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When museums commission green buildings, those buildings are often covered in the press. To understand the educational potential of green building press coverage, we qualitatively analyzed 96 articles about eight U.S. green science museums. We found that journalists who cover green buildings highlight green roofs, material choices, site/landscaping, and plant choices most often. Additionally, analyses showed that green building coverage catalyzed discussion of broader sustainability issues such as ecosystems, climate change, and water issues. Press coverage of sustainable architecture sets an agenda of sustainability and contributes to the larger aim of public science education.

Architecture plays important and varied roles within the social practices of tourists. In this article we explore how architecture does more than provide content matter for photography but also affords infrastructure for gazing and performing. We adopt the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia as a case and take a visual methodology approach, using content and thematic analysis of photographs uploaded to the social networking site Yelp.com to understand what visitors to Mona photograph. In studying image-making practices of visitors, the article contributes knowledge that will provide a deeper understanding of what people photograph when they visit architecture, how these images relate to "official" destination marketing, and how architecture provides frames and platforms for visual practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For nearly as long as there have been urban centres, exceptional architecture projects have contributed to transforming city form and city fortunes. In this special issue of 'European Planning Studies', we focus on star architecture and its ability to contribute to urban transformation, with articles on the phenomenon of star architecture from a range of disciplines. Star architecture is a topic where concerns about place, identity, economy, innovation and communication intersect. In this introduction to the special issue, we overview how star architecture participates in urban transformations, and address how research into star architecture connects to ideas of identity and branding, the media, the economy, urban governance and architecture itself. We also overview methodologies for studying star architecture and urban transformation: the choice of research methods and research approach affects the problematization and the types of research questions that can be answered. Studying star architecture offers insight into disparate fields including network analysis, media studies, geography, planning, cultural economy, identity, branding and spectacle. By looking beyond economic effects, researchers can expand the audience for studies of star architecture, and more fully understand its role in urban transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the broadly held assumption that having an iconic building designed by a celebrity architect can effectively rebrand a place, draw tourists, and stimulate economic activity, star architecture does more than just contribute to the economic fortunes of regional cities. Iconic projects also emerge from and reflect the discourses, desires, and identities of city dwellers in the places they are built. In this paper, we use newspaper coverage of five iconic or star architecture buildings in Denver, Colorado, USA, to expose how architecture contributes to local discourses. What emerges is a complex picture of how local press engage with star architecture projects. Star architecture buildings do more than just contribute to the economic fortunes of a city or region: they also contribute to the mental map of a place, become contributors to city identity, and create opportunities for conversations about culture and architecture, including the basis for comparisons with other cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iconic architecture can draw global attention while simultaneously speaking to local audiences. In 2006, the Denver Art Museum opened an iconic new wing that help brand the city as a cultural city for both external and internal audiences. Based on analysis of interviews with stakeholders and archival documents, this paper demonstrates that the Hamilton Building project was used both to brand the city for potential tourists and to engender civic pride in Denver residents. This research provides a complex understanding of what roles iconic architecture plays in a city. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As the United States adjusts to the necessity of ecological sustainability, buildings play an important role because of their use of resources--and because they are potent nonverbal symbols of new societal values. The David Brower Center in Berkeley, California, strives to be a model for sustainability. Environmental impact is often the focus of those concerned with sustainability, but here, additionally, the designers aim to raise public awareness of sustainability through the building. For this reason, this building became the site for a postoccupancy evaluation class exercise; architecture students analyzed the building and what it communicates about sustainability from the perspective of its users. Findings indicate that many people did not adequately read the building's green design characteristics: Social and symbolic communication could be improved by increasing signage and evolving clearer symbolism for "green." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]