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Your next job could be designing federal government buildings at SOM

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

Following last week’s look at an opening for Visiting Faculty Fellowships in Design for Spatial Justice at the University of Oregon, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for a Technical Architect - US Government Work at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

The role, based in Washington, D.C., calls for an individual “responsible for the technical innovation, integration, documentation, and execution of the architectural and engineering design intent.” Among the responsibilities for the role will be contributing technical innovations to aid the design process, reviewing applicable codes, and tracking metrics such as energy, water, and carbon use in projects.

Related on Archinect: SOM shares photos of new John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center in Cambridge. Image: © Dave Burk/SOM

Why the role interests us

The open role at SOM offers us the opportunity to highlight some of the significant recent developments reporte...

US Government to expand Historic Tax Credits

2019-06-11T09:55:00-04:00

The legislation would bring more value to historic tax credits and improve access to the credit and investment for smaller rehabilitation projects. The legislation was introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressmen Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Darin LaHood (R-PA), Terri Sewell (D-AL) and Mike Kelly (R-PA). Senate introduction of similar legislation is expected within the next few weeks.

Efforts to expand the Historic Tax Credit (HTC) program have earned bipartisan support in the United States House of Representatives, where last month Congress members Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Darin LaHood (R-PA), Terri Sewell (D-AL) and Mike Kelly (R-PA) introduced the Historic Tax Credit growth and Opportunity Act (HTC-GO).

HTC-GO promises to "bring more value" to the nation's historic renovation projects by pursuing five interrelated improvements that include increasing the overall HTC from 20 to 30 percent for projects that incur rehabilitation expenses below $2.5 million and allowing nonprofits greater flexibility in partnering with developers on HTC projects.

The changes would also eliminate an exiting tax penalty on projects that use the HTC by no longer requiring building owners to subtract the amount of credits earned from a building's taxable property value. The measure would also make it easier for building owners to meet the "substantial rehabilitation" standard that op...

Is a decline in U.S. government spending hurting infrastructure?

2018-09-10T16:14:00-04:00

In the second quarter of this year, investment spending by the federal government dropped below 1.4 percent of gross domestic product for the first time since the 1940s, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. OK, at 1.397 percent, it wasn’t much below, and federal government investment as a share of GDP isn’t exactly a closely watched economic indicator. But the decline through the decades is still pretty striking...

Justin Fox tracks the decline in U.S. government spending over the years, noting infrastructure investments have largely been replaced with spending on social insurance programs. With private investors taking the lead, Fox argues U.S. infrastructure suffers as there are many vital projects which private investors will never touch.

NEH announces $13.2 million in grants for cultural infrastructure

2018-08-10T18:04:00-04:00

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has just announced $13.2 million in grants for cultural infrastructure. 29 U.S. cultural institutions were awarded with matching grants including libraries, museums, archives, colleges, universities, historic sites, scholarly associations, and other cultural institutions which build institutional capacity for long-term sustainability. The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation was among those awarded, receiving a grant of $576,106.

Betsy DeVos’s summer home resides in McMansion Hell

2018-08-09T14:16:00-04:00

Two weeks ago, somebody untied Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s $40 million yacht from its mooring. It got me thinking about another opulent display of wealth owned by DeVos: her 22,000-square-foot nautical-themed summer mansion, located in Holland, Michigan. Just a few more years of climate change and it’ll be floating too.

Kate Wagner critiques Betsy DeVos’s Michigan summer mansion on her humor blog McMansion Hell. Wagner unpacks not only the architectural design but also the greater social implications of why the education secretary's McMansion is so horrendous. The essay is dedicated to "all of the public school teachers who taught [Wagner] how to write".

Betsy DeVos's summer home on McMansion Hell. Image: Kate Wagner/Advance Media/Barcroft Images.

Betsy DeVos's summer home on McMansion Hell. Image: Kate Wagner/Pricey Pads.

Vienna leads globally in affordable housing and quality of life

2018-07-25T15:05:00-04:00

With its affordable and attractive places to live, the Austrian capital is fast becoming the international gold standard when it comes to public housing, or what Europeans call “social housing” ― in Vienna’s case, government-subsidized housing rented out by the municipality or nonprofit housing associations. Unlike America’s public housing projects, which remain unloved and underfunded...

In Vienna 62% of its citizens reside in public housing, standing in stark contrast with less than 1% living in US social housing. The Austrian capital boasts regulated rents and strongly protects tenant's rights, while US public housing functions as a last resort for low-income individuals. Earlier this year Vienna was listed at the top of Mercer's Quality of Living Ranking, beating every city in the world for the ninth year in a row. Needless to say US cities have much to learn from Vienna's urban housing model.

Trump considers tent cities to house unaccompanied migrant children

2018-06-13T19:29:00-04:00

The Trump administration is looking to build tent cities at military posts around Texas to shelter the increasing number of unaccompanied migrant children being held in detention. The Department of Health and Human Services will visit Fort Bliss, a sprawling Army base near El Paso in the coming weeks to look at a parcel of land where the administration is considering building a tent city to hold between 1,000 and 5,000 children...

Over 11,200 migrant children are held without a parent or guardian by The Office of Refugee Resettlement at HHS who oversees around 100 shelters. As these shelters fill up with children separated from their parents, the Trump administration considers building tent cities to accommodate this rapidly increasing population who await processing.

Former Texas Governor Rick Perry nominated as Secretary of U.S. Department of Energy

2016-12-15T12:29:00-05:00

President-elect Donald Trump has added another name to his cabinet: former Texas Governor Rick Perry will head the U.S. Department of Energy. The announcement has drawn mixed responses. The oil and gas industry, on the one hand, welcomed the fossil fuel industry-friendly climate change skeptic, and immediately requested that he support increases in natural gas exports. On the other hand, environmentalists and others concerned with accelerating global warming found the choice worrisome, to say the least. A few years ago, Perry proposed abolishing the department altogether, although he also forgot its name once during a debate in a notorious gaffe.

The nomination is the latest addition of an oil industry-friendly climate change skeptic to the cabinet, following the selection of Exxon Mobil Corp’s CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a major opponent of climate change mitigation efforts, as head of the EPA.

Besides managing energy-related re...

Trump nominates Elaine Chao for Secretary of Transportation

2016-11-30T14:40:00-05:00

Mr. Trump...has said that infrastructure redevelopment will be a priority of his first 100 days in office. And Ms. Chao has experience — politically and personally — in navigating the competing centers of power in the capital...But now that she is in line for a prominent position in Mr. Trump’s cabinet, it is her own ties to business that are likely to come under scrutiny. As labor secretary, she faced criticism that her department favored business and was lax on enforcement and worker safety.

DC in grid lock after unexpected Metro shutdown

2016-03-16T13:39:00-04:00

After officials announced that Metro, Washington’s subway system, would be shut down for 29 hours, riders began preparations for another problematic travel day in a city already well known for its cramped and sometimes dangerous train commutes. The controlled chaos began early Wednesday and will continue until 5 a.m. Thursday, affecting 91 Metro stations that provide 700,000 rides each day in the city and its suburbs.

DC residents took to Twitter and other social media to voice their frustration with the unexpected shutdown, which was prompted by an emergency inspection of some 600 electrical cables.

Residents have been left to face grueling traffic, delayed buses, or surge-priced Ubers. The Department of Transportation offered free, 24-hour use of Capital Bikeshare bike.

For other infrastructure news, take a look at some past articles: