Archinect - News

Harvard GSD online survey seeks architecture graduate visa holders to create snapshot of professional practice

2024-11-20T15:10:00-05:00

This semester, a group of students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design is taking a survey of U.S. architecture graduate visa holders in the workplace for a research project that's part of their coursework for assistant professor Jacob Reidel's "Frameworks of Practice" seminar.

They are inviting participants to answer a series of anonymous questions related to their experience as workplace visa holders. The aim, they say, is to produce a snapshot of how immigration status affects both entry-level career choices for architecture graduates and long-term career planning.

The students share: "The original idea came from conversations with peers about how, in the field of architecture, visa status makes workers feel like they are in a precarious position and our preliminary qualitative interviews have supported this. We hope that this research can draw attention to the situation and offer both workers and employers new statistics to work towards compassionate decision-making in offic...

On the elevator's role in our skyrocketing housing calculus

2024-07-10T11:22:00-04:00

Through my research on elevators, I got a glimpse into why so little new housing is built in America and why what is built is often of such low quality and at high cost. The problem with elevators is a microcosm of the challenges of the broader construction industry — from labor to building codes to a sheer lack of political will. [...] It’s become hard to shake the feeling that America has simply lost the capacity to build things in the real world, outside of an app.

Stephen Smith, through the New York nonprofit Center for Building in North America, has been exposing variables that undermine the housing market's intricate calculus in the form of building codes, cost of labor, zoning regulations, and the construction industry.

He says: "Elevators in North America have become over-engineered, bespoke, handcrafted and expensive pieces of equipment that are unaffordable in all the places where they are most needed. Special interests here have run wild with an outdated, inefficient, overregulated system. Accessibility rules miss the forest for the trees," adding, "The United States and Canada have also marooned themselves on a regulatory island for elevator parts and designs."

Last year, New York City became the most expensive construction market in the world, with an average cost of $506 per square foot, according to an analysis from Baruch College's Zicklin School of Business.

Texas begins installation of defensive buoys along the Rio Grande

2023-07-13T11:29:00-04:00

Texas began rolling out what is set to become a new floating barrier on the Rio Grande on Friday in the latest escalation of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s multibillion-dollar effort to secure the U.S. border with Mexico, which already has included bussing migrants to liberal states and authorizing the National Guard to make arrests. Setting up the barriers could take up to two weeks, according to Lt. Chris Olivarez, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety.

The barriers are being deployed along a strategic 1,000-foot-long point in the Rio Grande. CNN recently reported on one local business owner’s attempt to halt their placement via a lawsuit. Abbott, for his part, promised "mile after mile" more.

The issue goes beyond affecting what an ACLU attorney called the “moral conscience of Texas.” As the suit’s plaintiff told reporters, “I know it’s a detriment to the river flow, to the ecology of the river, to the fauna and flora. Every aspect of nature is being affected when you put something that doesn’t belong in the river.”

(The buoys are designed by Cochrane USA, according to multiple sources.)

Texas continues with plans to use shipping containers as 'makeshift' border wall

2023-01-10T11:57:00-05:00

Gov. Greg Abbott announced in November that the state was moving large shipping containers to the banks of the Rio Grande near downtown El Paso — between official ports of entry — to keep out migrants [...] The Texas containers are on land managed by the International Boundary and Water Commission, the Journal noted. The binational agency enforces treaties between the nations, and evaluates various projects that could affect the Rio Grande.

Abbott’s double-down comes after an announcement from Arizona’s new Governor, Katie Hobbs, that they will dismantle their $80 million wall of shipping containers that were installed in the Colorado National Forest last year.

The plan also encroaches on lands managed by the International Boundary and Water Commission without a permit. This could potentially trigger a change in the flow of water in the Rio Grande floodplain that could cause catastrophic loss of life and other environmental damage, according to the agency.

Texas is adding shipping containers to the US-Mexico border in El Paso.

This is in addition to the razor wire and National Guard.

Together, the strategies are causing illegal immigration at that location to plummet.https://t.co/YPTJlkca5m
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) December 29, 2022

El Paso's homeless shelter system is currently overwhelmed by the influx, despite the makeshift barriers. The state's spokesperson for emergency management nevertheless told reporters ...

Suchi Reddy on the bridge between neuroaesthetics and experience

2022-03-21T12:14:00-04:00

I think of architecture as embodied art. It's about holistically experiencing our world through all of our senses, and so architecture is the perfect matrix for considering neuroaesthetics. The same parts of your brain that teach you to think about the future are the same ones that are manipulated by your experience of space. The better your space is, the better you are going to be.

The outsized impact architectural forms have on the human psyche is still a growing field of research and has been behind Suchi Reddy’s recent installations at the Salone del Mobile and Smithsonian Institution as well as her ethereal design for the first Google storefront in New York City.

The Reddymade founder also spoke about her upcoming Canadian project entitled Becoming, and why the personal experiences behind her creative process have led to similar forms of heartfelt architectonic expression.

“The work is inspired by the liminal experience of an immigrant. Tectonically expressed as an arch form, it represents both a gateway and a process of transformation. Inspired by the multi-national demographics of Surrey, I felt it was important to propose an artwork that celebrates the process of becoming oneself, expressing the transmutation of people through cultures and lands as an el...

Universities prevail, foreign students will be able to learn remotely in the US this fall

2020-07-14T15:39:00-04:00

The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have agreed to rescind a policy that would bar international students taking online-only courses from residing in the United States, federal judge Allison D. Burroughs announced at a hearing on Tuesday. ICE will revert back to the guidance it issued in March that allows students taking online courses to reside in the United States on F-1 visas.

The Harvard Crimson reports that Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California, and hundreds of other higher education institutions have successfully beaten back a draconian initiative proposed by the United States Department of Homeland Security that would have barred foreign students from remaining in residence in the United States while learning remotely.

Harvard, MIT sue Trump administration over new foreign student rules

2020-07-08T15:00:00-04:00

Following a surprise announcement that foreign students will not be allowed to remain in the United States if their colleges adopt all-online education for the coming semester, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have sued the federal government to stop the order.

The Harvard Crimson reports that the lawsuit seeks "a temporary restraining order and preliminary and permanent injunctive relief to bar the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement from enforcing federal guidelines barring international students attending colleges and universities offering only online courses from staying in the United States."

The announcement of the new federal guidelines came a day after many universities, including Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and MIT, began to announce plans for a mostly online Fall semester. It is currently unclear how the ruling will impact schools of architecture, as many of the schools Archinect has reached ...

Algorithm denies Forensic Architecture's Eyal Weizman entry into United States

2020-02-20T11:55:00-05:00

Last week Mr. Weizman confronted an unexpected mystery when he was denied a visa to enter the United States. An official at the U.S. Embassy in London told him, without elaboration, he said, that an algorithm had identified a security threat that was related to him.

According to a report by Colin Moynihan in The New York Times, Eyal Weizman, the director of research-focused investigative practice Forensic Architecture, was stopped on his way to attend the opening of the group's first American retrospective exhibition.

The exhibition, Forensic Architecture: True to Scale, is being displayed at Miami’s Museum of Art and Design.

Trump may reallocate additional $7.2 billion of military funds for border wall

2020-01-21T12:49:00-05:00

President Trump is preparing to divert an additional $7.2 billion in Pentagon funding for border wall construction this year, five times what Congress authorized him to spend on the project in the 2020 budget.

According to The Washington Post, the funding would give the government enough money to complete about 885 miles of new fencing by spring 2022, far more than the 509 miles the administration has slated for the U.S. border with Mexico. So far the Trump administration has completed 101 miles of new barriers, which is less than the promised 450 miles due for the end of the year, reports The Washington Post.

The windowless basement apartments of Queens

2019-10-24T19:32:00-04:00

In New York, hope sometimes comes at the price of the sun. The city welcomes poor immigrants, but its housing does not. Most rents are far beyond the means of people like Amado, who arrive looking for a better life or to make money to send back home. So they turn to the basements of Queens.

The New York Times has produced an interactive photo essay profiling New York City residents in the borough of Queens who live in some of the city's windowless basement apartments. The arrangement, derived out of economic necessity and rooted in a desire to stay out of sight, provides newly arrived immigrants with a much-needed (and extremely dangerous) place to get settled in America.

According to the article, there is no accurate count available detailing how many of these units exist, but estimates run into the tens of thousands.

Border wall construction begins in Arizona

2019-09-16T13:31:00-04:00

The president and his administration said last week that they plan on building between 450 and 500 miles of fencing along the nearly 2,000-mile border by the end of 2020, an ambitious undertaking funded by billions of defense dollars that had been earmarked for things like military base schools, target ranges and maintenance facilities.

The construction has commenced in Yuma, Arizona, where the 30-foot-tall fencing will replace existing shorter barriers. "The Trump administration says the wall—along with more surveillance technology, agents and lighting—is key to keeping out people who cross illegally," reports The Columbian. The administration has come under fire in recent weeks for redirecting funding previously allocated for other military projects toward the construction of the wall.

The Architecture Lobby: Boycott the design of immigration detention and deterrence infrastructure

2019-07-31T13:44:00-04:00

The Architecture Lobby and ADPSR call on all design professionals to refuse to participate in the design and construction of any immigration detention and deterrence infrastructure, including but not limited to walls, Border Patrol Stations, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offices, detention facilities, or juvenile holding centers.

The Architecture Lobby (TAL) and Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR) are calling on designers to boycott any efforts to design and construct infrastructure related to the immigration detention and deterrence.

In a statement announcing their efforts, the two organizations write, "[TAL and ADPSR] continue to condemn the current administration’s assault on immigrant rights. These violent and racist policies are designed to cause fear and chaos; target those seeking asylum and refuge; and weaponize the built environment against immigrants."

Instead of helping design detention centers and border walls, the groups call on individual designers, groups of architectural workers, design students, and entire firms to organize against the unjust policies and practices they are being asked to support and perpetuate through their work. That includes speaking out against cruel immigration policies directly to local representatives, refusing to participate in the desig...

Rhetoric aside, border wall length remains unchanged

2019-07-23T14:02:00-04:00

The Trump administration has not installed a single mile of new wall in a previously fenceless part of the U.S.-Mexico border in the 30 months since President Trump assumed office, despite his campaign promise to construct a “big beautiful wall.”

According to The Washington Examiner, while the Trump administration has replaced over 51-miles of existing border wall fencing, the administration has not actually added any new lengths of wall along the US-Mexico border.

In President Donald Trump's two years in office, the administration, according to a report from the department of Customs and Border Patrol, has installed an average 1.7-miles of barrier per month, none of it in areas that did not previously have a barrier already installed, The Washington Examiner reports.

One reason? Environmental approvals and reviews are more stringent along areas that have yet to receive wall segments.

American Institute of Architects denounces "misuse" of detention center buildings

2019-07-22T16:41:00-04:00

The American Institute of Architect (AIA) has issued a statement denouncing the inhumane conditions that have been discovered over recent weeks across the country at the detention centers where undocumented immigrants and asylum-seekers are being detained.

The conditions as described by numerous media reports and congressional fact-finding missions to detention facilities make clear that these buildings are not designed to handle the sheer numbers of people in them nor do they sustain the health, safety, and welfare of their occupants, many of whom are women and children. Above all, the misuse of these buildings and the impact on occupants in them are contrary to our values as architects and as Americans.

Pointing to the organization's Code of Ethics, AIA urges that "the built environment promotes and preserves the health, safety, and welfare of every individual, and fosters universal respect for human dignity."

In addition, AIA argues that architects are well-prepared to "promote t...

Miami's condos are going unsold

2019-07-11T20:07:00-04:00

Miami’s high-end real-estate market has drastically slowed in the past several years, as the Latin American buyers who led a frenzy of postrecession purchases have all but disappeared. South American economies that were roaring in the early years of the decade, including Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela, are now facing severe economic distress, which has devalued their currencies and left purchasers from those countries with far less buying power in the U.S.

Oversupply, the unknown threat of climate change, and shifting immigration patterns are pushing high-end condominium prices downward in Miami, where, The Wall Street Journal reports, sales have fallen off 24 percent from last year.

“There’s just an abundance of inventory,” Alexandra Peters, a Miami real estate agent, told The Wall Street Journal. She added, “there’s so much frustration. It’s hard to move properties.”

Although foreign buyers, long the backbone of Miami's high-end housing economy, are buying in fewer numbers than before, that hasn't stopped developers from building. According to the report, roughly 20,000 new units have been built or planned since the Great Recession.

Amid "concentration camp" debate, government moves migrants from Texas border site

2019-06-24T17:07:00-04:00

After the discovery of inhumane living conditions at a south Texas temporary detention facility made headlines last week, the United States Department of Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) has moved to relocate upwards of 300 detained migrant children to other sites.

The Associated Press reported last week that while lawyers with the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of California, Davis inspected the facility to assess the detention conditions at the site, they discovered children caring for other children, children who had not bathed in days, inadequate food provisions, and a collection of other standard of living violations.

Holly Cooper, co-director of the University of California, Davis’ Immigration Law Clinic, told the AP, “In my 22 years of doing visits with children in detention, I have never heard of this level of inhumanity."

According to the AP, the government allows for the children to be held by the Border Patrol for no longer than 72 hours, after which they must b...

Former Internment Camp becomes Immigrant Shelter

2019-06-12T14:11:00-04:00

The Trump Administration has opted to use an Army base in Oklahoma to hold growing numbers of immigrant children in its custody after running out of room at government shelters. Fort Sill, an 150-year-old installation once used as an internment camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II, has been selected to detain 1,400 children until they can be given to an adult relative, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

As of April 30, 2019, the department of Health and Human Services has taken 40,900 children seeking asylum into custody along the southern border, a 57% increase from 2018, according to Time.

The surge in detainees has overwhelmed existing and new temporary detention facilities in southern border states, so the department has had to make use of a variety of improvised facilities as it undertakes the lengthy, disorganized, and laborious process of reuniting these children with their family members.

That includes holding children in a repurposed former Walmart superstore in Brownsville, Texas, detaining asylum-seeking families in a makeshift, dirt-floored outdoor camp located underneath a highway overpass in El Paso, Texas, holding 1,500 migrants in a private prison in Louisiana known for documented cases of inmate abuse and medical neglect, and now, shuttling temporary detainees to Fort Sill, a military base in Oklahoma that was used during World War II as an internment camp for Ja...

US launches border wall beautification effort

2019-06-06T12:59:00-04:00

Some barriers along the southwestern border, including in Nogales, have been painted white, a color which border officials say makes it easier for them to detect migrants compared to the typical brown color.

Members of the United States military will be dispatched to border regions in California over the next month in order to apply new coats of paint to the existing US-Mexico border fence.

The effort, according to an email sent to lawmakers by the Department of Homeland Security, is being undertaken to improve the "aesthetic appearance" of the wall.

The email, CBS News reports, reads in part: "While the primary purpose is to improve the aesthetic appearance of the wall, there may also be an operational benefit based on our experience with painted barrier in Nogales, Arizona."

The United States Department of Customs and Border Protection will finance the $150,000 effort while soldiers from the Department of Defense will do the actual painting.

MAD Architects to help transform the historic Fenix warehouse in Rotterdam into a landmark for migrants

2018-11-27T09:27:00-05:00

Once the largest warehouse in the world, the Fenix building and its surrounding riverbanks in Rotterdam saw millions of European migrants leave from its embarkments. Bought this year by the arts organization Droom en Daad Foundation, the building will soon undergo a historic renovation that seeks to honor this legacy.

Today, the former Holland American Line facility houses a number of arts groups, galleries, and, an organic food court. While the ground floor will continue to host restaurants, shops and galleries—some of which will remain its current occupants—the top floor will become devoted to exhibitions that commemorate the journeys of millions of migrants, both past and present.

Concept sketch. Courtesy of MAD Architects.

It won't be a museum, insists the Foundation's leader Wim Pijbes. He told the New York Times in April that he wants to find a word "that has a kind of hybrid function, a place, a platform, an agora." As an example of what might be on display, Pijbes revealed th...

The Architecture Lobby and ADPSR take a stand against Justice Department's zero-tolerance policy, pressuring the AIA to do the same

2018-06-20T20:33:00-04:00

The Architecture Lobby and Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility have issued a joint statement condemning the Justice Department's widely criticized zero-tolerance immigration enforcement policy that has led to the separation of thousands of children from their parents as families seek asylum at the border.

"It is immoral and inhumane to separate children from their parents, and to use family separation to deter people seeking refuge or asylum. The United States must uphold international and U.S. laws protecting people fleeing violence and persecution," the statement reads.

The two organizations, which work to advance architecture by advocating for social justice reform within the field, are calling on architects, designers, planners and allied professionals to boycott any design work relating to these policies. This includes, as the statement says, walls, checkpoints, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offices, detention facilities, processing centers, and ...

Teddy Cruz: A Tale of Two Cities

2018-03-12T09:00:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by the Vilcek Foundation

When Vilcek Prizewinner Teddy Cruz first emigrated from Guatemala, he had no idea that San Diego was a border town. He did not speak English, and his relatives had warned him that going downtown would be risky and dangerous.

"It took me almost a year to exit this Truman Show," he says. He was surprised to realize that not twenty minutes away from his new home were vibrant immigrant neighborhoods along the U.S.-Mexico border, and, just on the other side of the wall, the city of Tijuana.

It was a sharp contrast to the staid, homogenous suburbs he was living in, and Teddy began to cross the border often to spend time in Tijuana. "The texture, the ruggedness, of a place like Tijuana reminded me of my own country," he says. "I think that oscillation back and forth between these very different ways of constructing cities [is] where my sensibilities began...as an architect."

That realization, however, would come years later. Teddy had im...

Will there be enough construction workers to rebuild post-flood Houston?

2017-08-29T12:44:00-04:00

Rain continues to fall in Houston, Texas, a city which may see up to 50 inches of precipitation over a span of five days thanks to the aftereffects of Hurricane Harvey. Unfortunately, the continued flooding has been exacerbated due to some decades-long, head-in-the-sand urban planning, the history of which is detailed in this comprehensive ProPublica piece. (Spoiler: it turns out paving over natural flood zones with asphalt and concrete, as well as replacing the comprehensive root systems of switchgrass with the comparatively shallow root systems of suburban lawns, gives water few places to go.)

Houston, 2017. Image: @ohcami_ via Twitter

As devastating as current conditions must be to homeowners who built in the surprisingly quick to deliver "500-Year Flood Plain," Houston's drier future isn't looking great, either. Thanks to the Trump Administration's widespread anti-immigration policy, there's likely to be a significant shortage of construction workers to rebuild the U.S.' fourth ...

Turkey completes more than half of 317 mile-long Syrian border wall

2017-02-27T19:33:00-05:00

Seeking to stem migration to Europe, the EU has remained largely silent about the wall's impact on people seeking asylum

Welcome to the age of walls.

Turkey has completed more than half of a planned 511-kilometer wall along its border with Syria. The government says it will improve security, but rights groups warn refugees fleeing war will be stuck on the Syrian side.

Turkey has erected 290 kilometers (180 miles) of a planned 511-kilometer (317 miles) "security wall" along its border with war-torn Syria, local media reported on Sunday, quoting the head of the body building the structure.

AIA officially states it is pro-immigration and travel-positive

2017-02-21T12:43:00-05:00

What would America be without immigrants? More to the point, what would architecture be without the ability for those working within it to freely travel and collaborate with (much more affordable) talent from around the world? In recognition of these facts, the AIA has released an official statement that raises concerns about broad anti-immigration policies, and confirms the institute's dedication to reciprocal "free moment and association" around the globe. Here's the full text of the press release:

As discussion on immigration continues, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) today joins with many American businesses, industries and universities in calling for fair and impartial immigration policies, and in expressing deep concern about policies that restrict immigration from specific countries or regions based on overly broad factors, including religion.

“Beyond the essential considerations of fairness and equity, restrictions targeting specific areas of the world can have prof...

“We Were Strangers Once Too”, the 2017 Times Square Valentine Heart winner, shows love to NYC's immigrants

2017-02-10T17:42:00-05:00

“We Were Strangers Once Too” by hybrid research group The Office for Creative Research reminds us yet again that immigrants make America great, and that upholding the values of showing love and respect for all is as important as ever...The [public data sculpture serves] as a small yet impactful reminder of the diverse communities that make NYC what it is.

Charles Leadbeater on the meaning of home in today's culture of rootlessness

2016-12-09T15:20:00-05:00

The tiny house is just one example of the lengths to which people will go to create a sense of home even when they lack the means for it. It’s just one symptom of a much wider and intensifying search for belonging, which makes home as important to politics as the idea of class or rights – especially now, when so many people feel displaced, both literally and figuratively, by life in innovation-driven, high-tech, networked capitalism.

Curator of MoMA's “Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Shelter" on palliative refugee architecture

2016-05-19T13:17:00-04:00

If we imagine one's escape to a refugee camp as fragmentary, provisional and incomplete, the camp must be transformed not only in design but also in its role as a catalyst for promoting the humanity of those living within its barbed-wired walls. [...] Architecture has become the litmus test of society's capacity for holistic and compassionate security.

For more on the architectural experience of refugees:

As the U.S. loses more Mexican immigrants than it gains, the construction industry must adapt

2015-11-20T19:35:00-05:00

The number of Mexican immigrants living in the U.S. illegally has declined. In 2014, 5.6 million unauthorized immigrants from Mexico lived in the U.S., down by about 1 million since 2007. [...] Mexican unauthorized immigrants are more likely than unauthorized immigrants overall to work in the construction industry ... Among Mexican unauthorized immigrants ages 16 and older who were employed in 2012, 19% worked in construction and 13% worked in a wide range of businesses

The Wall Street Journal previously reported on the trend of declining Mexican-born workers in the U.S. construction industry, leading to a total loss of half a million laborers since 2007. According to a Pew Research Study in "Hispanic Trends" from March of 2015, citing the most recent data through 2012, unauthorized immigrants account for 14% of the construction workforce overall:

Unauthorized immigrants made up 5.1% of the nation’s labor force in 2012, numbering 8.1 million who were working or looking for work, according to previously published Pew Research estimates (Passel and Cohn, 2014). But as this new analysis shows, they account for a far higher share of the total workforce in specific jobs, notably farming (26%), cleaning and maintenance (17%), and construction (14%).

Read the full report from the Pew Research Center for more information on the current state of the Mexican immigrant population in the U.S.

Monterey Park City Council adopts tougher penalties for landlords of illegal boarding homes

2015-05-12T16:06:00-04:00

Landlords of illegal boarding homes could face $1,000 fines and six months in jail under tougher enforcement regulations adopted this week by the City Council...The city has staffed a volunteer in the code enforcement office and plans to add more of them. The council unanimously voted to update regulations to say it could prosecute landlords of illegal boarding homes with an infraction or misdemeanor charge and shut the 'public nuisance' down.

"These renters said in previous interviews that they try to stay out of the limelight and cannot afford other living arrangements as they work for below minimum wage and send a large chunk of their earnings back to family in China."

A look at the growing influence of immigrants on the American housing market

2015-01-12T14:37:00-05:00

While some remain cynical about homeownership, the U.S.'s foreign-born population still regards it as a symbol of attaining the American Dream. [...] Last year, immigrant households made up 11.2 percent of owner-occupied housing according to the JCHS—that’s up from only 6.8 percent in 1994.