as a potential gift.

Green is here to stay! Here’s what to watch for in the next few months.

With 2011 quickly drawing to a close, it’s time to take out our crystal ball and conjure up the green home trends that will shape our choices in the coming year. Many of these trends will sound very familiar; some have evolved out of economic necessity, while others exist thanks to great advances in technology. Whether you already own a home or plan to build a new one, there’s bound to be at least one trend that appeals to you.

In September 2011, publisher Rizzoli New York released The Glass House, a photo tour of Philip Johnson’s famous estate. The book includes text by Philip Johnson himself and by architecture critic Paul Goldberger, and is the official Glass House book of The National Trust for Historic Preservation. Robin Hill’s photo “Glass House Dawn” was selected to appear on the book’s cover.

Below is the final piece of a three-part installment wherein Robin Hill shares his experience of photographing the Glass House estate. View Part One and Part Two for the rest of the story.

My journey continues in its roundabout way, and I am now upon a gate, the likes of which I have never seen before. It is most unusual. I try to find a historic connection to its design but find none. What I do find is a beautifully scaled, welcoming structure that entices one to enter. It is everything that an entrance way to a gated community is not. Even when the barrier is down, it feels open. The Pillars rise high on both sides and are painted a welcoming tone of brown, quite different from the brown that smothers the library. Slung low across the bottom quarter is a brushed aluminum tube that splices the composition perfectly, both in terms of its height and its color. The gate is also quite a trick of visual play, as it actually consists of four pillars, not two as it appears from the full frontal view. The pillars on either side stand back to back with their identical twins behind them. This is a very clever way of hiding the mechanism that lifts and lowers the gate. The wires are hidden from the front view and delicately balance the gate between the two pillars. The engineering is sublime and gives a gentle equipoise to the whole structure. There are not enough Os in the word "smooth" to describe this gate.

In September 2011, publisher Rizzoli New York released The Glass House, a photo tour of Philip Johnson’s famous estate. The book includes text by Philip Johnson himself and by architecture critic Paul Goldberger and is the official Glass House book of The National Trust for Historic Preservation. Robin Hill’s photo “Glass House Dawn” was selected to appear on the book’s cover.

Below is the second of a three-part installment wherein Robin Hill shares his experience of photographing the Glass House estate. Read part one here.

Now I am making my way the few steps toward the lakeside pavilion. Here Johnson is up to new tricks. As I approach the lakeside, I am reminded of the London Underground loudspeaker system, which brusquely ejaculates "MIND THE GAP" every time you board or deboard a train. Instead of designing the pavilion to gently nudge the shoreline, there's this intentional but irritating gap that Johnson has deliberately placed in one's way. Why? My first thought is "to mess with your head" or perhaps it is to make you pay attention. OK, so now I'm paying attention, and the impression is that ordinary scale has been obliterated by the architect's hands. This is a perfect modern folly. It is barely functional, save to sit underneath and have an uncomfortable picnic. Through these photographer's eyes excellent framing opportunities are created by the multiple archways. The visual pun is too obvious for my taste, however, and the pavilion does nothing for me in an architectural sense. I begin to feel that this is a dud, a Johnson experiment that doesn't really work very well in either form or function. Perhaps, this is indicative of Johnson's uneven career as an architect, brilliant one minute and mediocre the next. In the space of a few steps I have gone from momentous elevation to ungarnished mediocrity, from design excellence to controlled vacuousness. Still, the adventure of being here leaves my intellect alone for a while and I am left in solitude in the middle of a 46-acre design campus. Heaven! There is a serenity here that is both palpable and meaningful.

Much to the chagrin of many Spanish bar owners and restaurateurs, 2011 rang in the New Year with strict (and controversial) anti-smoking laws on January 2. For Spain and its “live and let live” attitude, these new regulations mark the end of an era for the country and its strong café culture of tapas, beer, and smoke. While the country is dedicated to eliminating smoke-filled spaces, Madrid is taking it one step further by actually creating healthy air one neighborhood at a time – starting with the Vallecas neighborhood south of the city. After years of ongoing development and poor city planning, the city council of Vallecas realized that the area was severely lacking in green areas. The city of Madrid (along with the European Union) launched a competition looking for architects that could create a viable social design that reflected the community’s environment-friendly goals.

Daniel Libeskind softened his signature approach when designing a symphony of curving residential towers along Singapore’s waterfront.

Can geothermal power save the average homeowner money and energy? Jeff Wilson shares his experience.

Oversized homes are going out of style. Check out these seven ways to live more graciously in a small space.

Are you ready for a pop quiz? True or false: it’s easier to live better when you have more.

Conventional wisdom would have us believe it’s true, but it’s 100% false, says designer John M. Stephens, ASID, owner of John M. Stephens Design in New Orleans. Living well is a way of being in your space and caring for your things. “Gracious living is living in the best possible way no matter what your circumstances are,” he says. It’s about taking the time to make the small details special, from how you display your favorite pieces to how you make guests feel welcome. “It’s really taking all the small pieces of your life and putting them together so they make the whole better,” Stephens says.

We all understand film production to be a transformative process. Concept into script, emotion into a carefully orchestrated set of lighting and composition, live action into animation – these are only a few stages of evolution that come into play as a film is produced. When it comes to the work of ImageMovers Digital, however, aircraft hangars to digital film studio is one to add to the list. Performance Capture Studio (PCS) was a project undertaken jointly by Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects (LOHA) and Kanner Architects, in two aircraft hangars of a former Coast Guard base north of San Francisco.