Archinect - News

The project's ‘architect’ says he had no active role in Hudson Yards tower design

2022-06-13T13:48:00-04:00

But Mr. Schiffman said he had no active role in those projects, a statement that raises questions about whether the buildings were approved for construction without the oversight and involvement of a registered architect — a requirement in New York State to ensure that buildings are properly designed and do not pose a safety risk.

The New York Times has obtained a document showing that the credentials of a retired architect in his mid-80s were used to fake his approval of building designs that he did not review. Warren L. Schiffman has been designated as the architect of record on an under-construction, 642-feet-tall hotel rising in Hudson Yards, along with a hotel near LaGuardia Airport and dual high-rise residences in Queens. Each of these projects fall under developer Marx Development Group.

The document shows a contract Schiffman signed upon his retirement from Marx Development Group in 2016 that details how the company’s design firm, DSM Design Group, could continue to use his seal of approval following his absence. Signed shortly before Marx Development Group embarked on the three aforementioned projects, the contract called for Schiffman to provide his architectural stamp and signature to DSM Design Group when requested. However, Schiffman claims he was never asked to review any building plans.

In addi...

The 'Putin's Palace' architect allegedly owes Italy a massive tax bill

2022-03-30T17:20:00-04:00

Lanfranco Cirillo, the designer of a mysterious 18,000 sq. m mansion on the Black Sea that many believe was built for the Russian President Vladimir Putin, is being investigated by the Italian authorities for allegedly failing to pay a €50m tax bill. Officials raided the 63-year-old Italian architect’s own sizeable villa in February, where they discovered and confiscated a treasure trove of works by artists including Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, [and] Wassily Kandinsky.

The architect’s private helicopter was also confiscated by Italian authorities, who have been on a tear as of late, seizing yachts and other luxury items from Russian nationals associated with President Vladimir Putin.

Cirillo is well known as the man behind the biggest gem in Putin’s sizable real estate portfolio. In a popular video released in January of last year, imprisoned activist Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation detailed the opulence of the massive 191,000-square-foot Itialiante compound, which reportedly cost around $1.4 billion to construct.

A supposed floor plan for the palace. Image courtesy Alexei Navalny via YouTube

Despite a direct offer of citizenship from Putin, Cirillo has been residing in his native country for the past several years, bouncing in between his own ornate villas and collecting blue-chip art as he enjoys retirement.

“Like 92–93 percent of Russia’s population, I love our president, and I think he is the right man in the right place in the cu...

Projects entangled in L.A. corruption scandals face uncertain futures

2020-07-27T15:36:00-04:00

“I would be disgusted if we had to drive through downtown Los Angeles for generations and see buildings marking the city skyline that were achieved through bribery and corruption,” said Councilman Paul Krekorian, who has also proposed barring developers implicated in criminal conduct from getting any future approvals.

Emily Alpert Reyes of The Los Angeles Times takes a look at the handful of projects that have been tied to an ongoing federal corruption investigation targeting Los Angeles City Council member Jose Huizar and investigates how planning approvals for some those projects may be impacted by their connections to the probe.

The projects include a proposed 77-story tower initiated by Chinese developer Shenzhen New World and designed by Dimarzio | Kato architecture that was once projected to become the tallest building in the city. At least three other projects have been connected to the probe. A proposed two-towered development created by Gensler for developers Shenzhen Hazens Real Estate Group recently lost its project approvals due to its ties to the investigation.

LA to rescind approvals for downtown project linked to federal investigation

2020-07-10T19:49:00-04:00

Officials in Downtown Los Angeles are moving to cancel building permits for a $700 million mixed-use development embroiled in a sprawling federal corruption investigation working its way through the city government's highest levels.

In June, Los Angeles City Planning Director Vince Bertoni, at the request of LA City Attorney Mike Feuer, informed the American subsidiary of Chinese developer Shenzhen Hazens Real Estate Group that the city had initiated “revocation proceedings” for the project's development approvals, The Real Deal reports.

Previously on Archinect: "How L.A. corruption kills affordable housing." Image by Christian Gabele from Pixabay

The 1020 Figueroa project in question is designed by a team that includes Gensler, Steinberg, and ABHE, and was approved in 2017 as a two-towered complex containing a 435 condominiums, a 300-room hotel, and an 80,000-square-foot retail podium. The development was set to join a growing string of hotel and apartment towers running adjacent t...

How L.A. corruption kills affordable housing

2020-06-26T12:56:00-04:00

At a news conference Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna cited [a forthcoming project in the Los Angeles Arts District] as an example of “the harm that comes with bribery.” “Thanks to Mr. Huizar, the development would have minimal affordable housing units, despite the fact that this area is desperate for low-income housing,” Hanna said.

Writing in The Los Angeles Times, Emily Alpert Reyes and David Zahniser dig into the fallout of a still unfolding corruption probe taking shape in Los Angeles that implicates sitting City Councilmember Jose Huizar, who was arrested earlier this week by federal authorities.

The probe has ensnared, according to The Los Angeles Times, a development that matches the characteristics of 520 Mateo, a 475-unit, 35-story mixed-use project developed by Carmel Partners and designed by Works Progress Architecture and Solomon Caldwell Buenz that is currently under construction. The project, as well as other high-profile developments implicated in the probe, was approved with Huizar's help while he sat on the city's Planning and Land Use Committee, allegedly in exchange for bribes, kick backs, and other financial favors from developers and other interests, according to federal officials.

Among the favorable terms granted with the project's approval, The Los Angeles Times reports, was a reduction...

Development fuels LA’s growing corruption scandals

2020-04-01T16:32:00-04:00

One Los Angeles city councilman, now out of office, admitted last week that he accepted envelopes of cash from a businessman in casino bathrooms. [...] Yet another council member allegedly sought a $500,000 cash bribe from a real estate developer, according to a plea deal struck between federal investigators and a political fundraiser who admitted collecting much of the money in a paper bag.

Los Angeles Times reporters David Zahniser and Emily Alpert Reyes shed light on the growing number of municipal corruption scandals in Los Angeles.

A probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigations has revealed the degree to which real estate development plays a role in feeding “pay-to-play” activities within city government. The federal corruption probe involves several Los Angeles City Council members’ connections to development projects in the city.

Former Los Angeles City planning director charged $281,250 for illegally lobbying on behalf of real estate developers

2019-08-20T17:00:00-04:00

Former planning director Michael LoGrande recently admitted to violating city ethics laws by lobbying planning department officials just months after leaving his job running the agency.

This week, the City of Los Angeles Ethics Commission voted to fine former Los Angeles City Planning director Michael LoGrande $281,250 for violating the city’s “revolving door” rules. The fine is the largest single penalty ever levied against a current or former city employee, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Shortly after leaving his post, LoGrande was hired as a consultant by the City of Los Angeles to provide his expertise on unresolved projects, The Los Angeles Times reports. During this time, LoGrande used his influence and relationships with former colleagues variously to curry favor for several development projects he had been hired to lobby on behalf of as a private citizen.

Los Angeles Ethics Commission President Melinda Murray told The Los Angeles Times in a statement, “These are extremely serious violations that illustrate the reason we have revolving door laws,” adding, “Former city officials should not use inside information or personal relationships to try to creat...

Questions raised over selection process for massive expansion of O’Hare International Airport

2019-01-18T15:34:00-05:00

A city-appointed evaluation committee heard presentations from the architects on Tuesday and Wednesday, yet the city is declining to make public the identities of the committee’s members. Worse, the committee will prepare a report, but that report won’t be made public.

The highly anticipated international design competition to expand Chicago's O'Hare International Airport has released their shortlist of five proposals from heavyweights Foster + Partners, Studio Gang, Calatrava, SOM, and Fentress. Amidst chatter on the merits of each, questions have been raised over the transparency of the selection process, which refuses to disclose both the identities of the evaluation committee as well as their report on the five presentations. This lack of transparency matters because, as Blair Kamin cautions in the Chicago Tribune, it "means that the public will be in the dark about what the experts think. It also means Mayor Rahm Emanuel will be free to make an arbitrary or ill-informed choice."

FBI corruption probe follows Chinese investments in high-profile Downtown L.A. developments

2019-01-15T19:05:00-05:00

The rapid transformation of downtown Los Angeles’ skyline is being fueled in good measure by huge investments from Chinese companies eager to burnish their global brands and capitalize on L.A.’s real estate boom. Now some of those projects have become a focus of federal agents seeking evidence of possible bribery, extortion, money laundering and other crimes as part of a corruption investigation at City Hall.

The FBI search warrant lists a number of high-profile property developers and real estate companies from mainland China that have considerably shaped the skyline of Downtown Los Angeles with monumental high-rise projects in recent years, such as Shenzhen New World Group, Shenzhen Hazens, Greenland USA, and Oceanwide. No specific charges have been brought forward at this point of the investigation.

Mexican voters reject partly built $13 billion Mexico City International Airport project

2018-10-29T14:14:00-04:00

Voters in Mexico have rejected completion of partly built new airport for Mexico City, opposing it by a 70 to 29 percent margin. Mexico’s President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Monday he will respect the referendum, effectively ending the $13 billion project which is already about one-third built. “The decision taken by the citizens is democratic, rational and efficient,” Lopez Obrador said. “The people decided.”

It's looking like the end of the runway for the partly built new Mexico City International Airport designed by a conglomerate comprising Foster + Partners, FR-EE (Fernando Romero Enterprise), and NACO (Netherlands Airport Consultants).

While the public vote clearly disapproved of the $13 billion megaproject that's been associated with corruption and overspending, the referendum is not without criticism due to its extremely low voter turnout.

A year after deadly 7.1 quake, an investigation into Mexico City's troubling history with failed building codes

2018-09-19T16:12:00-04:00

Several factors play into the lax code enforcements issue. Mexico City is going through a construction boom, and some local officials have been hesitant to put the brakes on such a profitable sector. Corruption is rampant [...] “There is a whole system that’s been designed to benefit everyone involved: public officials, DROs, developers,” said Gómez Durán. “They all protect each other. The citizens are left unprotected.”

One year after Mexico City's devastating 7.1-magnitude earthquake, this piece by Martha Pskowski explores how, over the last three decades, the city's engineers, politicians, and builders have repeatedly failed to regulate stricter building codes — which often has deadly consequences.

Mexican president-elect softens his opposition to $13 billion airport project

2018-07-09T15:16:00-04:00

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Mexico’s next president, is no longer seeking an immediate suspension of Mexico City’s new $13 billion airport, according to a member of his economic transition team. Abel Hibert, who attended a planning meeting with Lopez Obrador and about 100 aides from the transition team on Tuesday evening, said it was clear that there’ll be no immediate demand to President Enrique Pena Nieto to suspend construction of the airport, at least until a review of the contracts.

Canceling the new Mexico City International Airport project due to alleged corruption and wasteful spending was one of the campaign promises of socialist (then) candidate, and now president-elect, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The tone appears to have softened now to not completely alienate investors, and an AMLO aide laid our three possibilities: "Auctioning the airport to the private sector, moving it to an alternative site (which would mean losses on construction that’s already happened), or going ahead with the current plan," Bloomberg reports.

A conglomerate comprising Foster + Partners, FR-EE (Fernando Romero Enterprise), and NACO (Netherlands Airport Consultants) had won the international architectural competition in 2014 for what might become one of the world's largest airports with (up to) six runways and a 560,000-square-meter terminal.

Rio Olympics "must be postponed, moved, or both" due to Zika threat

2016-05-13T18:40:00-04:00

Scientists can disagree on how much the mass migration of 500,000 foreigners will accelerate the virus’s global spread and make the pandemic worse—but none can possibly argue that it will slow it down or make things better. [...] “Olympism seeks to create … social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles”. [...] But for the Games, would anyone recommend sending an extra half a million visitors into Brazil right now?

Not to mention Brazil's ongoing corruption scandal, that just yesterday resulted in President Dilma Rousseff being kicked out of the Presidential palace, as the impeachment trial against her begins.

Related on Archinect:

Public housing, Italian-style: the corrupt mismanagement of Rome's housing stock

2016-04-29T15:07:00-04:00

Back in 2004, Elio Ciampanella was evicted from his apartment of three decades...So he applied for an apartment in Rome’s public housing. And he waited. More than a decade passed. Then, in February, [Ciampanella] unexpectedly had his choice of several apartments. His tale might be considered one of patience rewarded, but there was a twist: It turned out Rome’s municipal government never really had a shortage of properties.

"Instead, the government actually owned so many thousands of apartments and buildings that no one was quite certain how many there were, who lived in them or where they were. That was, until staff members for Rome’s new interim administrator, Francesco Paolo Tronca, discovered nine boxes containing roughly 1,200 case files left languishing by past mayors.

What quickly became clear was that most of the apartments had been rented for years — in some cases, decades — for as little as 10 euros per month."

According to the article, while some of these insane deals were for charities and other nonprofit organization, most of them were the by-product of Italy's notoriously corrupt political system.

The discovery has, unsurprisingly, become a scandal in Italy after details emerged like the story of one man who was earning €700,000 a month but living in public housing.

Now we just have to find out where the cheap housing is hidden in these cities:

Mumbai high-rise at the center of Adarsh Society scam to be demolished, High Court rules

2016-04-29T15:05:00-04:00

In an order that sends a strong message against corruption, the Bombay High Court on Friday ordered the Union Environment Ministry to demolish 31-storey Adarsh Co-operative Housing Society. [...] The society, originally meant to be a six-storey structure to house Kargil war heroes and war widows, was converted into a 100-metre-tall building with politicians, bureaucrats and army officers allegedly conspiring to get flats allotted to them in the cooperative society at below-market rates.

Click here to learn more about the Adarsh Housing Society scam and corruption scandal.

Following warehouse explosion, three new high-rises in Tianjin planned for demolition amid anti-corruption campaign

2015-12-16T18:26:00-05:00

China is reportedly planning to demolish three new high-rise [residential] buildings [in Tianjin, which] are up to 30 floors taller than originally planned...It’s the latest blow to the [city], which saw a devastating explosion at a warehouse in its port in August...state media pointed out that...the scale of illegal construction meant the building was unsafe, [deeming] the 'completely corrupt project' [as] unusable, and to be demolished was 'its destiny.'

Brazilian engineering companies building Olympic venues "very probably" broke laws, accepted bribes

2015-11-24T13:18:00-05:00

Brazilian police investigating corruption around the state-run oil firm Petrobras also plan to investigate more than $10bn of construction contracts for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, according to a lead investigator on the case. Some of the big engineering companies caught up in the Petrobras inquiry “very probably” broke laws against price-fixing and bribery on contracts to build Olympic venues, said Igor Romario, a federal police chief and key figure in the investigation.

Related coverage:

Duplitecture and the Downfall of Rep. Aaron Schock

2015-03-20T15:05:00-04:00

Many and baroque have been the scandals that have toppled Illinois politicians. Rod Blagojevich, the most recent governor to be sent to prison, is behind bars for trying to sell the remaining years of Barack Obama’s Senate term. But Aaron Schock, who announced his resignation on March 17th as Republican congressman for the state’s 18th district, is the first to be felled by an over-talkative interior designer.

'Rep. Aaron Schock of Illinois's 18th Congressional district is probably better known for showing off his abs on the cover of Men's Health (see below) than for any actual legislating. At 33, Schock holds the title of the third-youngest US representative, at least until the end of this month when he will resign.

Already a controversial figure for his (perhaps too) media-friendly presence, the muscular young politician became embroiled in a veritable firestorm after an unfortunate, chance encounter between his interior decorator and a Washington Post reporter.

"Bright red walls. A gold-colored wall sconce with black candles. A Federal-style bull’s-eye mirror with an eagle perched on top. And this is just the Illinois Republican’s outer office," describes Ben Terris in a recent article for the Post. When Terris ran into the woman responsible for the ornate décor, she told him, “It’s actually based off of the red room in ‘Downton Abbey,’" the popular British show that depicts the waning y...

A closer look at the Giza 2030 master plan: blessing or curse for Egypt?

2015-01-27T14:11:00-05:00

Is this the promising future of Giza 2030? What is the status of Giza 2030 after the Egyptian Revolution in 2011? Would it be a curse or a blessing if I were from Giza? And my message to the current Egyptian regime is this: if this is the future of Egyptian cities, please leave the situation as it is.