Crypto News: Construction Paper: Getting intimate with New York City

You're reading Construction Paper, the all-new, all-different design newsletter from Bloomberg CityLab. Look for this page every other Saturday.

As the architecture critic for the New York Times, Michael Kimmelman has spent more time looking up than most New Yorkers — but his latest book is a more grounded meditation. The Intimate City assembles his interviews with 20 artists, curators, architects, thinkers and residents, each focused on walking the city during the pandemic.

It would be no use to do a story on this book sitting down, so CityLab writer Sarah Holder met up with Kimmelman to take a walk. The two of them checked out the Upper West Side, Kimmelman's longtime home, and talked about the kind of appreciation for place that a person can only cultivate at the sidewalk level. He describes the book as a "form of consolation" he found during the pandemic. It's also a thoughtful series of discussions that read like essays on the nature of architectural criticism.

"What I wanted to do was invite people to take me on walks that were important to them, for whatever reason, and I let people more or less decide what those were," Kimmelman tells CityLab. "Because I also felt that we reveal ourselves through those kinds of places, which are really meaningful to us."

Design stories we're writing:

Faris Mokhtar explores the earthquake-proofing technology behind a 51-story skyscraper called Menara Astra.
Zach Mortice looks at LBBA's design for the Ruth Ellis Clairmount Center, a new supportive housing building for LGBTQ youth, and what its arrival means for Detroit.
CityLab's "Look at That Building" series stops in Boston's South End to check out a new residential building that incorporates a former factory into its base.
The newest "Look at That Building" dispatch comes from Basel, Switzerland, where the solution to Swiss anxieties about housing density is hiding in plain sight.

Design stories we're reading:

Every decade of Miami's history comes with its own architectural style. Arquitectonica is the latest firm to take the lead in shaping the city's skyline. (Commercial Observer)
Critic Philip Kennicott joined a designer and a photographer in the United Kingdom to learn how British architecture fares in extreme weather. (Answer: poorly.) (Washington Post)
London-based designer Yinka Ilori draws on the architecture of Burkina Faso for his pop-up homeware shop. (Dezeen)
The highest outdoor pool in the world soars more than 1,000 feet above the ground in Nanning, China, and no, you can't get in. (Architectural Digest)