Some years back the Chicago-based playwright and filmmaker June Finfer discovered stories about architecture to be packed with drama, and increasingly focused on this topic in her work. Her play, The Glass House, a quasi-fictional account of the story behind Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House, had a sold-out run in New York City this summer. We recently spoke to Finfer about her research process, her current projects, and her fascination with Mies.

Photo © Patrick McMullan Co.

Swiss-born, London-based pop philosopher Alain de Botton discusses the Living Architecture project. The British nonprofit aims to bring high design to the masses by constructing affordable vacation rentals by noted architects.

Photo © Vincent Starr

Following a four-month international search, the Storefront for Art and Architecture has named Eva Franch i Gilabert its new director. A Catalan architect, researcher, and teacher, Franch i Gilabert, 31, is founder of the solo practice OOAA (office of architectural affairs).

Photo courtesy Eva Franch i Gilabert

Bill Moggridge -- the designer, thinker, and IDEO founder -- takes on an entirely new role as director of the Cooper-Hewitt.

Photo courtesy of IDEO / Nicolas Zurcher

With the idea that a napkin sketch is the idea way to clarify complex policy, architect Dennis Findley has decided to translate his design skills into a political career. He recently announced his bid for the Democratic nomination for Congress in Virginia’s 10th district.

Image courtesy Dennis Findley

Donald Albrecht is the curator of architecture and design at the Museum of the City of New York. In recent years, he also has served as curator of the traveling exhibition Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future, the first-ever retrospective of the influential Finnish-American architect. On November 10, the exhibition finally lands in New York City.

Photo © Laurie Lambrecht

Cameron Sinclair co-founded Architecture for Humanity to advance and enable humanitarian and socially conscious architecture around the world. The organization celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, and RECORD recently asked Sinclair to reflect on its rapid growth, the implications of its work for architects practicing in the developed world, and questions he has raised about ethics among architects at the top of the profession.

Photo © Francine Daveta

In 2002, a senior-care facility requested that David Dillard, president of CSD Architects, spend a night inside to get a feel for the place. He did, and in the disguise of a stroke victim. It was an enlightening experience, to say the least. Today, Dillard requires most of his staff members to do the same, in hopes of making them more attuned to client needs.

Photo © Jay Janner for Architectural Record

Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample of the firm MOS have created an installation for the concrete courtyard at New York’s P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center that departs from the bright party aesthetic typical of projects at the institution. RECORD spoke with Meredith and Sample about the structure’s pelt-like covering and its economic-crisis context.

Photo courtesy MOS

Bay Area architect, Chris Downey, lost his sight last year, but rather than changing careers, Downey has adapted his practice. He is now bringing his particular expertise as a blind architect to a design for the Polytrauma and Blind Rehabilitation Center at the Palo Alto veterans’ hospital.

Photo © Curt Campbell

Kevin Roche of Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates designed the master plan for New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. He recently worked with the museum’s American Wing chairman, Morrison Heckscher, on a renovation of the galleries and period rooms in the wing.

Photo courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art (left); courtesy Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates (right).

Monica Ponce de Leon of the firm Office dA just completed her first academic year as dean of the architecture school at the University of Michigan. She spoke with RECORD about how new technology and a post-crash global consciousness should change the way we teach.

Image courtesy University of Michigan

After getting laid off, John Morefield set up an architectural advice booth at a farmers' market in Seattle. It's an unusual service to be hawking alongside fresh greens and apple cider. Then again, these are unusual times, and Architecture 5¢ is just one man’s way of weathering the economic crisis.

Photo © Mohini Patel Glanz

A web of thick stripes crawling over the ceiling and floor, video screens on leaning columns, and the sound of a low, rumbling drone bring the work of the Berlin firm J. Mayer H. into the galleries at SFMOMA. Principal Jürgen Mayer H. spoke with RECORD about the layers of information at work in the immersive exhibition.

Photo © Oliver Helbig

With U.S. economy in shambles, the question looms: How will the recession affect the green-building market? RECORD put the question to Peter Morris, principal of the construction consultancy Davis Langdon.

Image courtesy Peter Morris

Urban China: Informal Cities, packs four years and twenty-seven issues of Urban China magazine into one exhibition. The magazine’s editor, Jiang Jun, and Benjamin Godsill, who curated the exhibition, spoke with RECORD about organizing the show.

Jiang Jun of Urban China / Image courtesy of the New Museum

A new monograph chronicling Daniel Libeskind’s work covers his first built projects through recently unveiled designs. He spoke with RECORD about the work included in the book as well as the state of architecture at the time of its release.

Photo © Michael Klinkhamer Photography