Archinect - News

Arup Hong Kong employee targeted in $25 million deepfake scam

2024-05-17T16:56:00-04:00

British multinational design and engineering company behind world-famous buildings such as the Sydney Opera House has confirmed that it was the target of a deepfake scam that led to one of its Hong Kong employees paying out $25 million to fraudsters. A spokesperson for London-based Arup told CNN on Friday that it notified Hong Kong police in January about the fraud incident, and confirmed that fake voices and images were used.

“Our financial stability and business operations were not affected and none of our internal systems were compromised,” an Arup spokesperson told CNN. The employee in question was apparently misled into believing they were in a video conference with senior finance staffers that were in reality deepfaked impersonations.

Deepfake attacks on business have been on the rise international for several months as the technological sophistication of audi-visual mimicry continues a rapid development.

Arup currently has 34 offices worldwide.

Accused Gilgo Beach murderer Rex Heuermann was also the architect of a wage theft scheme, new lawsuit claims

2023-09-06T15:14:00-04:00

Not only is he an accused serial killer, Rex Heuermann is also a deadbeat boss, according to the state Department of Labor. It filed suit Tuesday to recover nearly $70,000 in back wages, penalties and interest for stiffing a former executive assistant.

Rex Heuermann, an architect, was arrested in July near his firm’s Midtown Manhattan offices on charges related to the murders of three women. Their remains were discovered at Gilgo Beach in 2010. In a separate legal matter, Heuermann and his architectural firm, RH Consultants & Associates, are accused of wage theft. They allegedly underpaid an employee, Donna Sturman, by more than $20,908.10, which includes $9,454.56 owed to her as vacation pay. Before his arrest, Heuermann had paid $16,385 towards the owed amount. However, he defaulted on the remaining balance, leading to a lawsuit. As a result, he now owes an additional $33,362.16 in civil penalties and $9,767.48 in interest.

His firm has been the subject of scrutiny since Heuermann became a suspect. Tax liens and other investigations into his business dealings have also been publicized. An account from one former employee in New York magazine recently also detailed a culture of high stress and “creepy” behavior on the part of Heu...

Suspected Long Island serial killer Rex Heuermann was a Manhattan-based architect

2023-07-14T16:03:00-04:00

Rex Heuermann, an architect who had lived most of his life in Nassau County and worked in Manhattan, was taken into custody in connection with at least some of the killings, said an official with knowledge of the case.

The 59-year-old was the owner of a Midtown Manhattan-based consultancy practice that offered “concept-driven designs at multiple scales from educational facilities, residential works, as well as mix use and office design, public works, and master planning,” according to its website. Heuermann usually met his victims in the vicinity using a series of disposable “burner” phones which were later linked by investigators to those used by the women via what the New York Times deemed "sophisticated technology."

Heuermann has pled not guilty. An odd 19-minute interview in which he describes his expertise in building codes and regulations can be viewed below via Bonjour Realty.

Un-professional handbooks: graphic standards and crime prevention through environmental design

2021-07-12T18:24:00-04:00

Like other professions, such as law and medicine, architects rely on technical publications to do our jobs. Thus, we frequently turn to volumes such as Architectural Graphic Standards, which is authored by The American Institute of Architects (AIA). Promoted by its publisher, Wiley, as “the architect’s Bible since 1932,” the $260 handbook is presented as “the written authority for architects.” Nevertheless, not all of the information presented in Graphic Standards is unbiased, or even that technically sound.

It was therefore with quite a bit of interest that I discovered, while recently leafing through my twelfth edition in search of a framing detail, that it contains a short article on “Crime Preventions through Environmental Design” (CPTED). Included in the third chapter on “Building Resiliency,” alongside “Sustainability,” “Good Practices in Resilience-Based Architectural Designs,” and “Lifecycle Considerations in Resiliency-Based Designs,” CPTED is a bit like architecture’s “Bro...

NYC building inspector charged for accepting $1,200 bribe

2021-02-18T11:32:00-05:00

A New York City Department of Buildings inspector has been charged with taking a $1,200 bribe in exchange for not citing a construction firm that had continued working despite a stop-work order.

According to Construction Dive, the inspector, Francesco Ginestri, was charged "with solicitation and receipt of a bribe related to his agreement to ensure that the DOB would not issue a $25,000 fine in connection with the stop-work order. " He was released on $150,000 bond last week and, if convicted, he will face a maximum of five years in prison, Construction Dive reports.

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.

London man jailed for forcing 15 construction workers into slavery

2018-04-24T14:13:00-04:00

A Romanian man who used threats of violence and indebtedness to keep a group of his countrymen as slaves while he pocketed their wages from a London construction site has been sentenced to seven years in jail.

David Lupu, a 29-year-old Romanian, was found guilty of holding 15 of his countrymen in slavery or servitude in two small one-bedroom apartments in East London and sentenced to seven years in jail.

Lupu had lured the men to work as demolition workers in the UK, falsely promising a wage of £50 a day for work and a good standard of living accommodation, however took away the victims' ID cards upon arrival and threatened that they had to pay hundreds of pounds for permits and certificates to work in the UK. When Lupu failed to pay them after one month of work, they confronted him, and, according to the London Metropolitan Police report, "his response was to threaten to beat them to death."

Two victims managed to escape when Lupu traveled to Romania and reported him to the police.

A brief history of designing secure spaces

2018-04-10T15:44:00-04:00

Can design keep you safe from crime? Architects and urbanists have been making that claim since urban crime — or the threat of it — reached crisis proportions in the 1960s. [...] But with scant evidence to support those claims, at what cost do we build “defensible space”? Architectural historian Joy Knoblauch looks back at sixty years of attempts to secure space and asks whether safety lies in the design of the built environment, in our social structures, or in our heads.

Two California fake civil engineers face up to 257 years in prison

2018-03-20T14:27:00-04:00

Two men were hit with 487 counts on Wednesday in a complaint alleging they spent years running a scam that has potentially left hundreds of homeowners across Southern California with homes that may not be structurally sound. [...] Huntington Beach resident Ruben Gutierrez, 43, and 46-year-old Wilfrido Rodriguez of Downey each face numerous counts of forgery, identity theft and grand theft in a scheme involving falsified documents and fraudulent engineering services [...].

"Rodriguez was an engineering drafter and Gutierrez was an architectural designer at Palos Verdes Engineering. Neither Rodriguez nor Gutierrez were licensed architects or civil engineers," a news release published by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said.

"Investigators estimate that there were more than 700 residential and commercial properties where fraud allegedly occurred in more than 50 cities in Southern California. If convicted as charged, Rodriguez faces up to 152 years in state prison, while Gutierrez faces a possible maximum sentence of 105 years in prison."

The prison sentences Rodriguez and Gutierrez may face are far more drastic than the 2 1/3-7 years NY State's Paul J. Newman—another highly prominent case of a fake architect—received in the fall of last year.

Architect to Architect? to Jail.

2017-11-29T13:16:00-05:00

The stamp, forged signatures, false paperwork — they were like the scaffolding of a building of his own design, one with no firm foundation.

A fake architect named Paul J. Newman has been sentenced to 2 1/3 to 7 years in state prison for posing as an architect in eastern New York.

Newman also was ordered Tuesday in Saratoga County Court to pay more than $115,000 to his victims in Albany, Rensselaer, and Saratoga counties.

Newman pleaded guilty in June to grand larceny and fraud after an investigation by New York's attorney general dubbed "Operation Vandelay Industries." Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office said Newman had rendered fraudulent architectural services since 2010. Victims included municipalities and businesses.

Schneiderman dubbed the operation to nab Newman "Vandelay Industries" in reference to a long-running joke on "Seinfeld" about a fictional company by that name. A character named Newman was Jerry's nemesis on the sitcom.

Harvard withdraws acceptance offers from students who created offensive memes

2017-06-06T12:36:00-04:00

Students sent each other memes and other images mocking sexual assault, the Holocaust, and the deaths of children, according to screenshots of the chat obtained by The Crimson. Some of the messages joked that abusing children was sexually arousing, while others had punchlines directed at specific ethnic or racial groups. One called the hypothetical hanging of a Mexican child “piñata time.”

Ten students who managed to beat out nearly 38,000 others to gain admission to Harvard lost their chance to attend the university after sharing offensive online memes in a private Facebook chat. After discovering the memes, which ironically were traded over a platform designed by a former alumnus over a decade ago, the College withdrew the students' offers of admission, upholding the institution's strong commitment to ethics.

New York State Man Faces Up to 15 Years for Practicing Architecture Without Being Licensed or Registered

2017-04-21T12:28:00-04:00

Paul J. Newman, 49, is the president of Cohesion Studios. He’s also facing charges in three counties for pretending to be an architect. According to New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Newman worked on numerous housing projects in the Capital Region despite being neither licensed nor registered. He is accused of defrauding construction companies, business owners and municipalities.

Discovered through an investigation dubbed “Operation Vandelay Industries”, Newman allegedly drafted architectural renderings for over 100 properties, as well as foundation inspections, field reports, energy compliance certificates and engineer letters. On each, he signed as a registered and license architect, using a forged New York State Registered Architect Stamp or Professional Engineer Stamp. Among his alleged victims are municipal governments and senior living facilities.

These are serious charges: Grand Larceny in the Second Degree, nine counts of Forgery in the Second Degree, one ...

Seized “Skopje 2014” documents could lead to criminal investigation

2016-10-20T14:36:00-04:00

Documents that Macedonia's Special Prosecution, SJO, seized on Tuesday with a court order from the Culture Ministry refer to a million-euros-worth tender to build the Museum of VMRO and Macedonian Struggle for Independence...The SJO [...] says it will reveal the start of two new investigations. If one refers to "Skopje 2014", it will be the first-ever serious criminal investigation into this costly project which, according to BIRN’s database, has cost 667 million euros already.

Balkan Insight reports that the hefty €667 million+ price tag (approx. $730 million+) of the grandiose revamp “was mainly due to the signing of 123 contracts with firms and individuals for its construction, many of which were annexes to the original contract.”

Balkan Investigative Reporting Network's database: Skopje 2014 Uncovered.

Previously on Archinect:

Macedonians protest to protect modernism

Macedonian Makeover: Europe's Flailing Capital of Kitsch

Geoff Manaugh's "A Burglar's Guide to the City" headed to TV

2016-10-04T19:31:00-04:00

CBS has given a put pilot commitment to "A Burglar's Guide to the City," a television series based off the book by BLDGBLOG founder Geoff Manaugh, who interviewed former bank robbers like Joe Loya to explore the role of architecture in crime, and the corresponding shifts in privacy in both the physical and virtual realms. An article by Deadline describes the thrust of the series thusly:

"Written by Grellong, A Burglar’s Guide to the City centers on a team of modern-day Robin Hoods, led by a brilliant architect with a troubled past. They use their unique skills to gain access to any stronghold in order to steal from rich criminals and give to those who have been wronged by a corrupt system."

Listen to our conversation with Geoff about the book, recorded earlier this year:

For more on the intersection between architecture and Hollywood:

Architecture in the age of transparent hostility

2016-06-27T15:14:00-04:00

With the growing trend towards hostile architecture now openly admitting its political incentives, are we in an age of transparent hostility? [...] Whereas other instances of hostile architecture are marked by their deliberate obscurity, the Camden Bench was developed, constructed and deployed in plain sight, making it an all too visible reminder of persistent negligence, raising the question: will hostile architecture become an accepted feature of the built environment?

Stahl House documentary plagued by extortion, suicide, and lawsuits

2016-05-19T16:57:00-04:00

The Los Angeles Business Journal reports in this week's issue that the filmmaker, Steven Slomkowski, sought to get out of the project after the suicide of Mark Stahl, one of three siblings who control the property, also renowned in architecture lore as Case Study Home #22. Slomkowski sued in 2014, alleging that the surviving siblings, Bruce and Shari Stahl, got cold feet over depictions of Mark and their late father, Buck. The Stahls countersued...

When it's not involved in documentary-driven legal feuds, the iconic Stahl House frequently serves as a backdrop for a variety of fictional films, including Atom Egoyan's "Where The Truth Lies," and "Galaxy Quest:"

For more on the intersection between architecture and cinema:

The architecture of burglary is increasingly virtual

2016-03-31T18:29:00-04:00

Buildings and burglars are intertwined in the mind of Mr. Manaugh, whose nonfiction book arrives Tuesday from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Fascinated by bandits who smash through walls, crawl up air ducts and tunnel through floors, the author wanted to explore their singular approach to architecture as a force to be abused, outsmarted and escaped.

In an era of cybercrime, do burglars miss the architectural beauty of the traditional brick and mortar break-in? Well, yeah, according to author Geoff Manaugh. In an era where break-ins are more about clearing digital walls and hacking into people's identities than using diamond-tipped drills to penetrate hidden vaults, the bad old-fashioned vocation of physical burglary is the latest casualty of digital disruption. Ironically, many of the contemporary light-fingered must now worry about carpal-tunnel syndrome.

For more on the intersection of crime and architecture:

What are the world's most violent cities?

2016-03-30T13:11:00-04:00

The thorny task of comparing crime rates across the world is tricky because legal interpretations vary. Sweden's definition of rape is not the same as America’s, for example. Murder however should be easier to record because there is an identifiable victim, something that can be counted. But the way in which this is done in poorer, often more corrupt countries makes truly comparable statistics hard to pin down. Where there are inefficient public health systems or police, it is even harder.

"Latin American and Caribbean countries suffer disproportionately compared with elsewhere, mainly because of inequality, poor rule of law, impunity and corrupt institutions that are infiltrated by drug cartels. Only two countries outside the region feature on either chart, South Africa and the United States (the list’s only rich-world country)."

The article notes the difficulty of accurately ranking cities based on crime statistics; this chart is a revision of an earlier one. But the overall picture remains the same: the world's most violent cities are in the Americas, with the one notable exception being Cape Town, South Africa. The statistics exclude war zones.

For more on crime and the city, take a look at some Archinect articles from the archive:

Examining the spatial crime of burglary

2015-08-12T19:50:00-04:00

Burglary is a spatial crime: its very definition requires architecture...Indeed, burglary's architectural interest comes not from its ubiquity, but from its unexpected, often surprisingly subtle misuse of the built environment. Burglars approach buildings differently, often seeking modes of entry other than doors and approaching buildings—whole cites—as if they're puzzles waiting to be solved or beaten.

Dean George Ranalli in Sexual Harassment Probe

2015-08-03T00:24:00-04:00

George Ranalli, 68, who has helmed the Spitzer School of Architecture since 1999, offered Ariella Campisi a ride home after the faculty holiday party at the Smoke Jazz & Supper Club in December 2013, Campisi claims in a Manhattan federal-court lawsuit. Campisi, now 23, was there because she worked part-time as an office assistant for the architecture school.

Sad day for CUNY Architecture.

£200,000 disappears at UK charity Article 25, book keeper arrested

2015-07-18T04:00:00-04:00

Article 25’s office manager and book keeper Scott William Golding has been charged with fraud and false accounting after £200,000 went missing from the charity’s accounts

Article 25, a UK charity that helps provide shelters in disadvantaged communities worldwide, had its future thrown into question in June, when £200,000 of its funds (equivalent to approximately $312,060) were found to be missing. This past Tuesday, Article 25’s book keeper and office manager, Scott William Golding, was arrested in conjunction with the lost funds, and is being charged with “fraud and false accounting”.

In response, the nearly ten-year-old charity is rallying to “tighten up” its financial management. The arrest coincided with the charity’s annual fundraising effort, which met its goal, and Article 25 does not plan to stop its projects while investigation is ongoing. Article 25, named after the right to habitable shelters as decreed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, has collaborated with local governments, NGOs and charity programs for a variety of scaled projects all around the world, often in response to disaster scenarios. It was founded in 2006 by former...

The problem with tiny homes - they can get stolen

2015-01-06T11:30:00-05:00

A couple who spent $35,000 building a tiny house-on-wheels to live an eco-friendly life were stunned to find their home-to-be had been towed away by thieves. Casey Friday and his wife Jessica spent two and a half years building the house themselves from the raw materials so they could reduce their environmental impact. The 650sqft home... could run on rainwater, compost its waste and get by on 'very little' electricity - but was purloined from its custom-paved driveway in Spring Branch, Texas.

Downtown LA fire determined to be arson... Architecture hate crime?

2014-12-19T13:18:00-05:00

The ATF national response team, at the end of its investigation, reaches one of three conclusions – incendiary, accidental, or undetermined. Given Thursday’s conclusion that the fire was determined to be "incendiary," or deliberately set, local authorities will probably launch an arson investigation to identify those responsible for the blaze.

Previously: Huge downtown Los Angeles fire burns towering apartment project

Medellín made urban escalators famous, but have they had any impact?

2014-07-24T12:50:00-04:00

Medellín has gained much attention for its urban transformation — and the escalators, which won several international prizes for innovation, make up one of the most striking projects. [...] But are the escalators making any real economic or social impact in the neighborhood? To find out, I spent three months in Medellín talking with people in Comuna 13 about what has and hasn’t changed here.

Romanian Andy Pascali arrived at holiday home to find it had disappeared

2014-07-21T14:34:00-04:00

He said the property that he had inherited from his parents who had built it in 1986 had also been fully furnished with a brand-new fitted kitchen and bathroom. He added: 'I had been worried about thieves maybe breaking in and stealing the television or something, and so I put a barbed wire fence up around the house for added security. But they stole that as well.'

Minimalist Homes Rise in Tijuana as Violence Subsides

2014-06-06T15:08:00-04:00

Ask almost any of the local architects in this Mexican border town and they will tell you Tijuana has become a hotbed of building activity. The growing demand for designer homes, they say, is being driven primarily by Tijuana natives returning to the city... Most of the developments in Tijuana are for upper-middle-class families ... but the spare designs and basic building materials, especially concrete, used by Mr. Medina and others make it possible for more residents to have designed homes.

Texas to require architects be fingerprinted, starting January 1st, 2014

2013-12-11T12:43:00-05:00

So what happens if an architect in good professional standing is revealed to have a minor crime on his record due to being fingerprinted? Could he lose his license, despite the quality of his work? The TBAE absolutely reserves that right.

The requirement applies not just to new applicants, but also to licensed architects seeking to have their registrations renewed. Violators face a fine of up to $5,000 per day in which they are not in compliance with the new law. Currently only one other state (Massachusetts) even runs criminal background checks on architects. Now Texas is upping the ante.

Lahore authorities battle to restore splendour of ancient Walled City

2013-06-04T17:19:00-04:00

The Walled City's gardens and squares are now obscured by illegal shops and businesses, the skyline cluttered by unplanned tenements and bundles of cables. For many of the 200,000 inhabitants crammed into these 4sq km, a fraction of Lahore's 7m population, drinking water is a rarity. But last month the new Walled City of Lahore Authority met for the first time. The body oversees the ambitious plan to restore the past glory of the city's oldest neighbourhood.

Vandalism at the Louvre Lens references "Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth" group

2013-02-08T20:29:00-05:00

The woman wrote “AE911” on the bottom right-hand corner of the painting before she was challenged by a security guard and a visitor. A Louvre conservation expert cleaned off the writing yesterday and the unharmed painting will be on show to the public once again this morning. “AE911Truth” is the name of a website for Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, a group which claims that the official version of the terrorist attacks on Manhattan and Washington on 11 September 2001 is a cover-up.

Architect accused in firefighter's death to face trial

2012-11-30T12:29:00-05:00

A German architect charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection with the death of a veteran firefighter last year will next appear in court Dec. 12, authorities say. A judge ruled Wednesday that Gerhard Becker will face trial in the case. Prosecutors allege he negligently installed outdoor fireplaces at his Hollywood Hills home, a decision they say ultimately led to the death of firefighter Glenn Allen.

Previously:
Architect charged for the death of a firefighter
AIA|LA Statement on Tragic Death of LA Firefighter