Archinect - News

Two convicted for unlicensed construction on "hundreds of homes" in California

2019-11-21T17:00:00-05:00

Authorities in southern California have said two residents were convicted of more than 200 felony counts each after falsifying documents and conducting fraudulent construction projects on hundreds of homes. ...47-year-old Wilfrido Rodriguez of Downey and 45-year-old Ruben Gutierrez of Huntington Beach were convicted Wednesday after a civil engineering firm called into question the structural integrity of hundreds of homes.

According to The San Diego Union-Tribune, "Authorities say Palos Verdes Engineering Company contacted police suspecting two former employees were responsible for projects across 56 cities in Los Angeles, Ventura, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties."

Driver's license photos of Ruben Gutierrez (left) and Wilfrido Rodriguez, released by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Archinect covered the onset of the scandal last year, reporting that Rodriguez faces up to 152 years in a state prison, while Gutierrez faces a possible maximum sentence of 105 years in prison."

Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 27.

The photographer turned (unlicensed) architect

2017-04-07T12:23:00-04:00

A self-described “unlicensed architect” who splits his time between Tokyo and New York, [Hiroshi] Sugimoto has brought his monastic Modernist aesthetic to life through the firm New Material Research Laboratory, which he co-founded with the architect Tomoyuki Sakakida in 2008. “Most of my ideas are illegal,” says Sugimoto, who considers it Sakakida’s job “to make it look like it’s legal.”

A photograph by Sugimoto. Credit: Hiroshi Sugimoto

College wins $5.5MM lawsuit against firm for use of unlicensed architects

2015-05-26T13:25:00-04:00

The community college had sued architectural and design firm Burt Hill Inc., now known as Stantec Architecture and Engineering LLC, for using unlicensed architects with no higher-education project experience and interns from Drexel University after being promised services from "senior-level" professionals [...] Additionally, the community college claimed Burt Hill caused delays in the project and upped the final price of construction by over 50 percent from $28 million to $42 million.