While Roosevelt Island patiently awaits its transformation with the addition of Cornell’s new, super-green applied science campus, a handful of eager starchitects are looking to stamp their names on 2.1-million-square-feet of New York property. The Observer recently released Cornell’s shortlist of architects tapped to design ‘Silicon Island,’ and the list is so star-studded, it’s almost blinding. SOM, the firm that designed the original winning entry, has been joined by Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, OMA, Steven Holl, Morphosis and Bohlin Cywinski Jackson in the competition to overhaul the southern tip of Roosevelt Island. So get that imagination working: will we see another writhing, colossal structure à la Thom Mayne’s Cooper Union building, a city of Steven Holl’s blocky towers, or perhaps an enormous glass cube from the creators of Apple’s transparent flagship store? Whatever it is, it will have ‘LEED‘ plastered all over it.

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Apple, for all its iconic stores, has never built a properly architect-ed headquarters. That’s set to change: Steve Jobs presented plans for a 12,000-employee campus in Cupertino at a local City Council meeting yesterday. Said Jobs of the iconic scheme, “Architecture students will come here to see this.”

We assumed the radial form was most likely the work of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, who design most of Apple’s stores. But this morning, they told us that they’re “just as curious” to find out who the architects are. Our second guess was Bjarke Ingels Group, since the renderings are similar to their renderings for recent commission National Gallery of Greenland. Yet, BIG’s Copenhagen office denied any involvement. In 2010, a report in a Spanish paper claimed that Foster + Partners had been hired by Apple for the commission, which spread across the web. UPDATE: We’re hearing from inside sources that the as-yet-officially-unconfirmed-rumors are true and it’s Sir Norman Foster and team.

So, whose work is this?

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The old PanAm Worldport — what the New York Times describes as “an architectural symbol of the 1960s jet age”  and is now the much-maligned and out-of-date Delta terminal at JFK Airport — will be demolished, making room for a $1.2 billion expansion of Terminal 4 for Delta Airlines. [via New York Times]

Apple’s favorite architecture firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson Architects is teaming up with Gensler on the technology giant’s 300th store, this one in a refurbished building (circa 1870s) in London’s Covent Garden. [via Building Design]

Trahan Architects has drafted an “unabashedly modern” design for Baton Rouge’s waterfront, veering from the typically cheesy thematic architecture of harborside towns. The proposal connects downtown housing and public space to the LSU campus via a wide pedestrian thoroughfare. [via Co. Design]

The AIANY Emerging New York Architects Committee cordially invites me, you, and everyone we know to a happy hour tonight at the Trespa Showroom at 62 Greene Street. A $7 donation will get you an open bar from 6:30-8:30 pm and the support of your fellowing up-and-coming architecture peers. [via AIA]

Storefront for Art and Architecture is hosting two multimedia street theater pieces tomorrow night, for free. Instead of a Letter uses Storefront’s architectural space (designed by Steven Holl) to channel the “spirit of 1920s revolutionary Russia and the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky’s explorations of love.” [via CEC Arts Link]

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So it’s summer and it’s hot and the idea of spending your lunch break on a bench parked on concrete is perhaps less than appealing. But urban green space? Ahhhh.

Which is why it delights us so to share news of the park variety. First, two New York public park advocates have been awarded the annual Jane Jacobs Medal, presented by the Municipal Art Society and the Rockefeller Foundation. Second, the National Park Service just announced 16 honorees across four categories for best parks in the United States. (Actually, two international parks made the list as well; one in Osaka and one in Mexico City. Puzzling!)

Now that’s something to celebrate.

As for the Jacobs medal, one $80,ooo purse will go to Central Park Conservancy founder Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, who during her tenure raised $500 million for restoration and maintenance of the park. The other prize goes to both Joshua David and Robert Hammond, the dynamos behind Friends of the High Line, the hugely influential elevated parkway carved out of an old Manhattan rail line running along the west side.

Read on for more details about who was honored by the National Park Service, including New York’s own Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates and AIA Gold Medal Winner Peter Bohlin.

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