Archinect - News

Turkey issues arrest warrants for building designers in the wake of deadly earthquake

2023-02-13T16:42:00-05:00

Arrest warrants have been issued in Turkey in response to the devastating earthquake that killed more than 34,000 people across the shared border with Syria last Monday.

The BBC writes that a total of 113 warrants were issued to individuals within the country, reportedly including architects, engineers, and building contractors, over their supposed role in constructing the more than 25,000 buildings which failed or were damaged during the magnitude 7.8 tremor and subsequent aftershocks.

The country’s Vice President, Fuat Oktay, also announced the establishment of ten special investigative units spread throughout Turkey’s most impacted provinces. The punitive process comes after years of so-called amnesties for contractors that were granted, in some cases, to provide for housing construction in waves and most recently before the 2018 general election.

Previously on Archinect: Devastating 7.8 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria

In an essay for the Sunday Times, journalis...

Developer and architects of collapsed Taiwan apartment building arrested

2016-02-11T13:17:00-05:00

Three Taiwanese construction company executives have been detained on charges of professional negligence resulting in death following the collapse of an apartment building that killed dozens. The district prosecutor's office in the city of Tainan said [...] that Lin Ming-hui and architects Chang Kui-an and Cheng Chin-kui were suspected of having overseen shoddy construction of the 17-story Weiguan Golden Dragon building, which crashed onto its side following an earthquake Saturday.

Previously in the Archinect news: Taiwan earthquake: tin cans found as fillers may have caused high-rise to collapse

£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...

Detroit issues arrest for "vandal" Shepard Fairey

2015-07-03T12:48:00-04:00

World famous street artist Shepard Fairey - the man whose “Hope” poster massively boosted Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign – has described an attempt to arrest him by Detroit police as “hilarious” after he was commissioned to do a mural in the city. Last night authorities issued an arrest warrant for Fairey, 45, on graffiti charges with Police Sergeant Rebecca McKay issuing a statement warning: “Just because he’s a well-known artist does not take away from the fact that he is also a vandal.”

Detroit's most recent charge against Fairey is for damages amounting to $9,100, caused by nine of Fairey's works. Detroit police are asking that he turn himself in, and say that he'll be arrested should he ever return to Detroit. Fairey doesn't seem to be phased, calling the charges "hilarious". Throughout his career, Fairey has been arrested 17 times.

More accounts of so-called "vandalism", both solicited and not: