Archinect - News

President Biden lays out workplace heat safety plan to protect workers

2023-07-31T17:06:00-04:00

President Joe Biden on Thursday announced plans to increase protections for workers facing extreme heat, as temperatures across the U.S. soar and large swaths of the country face heat advisories.

The President’s announcement comes as close to 40% of the U.S. population faces heat advisories, according to the National Weather Service. The country currently has no federal standards on workplace heat safety, and there has been no timeline for the finalization of one. As reported by HR Dive, heat has become the number one cause of weather-related deaths in the U.S.

Previously on Archinect: Lack of heat standards for construction workers increases safety risks as temperatures reach record-breaking levels

Biden directed the U.S. Department of Labor to issue hazard alerts notifying employers and employees about ways to stay protected from extreme heat. The Department will also increase its inspections of at-risk workplaces such as farms and construction sites and heighten its enforcement of heat safety violations. The Biden administration aims to invest $7 million to develop more accurate weather predictions and $152 million to improve drinking water infrastructure in California, C...

Biden announces $90 million commitment to upgrade building codes nationwide

2023-07-24T14:36:00-04:00

The Biden Administration has recently announced a new $90 million commitment in the form of competitive awards meant to help states and cities in their myriad attempts at mustering updated building codes into the country's patchwork response to climate change.

The funds are being taken from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and supports 27 projects that are all aimed at increasing the energy efficiency, resiliency, and overall performance of buildings in different parts of the country.

In a statement, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm said: “Cutting emissions from buildings across America and ensuring they’re more energy efficient are critical components of President Biden’s plan to tackle the climate crisis and create cleaner and healthier communities. With unprecedented support from the President’s Investing in America agenda, the Department is providing new funding to help cities and states modernize their building codes — lowering energy costs for American famil...

President Biden fires Architect of the Capitol Brett Blanton

2023-02-13T17:32:00-05:00

President Biden on Monday fired J. Brett Blanton, the federal official responsible for the maintenance and operation of the Capitol complex, amid bipartisan calls for his resignation, after an investigative report accusing him of misusing his position and revelations that he avoided the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.

Blanton, who had faced calls for removal over accusations about abuse of government property while in office, was only recently revealed to have been in absentia on the afternoon of January 6th. Speculation had remained over the President’s willingness to remove the AOC from the 10-year appointment posting, the revised ability to do so by joint resolution being one of the would-be powers the past congress attempted unsuccessfully to elbow in at the last second. With his removal, no members of the Capitol Police Board who were working on January 6th are serving in the roles they occupied on the day of the insurrection.

Federal Buy Clean task force issues first recommendations for low-carbon construction materials

2022-09-21T12:29:00-04:00

The Biden Administration has unveiled the first set of recommendations under its Federal Buy Clean Initiative, an undertaking that aims to drive the development of American-made, low-carbon construction materials, while also supporting job growth.

During a visit to the Cleveland-Cliffs Direct Reduction steel plant in Toledo, Ohio, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, U.S. General Services Administration Administrator Robin Carnahan, and Deputy National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi announced that the federal government will prioritize the purchase of green construction materials, which will encompass 98% of materials purchased by the government.

The Federal Buy Clean Initiative is a part of President Biden’s economic plan, which includes the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Law, the $485 billion Inflation Reduction Act, and the $52 billion CHIPS and Science Act. As detailed by the White House, the federal government is the largest direct purchaser of construction materials in the world...

U.S. Department of Energy grants $39 million to projects developing carbon-storing buildings

2022-07-21T19:01:00-04:00

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded $39 million to 18 projects dedicated to developing technologies that can transform buildings into net carbon storage structures.

The initiative titled the Harnessing Emissions into Structures Taking Inputs from the Atmosphere (HESTIA) program is being led by the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).

The awardees will use the funding to develop alternative building materials and construction techniques. The decarbonization goals for the program align with President Biden’s plan to reach zero emissions by 2050, aiming to increase the total amount of carbon stored in buildings to create carbon sinks.

“This is a unique opportunity for researchers to advance clean energy materials to tackle one of the hardest to decarbonize sectors that is responsible for roughly 10% of total annual emissions in the United States,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm remarked on the initiative.

The fiel...

President Biden invokes Defense Production Act to stimulate domestic clean energy construction

2022-06-08T17:33:00-04:00

President Joe Biden is using his executive powers Monday to boost the domestic production of solar panels and their parts and will issue a 24-month tariff exemption on imports of the products from several countries. The White House said Biden will authorize the use of the Defense Production Act to accelerate manufacturing of solar panels in the United States as a way to strengthen the administration's efforts to shift the country toward clean energy.

Invoking the Defense Production Act (DPA) allows the President to order private businesses to prioritize the production of materials deemed necessary for national defense. Aside from accelerating the domestic production of solar panels, Biden is using the Act to rapidly expand American manufacturing of building insulation, heat pumps for buildings, equipment for making and using clean electricity-generated fuels, and critical power grid infrastructure.

Previously on Archinect: U.S. Department of Energy says solar energy has the potential to produce 40% of the nation's electricity by 2035

The White House also signaled its intention to direct the development of master supply agreements to increase the speed and efficiency by which domestic clean electricity providers can sell their products to the U.S. Government.

Furthermore, this move includes an order to establish a two-year tariff exemption for solar panel imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam in order to meet th...

Billie Tsien to receive honorary doctorate at the Boston Architectural College's 2022 graduation ceremony

2022-05-18T18:43:00-04:00

Architect, educator, and Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects | Partners co-founder Billie Tsien is set to receive an Honorary Doctorate and deliver the commencement speech at the Boston Architectural College’s (BAC) graduation ceremony on Friday, May 27th.

“It is an immense privilege to have Billie Tsien deliver the BAC’s commencement address to our graduating class in-person this year,” said Boston Architectural College President Mahesh Daas. “Her commitment to designing deeper and slower existential experiences grounded in an unmistakable sense of service, materiality and profound optimism complements the BAC’s own commitment to furthering social justice, inclusion, and diversifying design education.”

Previously on Archinect Sessions: "Starts with me, ends with us": A conversation with Tod Williams and Billie Tsien on Archinect Sessions Episode #22

This is the latest addition to Tsien’s long list of accolades, including the National Medal of the Arts from President Obama, the Tho...

Biden administration restores stricter environmental review process for federal projects formerly pulled back by Trump

2022-04-28T15:22:00-04:00

The Biden administration on April 19 restored key regulations in the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires review of federal projects to assess their likely impacts on climate change and nearby communities. The changes to the NEPA rules will go into effect in late May, and could mean proposed infrastructure like highways, pipelines and railways take more time to get approved.

This move reverses changes made by the Trump administration, which loosened the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in 2020 in order to accelerate projects by shortening the time used to gather environmental information and community input.

According to Construction Dive, construction industry groups, who have long decried the NEPA process, say that the new rules will increase costs for contractors and delay projects enabled by the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. On the other hand, climate advocates and state transportation officials have welcomed the changes, claiming that they would provide certainty to infrastructure projects.

In addition, according to White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory, the return to a more rigorous environmental review will actually speed up project completion as those approved will not be as susceptible to legal challenges. The new NEPA changes grant more flexibility to federal agencies to alter their enviro...

Department of Homeland Security is undertaking repairs to portions of border wall

2021-12-27T17:18:00-05:00

The Department of Homeland Security announced on Monday that it would begin performing maintenance and emergency repairs on areas of the unfinished border wall with Mexico that runs along Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California.

Following President Biden’s executive order in January to halt the construction of the border wall, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is in the process of terminating the construction contracts for the projects. As part of this process, unfinished projects were handed over to the Department of Homeland Security to “undertake activities necessary to address urgent life, safety, environmental, or other remediation required to protect border communities.”

Work includes drainage remediation, erosion control, gap closures, and the disposal of residual materials, to name a few.

Biden administration issues mandate to make federal vehicles and buildings run on renewable energy by 2050

2021-12-14T13:46:00-05:00

President Biden on Wednesday set in motion a plan to make the federal government carbon neutral, ordering federal agencies to buy electric vehicles, to power facilities with wind, solar and nuclear energy, and to use sustainable building materials.

Biden called for the transformation of 300,000 government buildings, 600,000 cars and trucks, and the use of its annual $650 billion budget for goods and services to meet his goal for a carbon-neutral federal government by 2050.

Detailed by The New York Times, his timetable for the transition is as follows: By 2030, Biden wants the federal government to purchase electricity only from sources that do not emit carbon dioxide. By 2032, the administration wants the emissions from building operations, such as heating, halved. And by 2035, all new federal car and truck purchases would also be zero-emissions.

There’s uncertainty over whether Biden’s climate goals will come into fruition as Congress has yet to approve a $1.7 trillion spending bill that would help achieve his targets and the expected limitations posed by the Supreme Court.

ASU's Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson is announced as President Biden's selection for NEA chair

2021-10-06T13:46:00-04:00

Arizona State University professor Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson has been officially named as President Biden’s nominee for chair of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Once confirmed, Dr. Jackson would become the first Black and Mexican American woman ever appointed to the prestigious chair since the agency’s inception during the Johnson administration.

Dr. Jackson holds a PhD in Urban Planning from UCLA and has served on the National Council on the Arts since 2013. She is currently a tenured faculty member at ASU’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, where her work focuses on community revitalization, race and ethnicity studies, and systems change.

Dr. Jackson is a native of Los Angeles and joins Harvard professor Shelly Lowe, a citizen of the Navajo Nation whom Biden tapped for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) chair, on a progressive slate with shared agendas that look to move forward in their mission in the wake of threats to eliminate both agencies that ha...

A slimmed down infrastructure deal is moving forward

2021-07-29T19:24:00-04:00

The $1 trillion package is far smaller than the $2.3 trillion plan that President Biden had originally proposed and would provide about $550 billion in new federal money for public transit, roads, bridges, water and other physical projects over the next five years, according to a White House fact sheet.

A proposed $20 billion in aid to communities of color that have been historically impacted by past infrastructure projects was reduced to $1 billion as part of the dealmaking process. New York Senator Chuck Schumer has promised an additional $3.5 trillion package that will address climate and education provisions left out in the original Democratic plan.

Mitch McConnell has said he will vote for the significantly watered-down bill. The New York Times has a good breakdown of what's in the bipartisan infrastructure plan here.

Architect and academic Sara Bronin announced as Biden's nominee for Advisory Council on Historic Preservation chair

2021-06-29T13:40:00-04:00

A new nominee for chairman of the White House’s Advisory Council on Historic Preservation has been named this week, placing a community activist and architect into a position of influence that had been only a part-time role until 2016.

The Hartford Courant is reporting that Sara Bronin has been nominated by President Biden as the next chair of the 55-year-old council. Bronin is already an advisor to the National Trust for Historic Preservation and has been featured recently in Archinect for her ongoing efforts surrounding housing segregation in Connecticut. If confirmed, she will join Wayne Donaldson and Trump appointee Aimee Jorjani on a list of others to helm the council in the past decade.

A White House press release cited Bronin’s academic background and public service record as the reasons behind her nomination, stating that her work “focuses on how law and policy can foster more equitable, sustainable, well-designed, and connected places.”

Related on Archinect: Biden admini...

The Pulse Nightclub site is now officially a National Memorial

2021-06-29T08:00:00-04:00

President Biden formally signed H.R. 49 into law this weekend, officially recognizing the now-vacant site of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting as a national memorial in a historic move that clears the way for a new permanent monument in Orlando.

The bill, named to honor the tragedy’s 49 victims, designates the club’s former space as an official unit under protection of the National Park Service along with 36 other planned and completed national memorials that include the Washington Monument and Pearl Harbor.

“May no other president ever have to sign for a monument like this,” Biden said at the Oval Office ceremony.

Winning design for the proposed memorial campus. Image credit: Coldefy & Associés with RDAI/onePULSE Foundation.

A team of designers including Orland-based HHCP was announced before the pandemic as the winners of a two-pronged memorial design competition hosted by the onePULSE Foundation. Their design would feature a spiraling flower-like museum and garden space that is...

The deadline for an infrastructure deal was Memorial Day. Here's what it could mean to architects.

2021-06-02T14:30:00-04:00

With the Memorial Day deadline now passed for President Biden’s massive new $2.25 trillion infrastructure bill, architects and planners are watching closely and with interested eyes to see what is included in any future version of the bill that has the potential to make outsized impacts in the industry.

Earmarked in the bill is a $213 billion aid package meant to increase, update, and refurbish America’s dwindling supply of affordable housing. Biden’s target of 2 million units would add much-needed stock to help alleviate the growing need through a combination of grants, tax incentives, and the elimination of discriminatory local zoning laws, which serve to artificially inflate housing costs for a wide variety of Americans, according to the Wall Street Journal.

An additional $20 billion is set aside to address “historic inequities and build the future of transportati...

Biden administration ousts members of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts; Justin Shubow removed after refusing to resign

2021-05-25T17:43:00-04:00

The four new appointees will replace four commissioners who were installed by former President Donald Trump, who helped craft the controversial “Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture” executive order, which decried modern architecture and sought to make neoclassical architecture the official style for federal buildings.

The incoming cohort are Peter Cook, a principal at HGA Architects with projects including the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture; Hazel Ruth Edwards, a professor and chair of Howard University’s Department of Architecture; Justin Garrett Moore, the inaugural program officer of the Humanities in Place program at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and Billie Tsien, a partner at Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects.

Previously on Archinect: Biden repeals Trump's classical architecture order, so what happens now?

The current chair of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and advocate of classical architecture, Justin Shu...

What happens if we view President Biden's $2 trillion infrastructure plan through a social lens?

2021-04-02T00:49:00-04:00

On March 31st, President Biden unveiled his $2 trillion economic plan to "reimagine and rebuild a new economy." The American Jobs Plan aims to "invest in America in a way we have not invested since we built the interstate highways and won the Space Race."

During Wednesday's speech, Biden expressed the need to fix and repair the nation's crumbling roads, bridges, and water systems. While infrastructure covers a wide range, the plan also maps out an emphasis to "build a world-class transportation infrastructure." However, as news outlets quickly report and react to Biden's economic agenda, The Boston Globe's Ian Duncan brings a much-needed perspective that cuts through the repetitive news coverage.

Photo by Maarten van den Heuvel from Pexels

At the forefront, Duncan's coverage brings attention to neighborhoods and roadways with racially historical pasts. He highlights Amy Stelly, an architectural designer and New Orleans resident who raised awareness of the Claiborne Expressway and t...

Biden repeals Trump's classical architecture order, so what happens now?

2021-02-25T13:30:00-05:00

Last year, Trump and his "make federal buildings beautiful again" executive order sent shockwaves across the architecture community. Trump had strong aversions towards modern architecture calling these buildings "ugly" and "uninspiring." Since Archinect's initial coverage on the classical architecture mandate back in February 2020, we've kept a close eye on the White House's news and how the architecture community would respond.

Previously featured on Archinect: New executive order could make classical architecture "the preferred and default style" for America's public buildings. The Jamie L. Witten Federal Building in Washington, D.C., designed by Philadelphia architects Rankin, Kellogg and Crane in 1901. Image courtesy of Wikimedia user U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Since January 20th, 2021, President Biden has been swift in revoking and undoing many of Trump's blunders while in office. Before he left, Trump made a great effort to sign and pass his executive order making classic...

President Biden takes executive steps to undo discriminatory housing policies

2021-01-28T14:15:00-05:00

President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Jan. 27 directing his administration to end policies that enable discrimination in housing and lending, and acknowledging the federal government’s role in erecting systemic barriers to fair housing.

According to Kriston Capps, writing for Bloomberg CityLab, "Biden’s executive order tasked the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to review two key rules implemented under the Trump administration. One of those rules governs how cities assess and enforce efforts to reduce segregation, a Civil Rights-era mandate that Trump repeatedly mischaracterized as an attempt to 'abolish the suburbs.' The other rule polices discrimination in rental housing and mortgage lending, standards that were relaxed under former Housing Secretary Ben Carson."

AIA applauds U.S. recommitting to Paris Agreement

2021-01-20T21:09:00-05:00

The American Institute of Architects has issued its first statement on a policy decision by newly inaugurated U.S. President, Joe Biden. Publicly sworn in on Capitol Hill earlier today, Biden spent the afternoon signing executive orders, many of which will reinstate environmental regulations reversed under the Trump administration.

One of the key orders signed today recommits the United States to the Paris Agreement, an international climate treaty adopted in 2015 during the Obama administration. Then President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement two years later.

AIA President Peter Exley, FAIA issued this statement today in response to Biden's recommitment:

"We are deeply encouraged by this Administration’s swift and decisive action on climate change. Re-establishing the United States’ commitment to the Paris climate accord sends a strong message to our nation and the world that we will pursue meaningful changes that can save our planet. As architects, we stand ready...