Archinect - News

Arizona state board gets sued for violating 'engineer's' First Amendment rights

2019-12-13T15:26:00-05:00

Greg Mills, co-owner of Southwest Engineering Concepts is suing the Arizona State Board of Technical Registration after he was fined for calling himself an engineer and working without an engineering license, reports IEEE Spectrum. Mills has three decades of experience as an engineer in the aerospace and tech circles, and has run his own company with his wife for the last 10 years.

“I was aware that I’m not legally allowed to call myself a professional engineer if I’m not,” Mills told IEEE Spectrum. “I’ve been an engineer for many years. To start my business and call myself an engineer, it never occurred to me that it would cause any trouble for anybody.”

This suit echoes a familiar issue we often see in architecture, with licensing boards seeking to police the improper use of professional state-issued titles such as "engineer" or "architect." Same Gegde, a lawyer with the Institute for Justice, who works on cases like these told IEEE Spectrum, "Government licensing boards are ofte...

Couple sues neighbors over a house renovated to look like theirs

2017-10-05T14:10:00-04:00

Jason and Jodi Chapnik, who live in a multi-million dollar home on Strathearn Rd., filed a lawsuit against their neighbours for remodeling a nearby property on Vesta Dr. to look “strikingly similar” to their house.

The couple sued their neighbors for $2.5 million—$1.5 million in damages, $20,000 in statutory copyright damages, $1 million in punitive damages, and a mandatory injunction on the defendant to change the design of the home. The lawsuit was filed against their neighbor Barbara Ann Kirshenblatt, her builder husband and architect brother-in-law for copyright infringement in federal court, as well as the real estate agent who profited from the house’s recent sale and the anonymous contractors who worked on the house.

The plaintiffs argued that the flipped house decreased the value of their home, which is one of the most well-known and admired houses in the neighborhood due to its unique architecture. Kirshenblatt, on the other hand, denies copying the look stating that the renovation is inspired by Tudor stone cottages, a style of stonework that is common to the trade and not protectable by copyright.

The involved homes are located in Toronto's Forest Hill neighborhood, one of the cit...

Zaha Hadid sues architecture critic Martin Filler over book review

2014-08-22T12:40:00-04:00

Hadid, who was born in Baghdad and is now a British citizen, claimed that Filler falsely implied she was indifferent to the alleged difficult working conditions of migrant workers on high-profile construction projects in the Middle East, including her own. She also claimed Filler used large portions of his June 5 review of Rowan Moore's "Why We Build: Power and Desire in Architecture" to question her success and fault her personality, although she was not a prominent character in the book.

Lawsuit Filed Over Cooper Union Tuition

2014-05-28T18:57:00-04:00

Slightly more than a year after the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art announced its plan to charge tuition, a group of professors, admitted students and alumni filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court on Tuesday against the school's board of trustees. The plaintiffs' aim: to stop the school from introducing tuition next fall and to prompt a court investigation into how the board has managed school finances.

Valencia sues Santiago Calatrava as white elephants rot

2013-12-30T15:06:00-05:00

Santiago Calatrava is facing legal action from his native city as the dazzling City of Arts and Sciences complex begins to fall apart just eight years after inauguration

Lawsuit Filed Against Architect Tom Kundig

2013-07-15T17:08:00-04:00

We never would have expected Tom Kundig to be embroiled in legal battle with a community of conservationists, but the characteristically eco-minded architect was slapped with a lawsuit a few weeks ago by residents of Methow Valley, WA. As it turns out, one of Kundig’s newest construction, dubbed the Flagg Mountain Hut, protrudes into the viewshed of a pristine ridge in the valley... the community is not happy with the project and they’ve launched a campaign asking the owners to move the hut.

Jail break: Utah County suing architect for $1.35 million

2011-05-22T19:53:57-04:00

The drawings and specifications submitted by GSBS Architects contained “numerous safety, security and functional defects, including but not limited to Defective Work,” according to the suit filed Monday in state court in Provo.