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At this year's International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York City, the Brooklyn, New York-based interior and product design firm twenty2 launched its first collection of hand-screened wallpapers. Created by Krya and Robertson Hartnett, the firm's founding principals, the contemporary patterns are named Maxwell Group, Acco Group, Columbia Heights, and Casa Mila. Each design is hand-screened on vinyl-coated paper or a grass cloth of woven jute and carries an ASTM-E84 Class A fire rating. The firm is currently developing a line of hand-printed fabrics to coordinate with the new wallpapers.

Several stellar Japanese architects recently converged on Manhattan, New York, for a symposium at the Japan Society called "Technology and Tradition in Contemporary Japanese Architecture," co-organized by the periodical "Architectural Record." The conference was launched with a lecture by Fumihiko Maki, recently appointed architect for a new United Nations building and a tower at Ground Zero. The focus then passed to younger architects, including Ware Kishi , Kengo Kuma, and the ebullient Jun Aoki. Aoki, Shigeru Ban and Kazuyo Sejima are rising architects. Each has built or is about to build in Manhattan: Aoki's work for Vuitton on Fifth Avenue, Ban's Paper Arch at the Museum of Modern Art in 2000, and Sejima's New Museum envisaged for the Bowery.

Reports that Rebuild Downtown Our Town (RDOT), a community advocacy group for Lower Manhattan, has issued a position paper recommending several strategies for attracting retail to the neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan as a stimulus to growth. Identification of shopping districts, retail destinations, and retail corridors by RDOT; Suggestions by RDOT to avoid siphoning retail traffic away from surrounding neighborhoods.

Focuses on Japanese architect Shigeru Ban's projects which highlight the use of cardboard tubes as building material. Sculpture garden at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; Japan Pavilion at the International Expo 2000 in Hannover, Germany.