Archinect - News

Google scraps $15 billion Silicon Valley development deal with Lendlease

2023-11-06T12:28:00-05:00

Google has scrapped a $15 billion development deal that would have benefitted California’s Silicon Valley with new modern office parks, affordable housing, and mixed-use districts, according to reports published by CNN and Reuters late Friday.

The deals struck with Australian multinational Lendlease cover planned developments in and around Santa Clara County, California, including Sunnyvale and three others in San Jose and Mountain View. Google had previously announced its plans to reduce its company size by about 6% at the beginning of the year.

Both Lendlease and Google had released statements expressing their continued pursuit of the projects in April when the San Jose Downtown West development’s start of construction was put on hold indefinitely. Lendlease now says the four-year-old deal is no longer “mutually beneficial given current market conditions.”

The news strikes a major blow to the faltering...

Moody’s declares pre-1980s office buildings ‘obsolete’ due to conversion costs

2023-04-07T15:18:00-04:00

A new report from Moody’s Analytics is further dampening CRE prospects for the near future after declaring all office structures built before 1980 to be “obsolete” in terms of their abilities to lure back tenants in the face of an ongoing national downtown decline.

Speaking to MarketWatch recently, the ratings agency’s Nick Villa said buildings built before that date are obsolete because “generally speaking, if there were no significant renovations to the building, the amount of capital required to bring it 'current' and compete in today's market would be costlier.”

Cities like New York and Oklahoma City that maintain a higher share of these buildings may therefore face further economic difficulties as interest rates continue to climb and lending standards tighten.

Previously on Archinect: Zoom Town to Boom Town: North American business districts are going to evolve instead of dying off completely

The end of the pandemic has ushered in a new era of office design, with many new const...

The Silicon Valley Bank crash may carry huge implications for affordable housing development in Boston

2023-03-24T17:27:00-04:00

The fallout from the recent failure of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) is having wide-reaching effects across the country. Take Boston, for example, where advocates for multiple in-progress affordable housing developments are concerned about their future following the bank's collapse.

The Boston Globe is reporting on the underpinnings of their dilemma, which concerns the future of the bank's over $1.6 billion worth of investments in the city.

The now-dissolved SVB had purchased the previously-fledgling entity known as Boston Private Bank in 2021, leaving many of its nonprofit clients vulnerable in the wake of the failure. Boston just unveiled its plan to add some 803 units through a $67 million investment, but the 600 or more units derived from projects that were underwritten by SVB remain on precarious footing in spite of several reassurances and the recent FDIC intervention.

The ABI reports demand for design services declined again in February for the fifth consecutive month

2023-03-22T18:32:00-04:00

The latest data from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) has shown a decline for the industry in February, bolstering a downward economic swing that has lasted through the new year as the prospect of a recession grows ever closer.

The Architecture Billings Index (ABI) for the month was at 48.0, down slightly from the 49.3 figure that was recorded for January. New project inquiries did increase, however, along with the overall value of new design contracts. The AIA says these both provide indicators as to improve business performance over the coming months.

With the negative figure (only scores above 50 are considered positive) the ABI has now posted declines from the previous month five times in a row.

February ABI Highlights

Regional averages: West (50.4); Midwest (48.8); Northeast (48.4); South (47.3)
Sector index breakdown: mixed practice (57.0); institutional (46.9); commercial/industrial (45.8); multi-family residential (46.2)

“The combination of an unsettled economy and ...

August's Architecture Billings Index shows an accelerated increase in demand as economic concerns widen

2022-09-22T18:15:00-04:00

An increase in the overall demand for design services has been recorded for the 19th consecutive month, according to statistics contained in the August Architecture Billings Index (ABI) published this week by the American Institute of Architects (AIA). The ABI score is now up to 53.3, representing a 2.3 point increase from July’s recorded 51.0 figure.

The increase was driven by new project inquiries, which rose to 57.9 from 56.1 in July despite a registered decrease in the design contracts score to 52.3 from last month’s peak 52.9. Given the parameters of the survey (any score above 50 indicates an increase), the findings indicate an overall positive trajectory for the design industry nationwide.

August ABI Highlights

Regional averages: South (52.9); Midwest (51.4); West (50.2); Northeast (49.8)
Sector index breakdown: multi-family residential (52.0); institutional (52.0); commercial/industrial (51.2); mixed practice (51.2)

“While a strengthening billings score is encouraging, the fl...

Dodge Momentum Index builds on 14-year high with slight jump in July figures

2022-08-08T10:00:00-04:00

The Dodge Momentum Index hit a 14-year high in June and recorded another 2.9% increase in July. The index now stands at 178.7, up from June’s figure of 173.6.

“Commercial planning in July was led by an increase in data center, office and warehouse projects, while fewer education and healthcare projects drove the institutional component lower,” the latest report reads. “Compared to July 2021, the Momentum Index was 8%. The commercial component was 15% higher, while the institutional component was 3% lower than a year ago.”

Graphic: Dodge Construction Network

The index mentioned 14 projects carrying values of $100 million or more being recorded in July. Among them, new projects in Sacramento, Miami, and suburban D.C. were the biggest commercial heavy hitters. Three institutional projects, including Blair + Mui Dowd’s $500 million Vanderbilt University Medical Center expansion, also topped the $100 million threshold.

Dodge Construction Network has said it will watch closely to see if t...

Contractors petition Biden to ease rising lumber costs

2021-02-25T11:45:00-05:00

Following the sudden, dramatic price spikes on an array of building materials in 2021, the Associated General Contractors of America has appealed to President Joe Biden to take action to ease the skyrocketing cost of lumber.

According to Construction Dive, "AGC CEO Stephen Sandherr asked Biden to urge domestic lumber producers to ramp up production to address growing shortages, as well as to make the crafting of a new softwood lumber agreement with Canada a top priority of his administration."

Archinect presents Next Up: Floating Worlds at the Neutra VDL on Saturday, March 4!

2017-02-16T12:15:00-05:00

We don’t draft designs in a void and cities don’t spring straight from our imaginations. Architecture is itself a designed object, circumscribed and delimited by the social, political, and economic conditions of the era. But, likewise, these conditions aren’t exactly natural—they’re designed by a host of actors and forces. For a new generation of architects, the most-pressing design challenge of the twentieth century isn’t to create new forms, but to re-design the architecture of architecture, itself. And, the first step in this process, like with any project, is visualization.

For the fourth iteration of Archinect’s live podcasting series Next Up, we’re taking a look at potential roles for architecture in the contemporary neoliberal political economy, with a focus on issues pertaining to gender and identity. In a sense, what we’re looking at is how architecture is itself designed—and, specifically, how we can redesign the systems in which it is enmeshed. In what ways are people cha...

With Trump's Presidency dawning, the final Jane Jacobs work "Dark Age Ahead" wins new relevancy

2016-12-27T18:12:00-05:00

At a time when pundits and political scientists were celebrating the end of history, pointing to an emerging Democratic majority and extolling the virtues of a flat world of globalization, she ominously predicted a coming age of urban crisis, mass amnesia, and populist backlash in her final work, Dark Age Ahead. Eerily prescient as always, rereading the 2005 book today serves as a survivors’ guide to the Age of Trump.

"Jacobs outlines an increasing distrust of politicians and politics, a burgeoning new urban crisis in cities, worsening environmental degradation, entrenched segregation, and an “enlarging gulf between rich and poor along with attrition of the middle class” as signals and symptoms of a coming Dark Age."

The US housing market is "the planet's biggest concentration of financial risk"

2016-08-18T19:58:00-04:00

WHAT are the most dysfunctional parts of the global financial system? China’s banking industry, you might say, with its great wall of bad debts and state-sponsored cronyism. Or the euro zone’s taped-together single currency, which stretches across 19 different countries, each with its own debts and frail financial firms. Both are worrying. But if sheer size is your yardstick, nothing beats America’s housing market.

It is the world’s largest asset class, worth $26 trillion, more than America’s stockmarket. The slab of mortgage debt lurking beneath it is the planet’s biggest concentration of financial risk.

For more on the state of the US housing market, check out these links:

Will Brexit kill £405B worth of infrastructure projects?

2016-08-03T19:57:00-04:00

Prime Minister Theresa May recently announced that the newly-formed government will delay making any decisions about building a major nuclear power plant—the first in a generation—until the fall.

Economists reacted with alarm to the announcement, according to Bloomberg, since the deferral raises doubts about the future of £405 billion worth of infrastructural projects. The infrastructural projects would both improve productivity and provide much-needed economic stimulation as the country faces the possibility of a major recession.

Before the UK’s vote to leave the European Union, the UK planned major energy and infrastructure projects meant to improve the country’s crumbling infrastructure. These included a high-speed rail from London to northern England and a major expansion of either Heathrow or Gatwick airports’ capacity.

Some economists question whether the UK could afford these projects at all, as the country’s economy and credit rating remain uncertain following Brexit. Still, sp...

US construction spending falls for second month in a row

2016-07-01T13:01:00-04:00

According to a report from Reuters, construction spending fell in American for the second month in a row, following a steep 2% drop in April. April's drop was the largest since January 2011.

The US Commerce Department states that May construction spending dropped 0.8%. The drop indicates that "the growth outlook is still mixed as the effects of Britain's decision to leave the European Union become more apparent."

"Private construction spending fell by 0.3 percent after a downwardly revised 1.9 percent fall in April," Reuters reports.

Public spending dropped 2.3%, primarily in state and local projects, which account for the largest segment of public sector construction spending. Meanwhile, federal construction spending rose 7.5%.

For more economic updates, check out some recent news stories:

Connectivity matters most in global urban economic growth

2016-04-22T13:57:00-04:00

Cities are mankind’s most enduring and stable mode of social organization, outlasting all empires and nations over which they have presided...it is not population or territorial size that drives world-city status, but economic weight, proximity to zones of growth, political stability, and attractiveness for foreign capital. In other words, connectivity matters more than size. Cities thus deserve more nuanced treatment on our maps than simply as homogeneous black dots.

Global strategist Parag Khanna gives his outlook on the economic future of the world's megacities.

More on Archinect:

Connectivity, not territory: why we need to make a new map for the US

How neoliberalism is changing us (for the worse)

These are the most economically distressed cities in the United States

Beijing's challenges to become the center of Jing-Jin-Ji — a supercity of 130 million people

How neoliberalism is changing us (for the worse)

2016-04-21T12:50:00-04:00

We tend to perceive our identities as stable and largely separate from outside forces. But over decades of research and therapeutic practice, I have become convinced that economic change is having a profound effect not only on our values but also on our personalities. Thirty years of neoliberalism, free-market forces and privatisation have taken their toll, as relentless pressure to achieve has become normative.

"If you’re reading this sceptically, I put this simple statement to you: meritocratic neoliberalism favours certain personality traits and penalises others."

In this op-ed, Paul Verhaeghe asserts that neoliberalism has weakened social ties and pitted workers against one another in a constant struggle to become "successful." In the process, we've started to develop personality traits that resemble a checklist of psychopathy characteristics.

Neoliberalism's effects aren't confined to the workplace, but rather extend into the urban fabric. Read more:

Experimenting with a universal basic income in Nairobi

2016-04-19T14:56:00-04:00

In the old days of policymaking by aphorism—give a man a fish, feed him for a day!—simply handing money to the poor was considered an obviously bad idea. How naïve—you can’t just give people money. They’ll stop trying! They’ll just get drunk! The underlying assumption was that the poor weren’t good at making decisions for themselves: Experts had to make the decisions for them. As it turns out, that assumption was wrong.

"[...] GiveDirectly, has decided to try to permanently end extreme poverty across dozens of villages and thousands of people in Kenya by guaranteeing them an ongoing income high enough to meet their basic needs—a universal basic income, or basic income guarantee."

[Update: according to GiveDirectly, while their pilot project will likely be in East Africa, near their current projects, it will not be in Nairobi.]

For more on the growing conversation around universal basic incomes, check out past Archinect coverage:

A day in the life of a (fictional) architecture intern

2016-04-06T13:50:00-04:00

7:31 am Ugh, forgot I’m working for a dude. 7:34 am I wonder if the dude has a family. 7:36 am Weird how I know all the female architects’ parental statuses but I don’t know the dudes’. 7:37 am I should stop referring to GREATEST ARCHITECT OF ALL TIME as “dude,” even in my head. Begin referring to him as GOAT. (Greatest Of All Time.) 8:00 am Why is the subway late? Should I walk? If I walk I’m gonna get sweaty.

While this fictional young architecture intern may confuse pandas with penumbras, she doesn't seem to have any problems affording her new internship for the "Greatest Architect of All Time."

That's not the case for all interns, however. For a look at the economics of interning in 2016, check out The internship test or: why even become an architect at all?

And for even more on architecture internships, here's some more Archinect coverage:

These are the most economically distressed cities in the United States

2016-03-01T17:52:00-05:00

While cities like Dallas and San Francisco have rebounded strongly since the recession, many other places are still struggling for economic growth and prosperity. As time goes on, we're seeing a divergence between successful parts of the country and the non-successful parts. More than 50 million Americans live in "distressed" ZIP codes, according to a new report from the Economic Innovation Group, a Washington D.C. think-tank.

"These areas—largely concentrated in the South, Southwest, and the Rust Belt—are suffering a "recovery gap" driven by low home investment, shuttering businesses, and poor job opportunities."

According to the report, economic opportunities are intimately tethered to geography in the United States. In turn, the regions most susceptible to job loss remain those with a history of financial woes, in particular former manufacturing hubs.

The report ranked cities based on economic indications such as the percentage of the population with a high school degree; housing vacancy rates; unemployment rates among adults; poverty rates; median income rations; percent changes in the number of available jobs; and percent changes in the number of businesses.

Here are the 10 most "distressed" cities in the United States:

1. Cleveland, Ohio

2. Detroit, Michigan

3. Newark, New Jersey

4. Toledo, Ohio

5. San Bernardino, California

6. Stockton, California

7. Milwaukee, Wisconsin

8. Buffalo, New York

9. ...

Barcelona plans shakedown scheme against unlicensed Airbnb apartments to curb tourism boom

2015-08-19T15:07:00-04:00

People caught running unlicensed apartments through websites will be offered the chance to have 80% of their fine canceled if they allow the city council to use the apartment as social accommodation for three years...When the three years are up the landlord [can] either pay off the fine through his or her own funds and reclaim possession of the apartment or continue offering the property as social accommodation until the council receives the equivalent of full payment of the fine.

More on Archinect:

Airbnb now open for business in Cuba, despite anemic internet access

Airbnb rentals cut deep into San Francisco housing stock, report says

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

Airbnb celebrates London's Deregulation Act with floating house on River Thames

Archinect's Lexicon: "Dark Tourism"

Venice Beach's ongoing grapple with the tech titan invasion

2015-08-11T21:20:00-04:00

Slapped in the face is exactly how many Venetians are feeling by the tidal wave of new money. And the local tech boom, prompting 'Silicon Beach' references around town, is just one source of it

More on Archinect:

The rise and spectacular fall of Venice Beach's Pacific Ocean Park

Are apps the virtual gateway to physical gentrification?

Oren Safdie's play "False Solution" finishes up its 3-week run this weekend in Santa Monica

Those hipster millennials might not be the true gentrifiers of U.S. neighborhoods

In weaker market, architecture firms in China are cutting back

2015-08-11T13:31:00-04:00

After a boom in construction and investment in real estate projects in recent years, work is drying up amid a slowdown in the world’s second largest economy. Property developers are cutting back on new projects, and with construction starts down 16% in the first half this year from a year ago, many firms are cutting salaries or letting staff go. [...] “We are adjusting to a slower pace of urbanization in China with a recovery of the American and Middle East markets”

More from the architecture market in China:

Will Rio's Olympic venues be ready in time for the 2016 Games?

2015-08-06T10:19:00-04:00

'When these [2007 Pan Am] venues were built the government told Brazilians that these would be Olympic-ready, and there would be a rather smooth and efficient transition to eventually hosting the Olympics,' explained Rio-based reporter Taylor Barnes...'But, these venues have instead had some pretty checkered after-lives.'

Despite a murky past of broken promises in addition to recent water-safety concerns and rampant economic turmoil, Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes claims construction of the venues are on schedule and will be delivered on time for the 2016 Olympics -- which will begin one year from now. Public Radio International interviews Rio-based reporter Taylor Barnes, who gives a glimpse into the reality of the situation.

More Olympic news on Archinect:

Boston backs out of 2024 Olympics bid

Toronto ventures into sixth bid to host Olympic Games

Zaha Hadid reportedly not giving up on Tokyo stadium plans

Zaha's Tokyo Olympic Stadium cancelled – Abe calls for a redesign from scratch

Cities don't see much economic gain from sports stadiums, says Stanford economist

2015-07-31T13:47:00-04:00

When an NFL team wants to build a new stadium, it often argues that the facility would boost the local economy. But that is not true, says Roger Noll, a Stanford professor emeritus in economics. [...] "NFL stadiums do not generate significant local economic growth, and the incremental tax revenue is not sufficient to cover any significant financial contribution by the city," said Noll, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.

In Chicago, forming economically integrated suburbs is more complex than it looks

2015-07-20T15:37:00-04:00

Housing advocates have long debated the merits of moving low-income families from high-poverty urban areas to suburbs like Glenview. The move can be challenging for families, who leave behind family and friends and enter a new, affluent world. But the research is increasingly conclusive: Living in a 'good' zip code dramatically improves kids’ chances of going to college, getting a good job, and escaping poverty.

More on Archinect:

Chicago to offer $5-per-year bike shares to low-income residents

New Urbanism takes over Chicago’s suburbs

Chicago's iconic Marina City could be headed for landmark status

Locals welcome The 606, a.k.a. Chicago's "High Line", but anxiety for its future remains

Sarah Herda, co-director of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, on establishing "the city as the site"

Will Philadelphia Ever Be Home to a Middle Class?

2014-08-19T20:21:00-04:00

Recent research by Pew showed that half of the 20- to 34-year-olds polled did not expect to be living in [Philadelphia] in five to 10 years, largely because of concerns about education and career opportunities (the ones that never knock). I love Philadelphia, it has become my home. But what will happen if the bulk of today’s middle class follows their parents and trickles out to the suburbs?

Chinese Museum-building Boom Slightly Slows

2014-07-16T15:33:00-04:00

As money has piled up in recent decades, Chinese are turning to culture and the country is in a museum-building boom. Last year one museum was built every day on average, though the rush has since “slowed” to about one every three days, says Cathy Giangrande, co-author with Miriam Clifford and Antony White of the “Chinese Museums Association Guide,” an updated version of their 2009 book “China: Museums.”

More roads won't ease traffic, but charging drivers more at peak hours will

2014-06-17T15:40:00-04:00

You can’t build your way out of congestion. It’s the roads themselves that cause traffic. The concept is called induced demand, which is economist-speak for when increasing the supply of something (like roads) makes people want that thing even more. [...] What [economists] Turner and Duranton (and many others who’d like to see more rational transportation policy) actually advocate is known as congestion pricing. This means raising the price of driving on a road when demand is high.