Archinect - News

Final report into Grenfell Tower fire says architect 'bears a very significant degree of responsibility for the disaster'

2024-09-04T11:46:00-04:00

Over seven years after fire engulfed London’s Grenfell Tower killing 72 people, a public inquiry into the disaster has released its final report. The Grenfell Inquiry’s report has uncovered a chain of failures across government and the private sector, including an architecture firm, beginning a full 25 years before the 2017 fire. The report ultimately found that all 72 deaths were avoidable.

The 1,700-page report, which brings to a close the six-year public inquiry, said that cladding products were “by far the largest contributor” to the fire and that the product manufacturers had engaged in “systemic dishonesty” using “deliberate and sustained strategies” to make their products safe.

U.S. manufacturer Arconic, whose cladding panels were used on the tower’s exterior, were found to have “deliberately concealed” safety risks. While fire tests Arconic commissioned showed the cladding performed poorly, such information was not given to a key British certification company.

An additional ...

East London blaze reignites cladding fears as Grenfell investigation grinds on

2024-08-26T18:34:00-04:00

More than 80 people had to be evacuated after a major fire broke out in east London early Monday, fire officials said. The blaze brought back painful memories of the Grenfell Tower fire that killed 72 people in the city in 2017. The Dagenham building had “a number of fire safety issues” officials said. Notably, the mixed-use building had “noncompliant cladding,” according to a 2023 application for construction work.

Responding to the Dagenham fire, the Times reported Grenfell United as saying, "This highlights the painfully slow progress of remediation across the country, and a lack of urgency for building safety as a whole." In a truly painful precursor, the yearslong criminal inquiry into the deadly 2017 fire is expected to release its final report in less than two weeks. The Times cited a separate government source in claiming there are currently 3,280 buildings over three stories in the UK thought to still have unsafe cladding.

Criminal charges stemming from the Grenfell incident won't be brought against defendants until at least late 2026, according to the most recent update. Another Monday fire was also widely covered in the nearby New Providence Wharf Estate, though no injuries were reported.

Faced with looming condo safety reforms, Florida frets a new real estate 'crisis'

2024-08-19T18:28:00-04:00

Post-Champlain Towers South tragedy condo building crackdowns are coming and now Florida could be facing its biggest real estate “crisis” in decades, NBC reports. Prices have dipped nearly 40% in some areas after a rash of new laws offloaded proactive maintenance costs onto the HOAs, triggering a simultaneous gold rush for redevelopments and subsequent preservation fight statewide.

One concerned Floridian told the network it added to her personal cost of living concerns (“Every penny I make goes towards that concrete restoration.”) In some cases, the cost of repairs has been reported at northwards of $100,000 per unit. Three-quarters of all condo dwellers in the state now inhabit structures that are more than 30 years old. As NBC says, these are the “last bastions of relatively affordable housing along Florida’s coastline.“

Post-Surfside safety precautions could spur a new gold rush to replace aging Florida condo buildings

2024-07-30T16:49:00-04:00

Regulations passed in Florida after the 2021 collapse of the Champlain Towers condominium have helped fuel the drive by developers to buy out and replace older residential buildings. The new rules have increased costs for residents in many older buildings, sometimes requiring sizeable special assessments that may be unaffordable.

The rush to improve building safety in the wake of the 2021 Surfside condo collapse has since produced some unintended and expensive consequences for residents of Florida condominiums, three-quarters of whom live in structures that are now more than 30 years old.

While the laws’ intent is to protect their lives and property, the costs offloaded onto them through their condo associations have fueled a separate gold rush on the part of developers (who were already looking to take advantage of the new Resiliency and Safe Structures Act to make way for more lucrative new constructions). The court ruling in the Biscayne 21 case, if upheld, might now be the only thing preventing the mass-scale redevelopment of the many peers of Champlain Towers South, regardless of their current structural integrity.

Burning down the house to make American homes disaster-proof

2024-07-21T11:00:00-04:00

Last year's devastating wildfires in California and Hawaii once again came into focus as part of a New York Times exposé on the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (I.B.H.S.)-led movement towards the “biggest overhaul of building standards in more than 30 years.”

Burn demonstrations help visualize protective interventions that best resemble moats in unison with better building materials. The Times says: “The message to homebuilders is stark: Homes in certain parts of the United States must now be constructed with wildfires in mind, or they most likely will not be insured, which would mean they couldn’t be bought with a mortgage.”

Landscape designers as well as architects working on private residences will be equally affected. The MIT Technology Review wrote more extensively on the subject of design and the disaster-proof home in California last April.

Just under a quarter of all UK high-rises with 'dangerous' cladding have been remediated, new report finds

2024-06-21T14:10:00-04:00

Just under one in four high-rise UK residential structures in need of cladding remediation have had the necessary labor performed despite a previous increase in efforts in the wake of the ongoing inquiry into the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire, according to a new report from the government office Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities’ (DLUHC).

Construction News has the latest on the concerning lack of progress backtracking throughout the country's building and construction industry, where now just 1,088 of the 4,374 identified have completed their necessary remediations. (Another 2,066 buildings have begun the process overall). That includes just 40% of the 1,974 all social housing buildings in the country. The news comes a month following our last update into the investigation, which likely won't begin criminal proceedings against any of the defendants until 2027.

As was reported elsewhere, the inquiry’s final report is expected to be published on September 4th of this yea...

Arup publishes new guide to fire safety and mass timber design

2024-06-10T13:19:00-04:00

Arup has just released a new comprehensive guide to fire safety design and mass timber construction for architects in response to the nascent surge of projects utilizing the material nationwide. The guide (which is available for download here) coalesced research into the design and engineering of large-scale structures such as the firm’s two-year-old HAUT residential project in the Netherlands as a means of granting “risk-based” guidance for future building endeavors, providing strategies for construction in three typologies.

It follows a set of seismic safety tests that were performed last year by scientists at the University of California, San Diego, and will be useful going forward as now mass timber structures begin to substantially increase both their heights and overall footprint worldwide. Another guide to mass timber construction from LEVER Architecture and Atelier Ten can be found here.

Grenfell fire inquiry won't produce criminal charges until at least 2026, investigators say

2024-05-24T12:30:00-04:00

No criminal charges will be filed against defendants in the ongoing Grenfell Tower fire investigation until at least late 2026, according to the latest from the BBC and other UK outlets. London's Metropolitan Police and Crown Prosecution Service, which is responsible for administering criminal punishments, cited the "scale and complexity" of the investigation as the reason for the delay. A number of subcontractors and contractors, including the cladding manufacturer Arconic, are the subjects of the criminal inquiry.

Kingspan, the insulation makers for the tower, have settled out of court for £150 million ($191 million USD). The BBC says: "The delay announced today means it is likely no defendants will appear in court until 2027, if there are prosecutions. The public inquiry into the fire is expected to publish its final report in the summer or autumn of this year."

Lizard tails are effective at producing building collapse prevention strategies, Spanish scientists find

2024-05-20T19:30:00-04:00

A group of researchers from the Polytechnic University of Valencia say they have discovered a means for protecting buildings from structural collapse. In a new set of building science experiments conducted in June 2023, they carefully studied animal neurobiology.

El País tells us: “The team of scientists and engineers has devised a hierarchy-based collapse isolation system, the key to which lies in the implementation of structural fuses, which allow the building to be segmented in the event of a failure. According to Adam, this design philosophy is similar to fuse-based protection of electrical networks. His technique has been validated by a test on a real building — 15 by 12 meters in plan, with two 2.6-meter-high floors — using prefabricated reinforced concrete. It is the first solution of its kind to be tested and verified at full scale.”

The Endure project recently made the cover of the journal Nature. Engineering professor Antoni Cladera (who did not participate in the study) t...

Miami Beach preservationists sound the alarm over concerning new building safety law

2024-03-26T15:04:00-04:00

The New York Times has picked a side in the fight between Miami Beach historic preservation advocates and developers supporting the recently signed Resiliency and Safe Structures Act, a law those in the former category claim will augment a devastating erasure of the local architecture character over time.

The rift that has for years played out amidst a backdrop that includes the tragedy at Surfside and a spate of new starchitect-designed developments on the nine-mile island has recent salients in the demolished Deauville Beach Hotel and the yet-decided fate of Miami Marine Stadium.

Advocates say the new law is a guise that uses climate change and building safety as its premise to usher in what is, in reality, a slate of insidious and destructive requirements. The Commercial Observer said they also work to "hamstring the powers of municipalities to dictate what can replace demolished structures."

'Grenfell: in the words of survivors' play comes to New York this spring

2024-03-21T13:36:00-04:00

A new dramatization of the deadly 2017 Grenfell Tower tragedy is being staged next month at the St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, New York, after traveling from the National Theatre in London, where it premiered last summer.

Playwright Gillian Slovo’s interviews with survivors are the basis for the play’s verbatim dialog. Directors Phyllida Lloyd and Anthony Simpson-Pike will reprise their roles for the four-week run, beginning an opening night performance on April 13th.

A July review of the first adaptation from The Guardian called it “a masterpiece of forensic fury.” The New York Times’ Alex Marshall wrote about the play's proselytizing effects, framing it as a democratic and justice-driven “call for change.”

The aftermath of the blaze that claimed the lives of 72 people has indeed led to several proactive reforms, including a recent mandate concerning cladding remediation and the appointment of a new building safety regulator. Potential criminal charges stemming from the London Me...

EPA bans the last commercially used asbestos product in the United States

2024-03-20T11:49:00-04:00

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it will be banning the use of chrysotile asbestos, the last commercial asbestos derivative available in the United States. The ban will primarily impact the automotive industry and puts an end to the 40-plus years of reforms against its use, which has for a long time been proven to cause multiple forms of cancer.

In a statement on the ban, EPA Administrator Michael Regan told reporters: "The science is clear — asbestos is a known carcinogen that has severe impacts on public health. President Biden understands that this concern that has spanned generations and impacted the lives of countless people. That’s why EPA is so proud to finalize this long-needed ban on ongoing uses of asbestos."

CNN noted that the chrysotile type of asbestos is most commonly used to manufacture car brakes and linings and other automotive p...

Preliminary NIST report on Surfside condo investigation details key flaws that factored into building's collapse

2024-03-12T14:41:00-04:00

Preliminary details from the ongoing National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) investigation into the deadly 2021 collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium building in Florida were shared recently, revealing evidence that supports theories about the precise source of its structural failure and other prevailing factors.

Among other findings, the report released last Thursday details the exact moment of the pool deck's collapse preceding the wider structural failure that killed 98 people. The report also outlines several critical lapses in standard design practices and failures to meet building codes that were present from the time of its construction. The findings could provide some clues for those questioning the soundness of its support columns, foundation, site, and steel reinforcements as well.

“It becomes clear that the design and construction did not meet all the safety standards of its day,” local Commissioner Marianne Meischeid told CNN of her concerns. “...

America's first 3D printed fire-resistant ADU concept is under construction in Southern California

2024-02-29T11:57:00-05:00

A new 3D printed ADU prototype made of concrete and other fire-resistant materials is under construction as part of a demonstration taking place this month in Walnut, California.

The first-of-its-kind project was born of a collaboration between the fire departments of both Walnut and Los Angeles. A local couple volunteered to give the host the design for general contractor Builtech Construction Group in the interests of applying lessons valuable for disaster prevention at a time when an influx of peri-urbanization has left the state more susceptible to fire-damaged structures than ever before.

Image courtesy RIC Technology

The unit is both non-combustible and fire-resistant and is being constructed using contractor RIC Technology’s robotic 3D printer.

Construction takes only 20 days from the start of the printing process to finish after the foundation has been laid. It yields a total of 1,200 square feet of space with 2 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. The design works by eliminating any...

A fatal apartment building fire in Valencia, Spain, raises questions on the safety of building materials

2024-02-27T13:11:00-05:00

Valencia is reeling from a fatal fire at an apartment complex in the Spanish city. The incident began on the night of Thursday, February 22nd, and though the cause has not been definitively established, early reporting has suggested that the building’s cladding may have played a part in the disaster.

Ten people have been confirmed to have been killed in the fire, whose identities match the list of ten people deemed missing by authorities. In an isolated moment of relief, four people who had been included on the preceding list of 14 missing people have been located alive.

As per Spanish outlet El Pais, the vice-president of the Valencia College of Industrial and Technical Engineers, Esther Puchades, suggested that the building’s cladding included polyurethane and when “heated it is like plastic and it ignites.” In response, IPUR, Spain’s polyurethane manufacturers’ association, issued a statement saying there was no evidence that polyurethane was used in the subject building.

Related...

San Francisco's Millennium Tower is sinking again despite foundational corrections

2024-02-22T17:52:00-05:00

San Francisco’s ill-fated Millennium Tower is making headlines once again for problems taking place beneath its turbulent foundation.

This time, the 58-story skyscraper is sinking even further on its vertical axis as it settles to the north and west, alarming some building scientists who feel the movement could result in significant corrosive damage despite some recent positive corrections.

Engineers say a fix that has been previously made to anchor its foundation into bedrock on the north and west sides has mostly failed to produce the 4-inch reversal their advanced data models had predicted, instead posting a correction of just a quarter-inch a year and, as outside experts surmised, causing the new directional shift that's happening in an unexpected area.

Now, the building is sinking from underneath the center of its foundation mat at a rate of one-tenth of an inch per year. The phenomenon is known as "dishing." A local geothermal engineer who is monitoring the issue told NBC Bay...

Drexel University researchers develop AI-guided robotic structural inspection system

2024-02-12T08:00:00-05:00

Researchers based at the Drexel University College of Engineering have devised a new method for performing structural safety inspections using autonomous robots aided by machine learning technology.

The article they published recently in the Elsevier journal Automation in Construction presented the potential for a new multi-scale monitoring system informed by deep-learning algorithms that work to find cracks and other damage to buildings before using LiDAR to produce three-dimensional images for inspectors to aid in their documentation.

The development could potentially work to benefit the enormous task of maintaining the health of structures that are increasingly being reused or restored in cities large and small across the country. Despite the relative age of America’s built environment, roughly two-thirds of today’s existing buildings will be in use in the year 2050, according to Gensler’s predictions.

As the UK’s Raac problems grow, concerned educators complain of a stalled government response

2023-12-27T18:00:00-05:00

The number of schools with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac), which the Health and Safety Executive has said is now 'life expired' and could collapse 'with little or no warning,' has been steadily rising since the government announced the sudden closure of more than 100 schools at the end of August, just days before the start of the new academic year.

There are now over 230 schools and colleges listed on the government’s register of buildings under consideration for Raac replacement and repair. The challenge is twofold at present, with contractors' inability to hasten repairs before 2026 being made worse by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's cuts to the rebuilding program just weeks after it was initiated.

No one knows exactly what will happen to the endangered schools in the interim. An anonymous headteacher shared with The Guardian, “The best result would be rebuilding as we have so many problems, but actually we just need some certainty. Parents like shiny new buildings, and Raac definitely isn’t helping our reputation.”

The country's National Audit Office estimates the cost of repairs to be £2.2 billion (or about $2.81 billion USD) annually at present.

UK museums report new Raac concrete investigations as safety concerns spread

2023-11-09T14:01:00-05:00

The issue of unsafe concrete panels in the aging structures in the UK is affecting museums and cultural institutions who now report conducting their own building safety investigations after a spate of school closures linked to the issue first stirred controversy in August.

A report compiled by The Art Newspaper details efforts on the part of the Southbank Centre, Royal Academy of Arts, and others to document and deinstall reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (or Raac) panels that have been proven to be susceptible to water damage and structural failures.

No use of the materials had been discovered in the Barbican Centre, Victoria and Albert Museum, British Museum, or newly renovated National Galleries Scotland, all four institutions independently confirmed.

Twentieth Century Society Director Catherine Croft told the publication: “There is an urgent need to understand where Raac was used, to examine whether or not it is now failing in each case, and then work out how best to repa...

Over 100 schools close in the UK over concrete safety concerns

2023-09-08T11:41:00-04:00

More than one hundred schools and education settings in the United Kingdom have been closed due to concerns over the integrity of concrete roof panels. So far, 147 schools are known to contain reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac), with approximately one hundred fully or partially closed, impacting more than 100,000 students at the start of the new school year.

The latest developments began in August when a Raac panel collapsed in a school in England, prompting a wider government review. While 147 schools have been identified as containing Raac, education unions warn that “hundreds more” schools could be impacted. Meanwhile, thirteen universities have closed or partially closed, alongside a number of theaters and cultural venues that have closed as inspections continue. The Guardian additionally reports that the number of UK prisons containing Raac may take two years to identify.

Raac, also referred to as “aircrete,” was utilized from the 1950s to the 1990s in UK public buil...

San Francisco's Millennium Tower is tilting even further, despite engineering fixes

2023-06-15T16:54:00-04:00

Despite initial progress in the first phase of the so-called fix earlier this year, the sinking and leaning Millennium Tower in San Francisco is now tilting more to the west than ever, according to monitoring data reviewed by NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit. The tower is currently leaning more than 29 inches at the northwest corner of Fremont and Mission streets, much of the added tilt occurring during the digging needed to prepare to support the tower along two sides.

The data came from a rooftop monitoring system, which the fix’s chief engineer Ron Hamburger said was less reliable than the one contained in its foundation before stating the half-inch tilt recorded was "negligible."

A geotechnical engineer working on the $100 million project expressed his dismay to reporters, saying: "You spend all this money, but you still have an uncertain result long term."

The structure is leaning so much that some involved think it could potentially be red-tagged in the aftermath of a major earthquake, which the U.S. Geological Survey says has a 20% likelihood of occurring in the next 30 years.

Collapsed Surfside condo tower had ‘severe strength deficiency’ in pool deck, preliminary findings say

2023-06-15T14:43:00-04:00

Federal investigators have released their preliminary findings into the collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside, Florida. As reported by The New York Times, the building’s pool deck contained a “severe structural deficiency,” with construction in some areas failing to meet both building codes and its original design parameters.

The investigation is being led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and has so far included witness interviews, a review of historical records, tests on building materials, and the analysis of models for structural performance. The original design and construction of the building have been examined, as have any renovations and repairs in the years since. The potential for corrosion, ground settlement, and vibrations from nearby construction to contribute to the collapse has also been examined.

“In summaries of their preliminary findings ahead of a hearing Thursday, the investigators wrote that the pool deck’s design ...

42-story tower catches fire in Hong Kong

2023-03-04T08:00:00-05:00

A 42-story building under construction in Hong Kong caught fire late Thursday, showering a bustling shopping district with sparks and debris and lighting up the nighttime sky. Onlookers flocked to the waterfront neighborhood of Tsim Sha Tsui to take in the spectacle, as the flames made their way through the skyscraper and the scaffolding around it and explosions pierced the air.

The sight lasted for a period of 9 hours before emergency workers finally extinguished the blaze. Only two injuries were reported by Friday evening.

2021 was an increasingly deadly year for construction workers in New York

2023-02-24T14:24:00-05:00

In 2021, 12.1 per 100,000 construction workers in New York state died on the job, a 9% increase from 11.1 the year before, according to a new report from the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. The total number of workers who died in the state increased to 61 in 2021, up from 41 in 2020, reported NYCOSH, a membership organization that represents workers, unions and health and safety professionals.

The Committee also found that one-quarter of all workplace fatalities across New York state took place on construction sites, a repeat of the figure contained in the Deadly Skyline Report for 2020. Latino workers accounted for 25.5% of the deaths recorded, keeping pace with a larger grisly national trend. Overall, an average of 53.6 workers have died on job sites each year in New York over the past decade.

The NYC Department of Buildings had the same year enacted “zero tolerance” safety sweeps resulting in nearly 1,500 stop-work orders. The reform efforts were added to recently in the form of the new Carlos’ Law, which will increase the financial penalties on employers in negligent death cases from $10,000 to $500,000 (to a maximum of $1 million). In New York City alone, where 20 workers died, some 89% of construction sites had some form of safety issue, according to a ...

UK announces massive cladding remediation mandate in wake of Grenfell inquiry

2023-01-31T11:45:00-05:00

England's housing developers have been given an ultimatum - commit to repairing unsafe buildings or be banned from operating in the market. Developers now have six weeks to sign a government contract to fix their unsafe buildings from the past 30 years. According to the government's new plan, homeowners living in buildings whose construction poses a potential fire risk will be reimbursed, and building companies who installed the unsafe cladding must pay to replace it with a safer material.

Speaking to the press on Sunday, UK Housing Secretary Michael Gove admitted “faulty” guidance was to blame for the Grenfell Tower tragedy, stating his opinion that the building industry had gone underregulated for years. Cladding manufacturers like Celotex and Kingspan were not included in the mandate. Gove said the government will be committing a total of £5 billion ($6.15 billion) towards the effort.

FEMA is getting tough on property managers with the hopes of preventing another Bronx fire tragedy

2023-01-12T17:05:00-05:00

On the first anniversary of the Twin Parks fire in the Bronx that killed 17 people, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will announce a new national plan to combat “America’s fire problem” using investigatory muscle granted by federal legislation that President Biden signed last month. The legislation will give the United States Fire Administration the power to identify the causes of fires like the one at the Twin Parks North West housing complex.

A year removed from the tragic blaze that took the lives of 17 people in the Bronx apartment complex once lauded by Paul Goldberger for its trend-bucking design, lawmakers in Washington have finally heeded the desperate pleas of public housing advocates who appealed for stricter safety measures in response to the Twin Parks fire and another incident in Philadelphia just days prior.

Biden appointee Dr. Lori Moore-Merrell, the head of the U.S. Fire Administration, said the lack of adequate fire data will also be addressed for the first time. The results will hopefully benefit the estimated 1.3 million Americans who live in public housing. Last year alone, there were more than 1.2 million reported structure fires (of all types), resulting in the deaths of some 2,500 people nationwide.

Related Feature on Archinect: America’s Public Housing is Burning, Fueled by Cold Indifference

“It’s always in our neighborhood,” one former Twin Parks resident told the Times, referring to the deadly di...

Finger-pointing closes Phase II of the Grenfell Tower fire inquiry as possible criminal charges loom

2022-11-09T15:09:00-05:00

The close of the 300-day-long inquiry into the devastating 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London saw attorneys for the victims pinning the “primary responsibility” on the building's designer, Studio E Architects, adding that a “rogue's gallery” comprised of Arconic Architectural Products and the engineering concern Exova were also to blame, along with the “rolled-back state” and a coterie of Grenfell subcontractors.

“The full extent of the disaster was caused by a complex combination of corporate greed with complete disregard for safety, professional incompetence, oversight and organisational failings, and facilitated by an insufficiently robust regime,” Barrister Stephanie Barwise said during her final statement.

A representative for Kingspan, makers of the faulty K15 insulation used in 5% of the facade, added their view that “responsibility also rests with those responsible for the design, construction, and approval of the refurbishment.”

Previously on Archinect: New findings state ...

New report highlights inadequate oversight of building construction sites by the NYC Department of Buildings

2022-09-14T10:00:00-04:00

According to a new report by the New York State Comptroller’s Office, 89% of the visited active construction sites across New York City had safety issues, highlighting the need for the improvement of the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) oversight of construction sites.

Between June 10, 2021 and August 31, 2021, officials from the New York State Comptroller visited 43 construction sites in all five boroughs of New York City. Eighteen of these sites were actively under construction at the time of the visits, and 16 of the 18 sites had a total of 77 safety issues. They included not having a site safety manager; missing or incomplete site safety logs and daily inspection records; and no documentation of workers completing required site safety training or attending mandatory safety meetings.

Previously on Archinect: NYC Department of Buildings shuts down 322 construction sites in 'zero-tolerance' safety sweep

Additionally, the report found that DOB did not issue violations for ...

Surviving Surfside: Documentary about Miami condo collapse announced

2022-07-07T14:04:00-04:00

The Miami Herald is partnering with 101 Studios and Grain Media on a documentary that will investigate the deadly 2021 collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida. Surviving Surfside will interrogate the failure of the 12-story building in the early morning of June 24, 2021 that left 98 people dead and is still under official investigation, the companies announced on Tuesday.

The Herald's in-depth breaking news coverage of the disastrous Champlain Towers South collapse one year ago recently won the paper a Pulitzer Prize and will be a primary source of information for the upcoming Surviving Surfside documentary.

An adaptive-reuse project in the Bronx has become New York's most notorious construction site

2022-06-07T09:00:00-04:00

This site, where an old building is being transformed into a charter school, has just distinguished itself from the 40,000 other major construction projects in New York City by having its third worker fatality in less than three years. No other construction site in New York City has had this many separate fatal incidents since at least 2003, when the Department of Buildings began keeping electronic records. But despite the pattern of deaths, the consequences have been negligible.

In full view of the Major Deegan Expressway, 20 Bruckner Boulevard, known throughout the New York area as the site of the iconic former History Channel (and later iHeartRadio) billboard, was once the ice storehouse of a former Yankees owner and is now being transformed into a charter school by developer Maddd Equities, who has had a scant $28,000 in fines levied against them in the past years despite the record-high fatalities.

Being a construction worker is one of the most lethal occupations in New York City, with rates of injury and death rising ahead of the pandemic before falling slightly owing to the economic downturn. Most of the men profiled in the Times are nonunion immigrant laborers working for $120-per-day to start, with some being recruited from homeless shelters to meet demands. An OSHA investigation revealed that some deaths were not properly reported for weeks.

Previously on Archinect: Nearly 1 in 4 workplace deaths in New York occur in construction

Multiple stop-work...