Archinect - News

Hirshhorn ‘Bubble’ risks operating at a loss, internal Smithsonian report says

2013-05-16T13:13:00-04:00

The Hirshhorn Museum’s proposed Seasonal Inflatable Structure, also known as “the Bubble,” a project announced in 2009 and intended as an architecturally and culturally transformative space on the Mall, would operate at a loss in each of three scenarios examined in an assessment done by the Smithsonian.

“We’ve said from the beginning, and the secretary [G. Wayne Clough] has said it, this is a bold project,” said Richard Kurin, the Smithsonian’s undersecretary for history, art and culture. “We’ve encouraged this, but it has to be raised by private money. In terms of doing that, we’re still trying to raise money for construction of the Inflatable Structure. We’ve been at this for some years. We hope its time has come now, but if not, we look forward to a better time.”

Apple Submits Revised Campus 2 Plans, Delays Tantau Development to Cut Costs

2013-04-25T18:59:00-04:00

In order to trim 300,000 square feet of construction costs from its budget, Apple has pushed the entire Tantau Development to Phase 2, which means it will be completed after the main campus is built. Apple's revised campus plan includes the addition of an expanded section detailing bicycle access improvements, which comes with an included visualization of what bike pathways and sidewalks might look like on the campus.

Download all the revised plans from Cupertino.org

Apple HQ building balloons to an estimated $5 billion

2013-04-08T18:55:00-04:00

Since 2011, the budget for Apple’s Campus 2 has ballooned from less than $3 billion to nearly $5 billion, according to five people close to the project who were not authorized to speak on the record. If their consensus estimate is accurate, Apple’s expansion would eclipse the $3.9 billion being spent on the new World Trade Center complex in New York, and the new office space would run more than $1,500 per square foot—three times the cost of many top-of-the-line downtown corporate towers.

A Prefab, Short on the Fab

2012-04-19T15:52:00-04:00

Affordability, along with a minimalist aesthetic, were the reasons she decided on a prefab house — points on which Mr. Buryk, who had years before remodeled a 100-year-old house in Portland, Ore., wholeheartedly agreed. “I, similar to Zoe, was coming from a place of not wanting to do that again,” he said. But it wasn’t quite as affordable as they had hoped. The house cost $260,000 to build, from start to finish (the kit itself was $47,000) — nearly $100,000 more than they’d expected.

Hamburg sues over Herzog & de Meuron's pricey, late concert hall

2012-02-22T12:49:00-05:00

The city was initially prepared to contribute €77 million to the project – but this figure has since gone up by nearly five times to more than €323 million – more than half the expected €600 million total cost. And the original completion date of 2010 has been pushed back to 2014. The building’s designers had underestimated certain costs – such as an acoustic panelling for the main concert hall which cost five times as much as expected, adding more than €10 million to the bill.

9/11 Museum Is Delayed

2011-11-22T16:28:18-05:00

The planned 2012 opening of the Sept. 11 museum at the World Trade Center is in jeopardy amid a dispute over hundreds of millions of dollars in unexpected costs related to redeveloping the site, people familiar with the matter said.