It’s official: After years of debate, heated public hearings, and lawsuits, the City Council has voted to approve the redevelopment of the Elizabeth Street Garden into low-income housing for seniors.
The Council’s vote was unanimous, save for one abstention from councilmember Rafael Espinal, who objected to the loss of a community garden for housing.
— Curbed NY
The Elizabeth Street Garden redevelopment in Manhattan's Little Italy neighborhood has been especially contested since one beloved green space was supposed to make way not for the usual luxury condo towers but for badly needed affordable housing designed for low-income seniors with support from... View full entry
The Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) has unveiled a faceted, prismatic design for the firm’s proposed expansion to the SANAA-designed New Museum in New York City. Designed by OMA partner Shohei Shigematsu in collaboration with Cooper Robertson, the 60,000-square-foot addition marks... View full entry
The Regional Plan Association of New York (RPA) has named Miriam Peterson and Nathan Rich of architecture firm Peterson Rich Office (PRO) as the organization’s inaugural Richard Kaplan Chairs for Urban Design. The year-long research position, funded to “address a critical need for... View full entry
Scientists from round the world are meeting in Germany to improve ways of making money from carbon dioxide.
They want to transform some of the CO2 that’s overheating the planet into products to benefit humanity.
They don’t claim the technology will solve climate change, but they say it will help.
Carbon dioxide is already being used in novel ways to create fuels, polymers, fertilisers, proteins, foams and building blocks.
— BBC
BBC environmental analyst, Roger Harrabin, details three novel ways to turn excess carbon dioxide into potentially profitable carbon-negative products: high-grade fertilizer from agricultural waste products; food-grade beverage carbonation and biogas from horse manure; and most interesting for the... View full entry
Seven Chinese labourers who worked on the construction of a casino and resort in the US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) are suing the owner of the project and two of its contractors, alleging they were victims of a forced labour scheme and had suffered injuries on site.
The labourers were working on the Imperial Pacific casino and resort in Saipan, the largest island in the South Pacific commonwealth.
— Global Construction Review
GCR covers the lawsuit seven laborers from China have brought forward against the casino's developer Imperial Pacific International, contractor MCC International Saipan Ltd Co, and contractor Gold Mantis Construction Decoration in Saipan, a U.S. commonwealth island just 120 miles north of Guam... View full entry
Assuming her new role as Director of MoMA PS1 in September, Fowle will use her previous experience as Chief Curator at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow and director of the Independent Curators International (ICI) to lead the institution. Her global curatorial expertise and... View full entry
Archinect has hired editor, writer, and designer Antonio Pacheco as its new managing editor. Antonio is responsible for developing editorial content, covering breaking and professional news, and will oversee the ongoing development of Archinect’s editorial team in accordance with the... View full entry
McLain Clutter, currently an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, will be become the school's new Chair of Architecture in the fall. Clutter will be replacing Sharon Haar, who has been in the position since 2013. View this post on... View full entry
The Port Authority and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation recently arrived at a deal to develop 5 World Trade Center, the last WTC site. Today, Governor Cuomo released a Request for Proposals, which allows for either commercial or mixed-use proposals for a 900-foot-tall building. Any proposals putting forth a residential component must include “onsite affordable units that comply with New York City’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program,” according to a press release. — 6sqft
America's coal industry has already been left in the dust by natural gas. Now it's under immense pressure from the renewable energy boom.
The renewable energy sector had slightly more installed capacity than coal in April, according to a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission report.
— cnn.com
Surging renewable energy production capabilities have finally overtopped coal-fired power production in the United States in recent months, a historic first. The milestone is the latest development in a decade-long slide for coal-fired energy production, which peaked in 2008. CNN reports that coal... View full entry
The opening of I-95 in Philadelphia 40 years ago cut the city’s waterfront neighborhoods off from their source. For more than a decade, the city has been planning a fix: a new park at Penn’s Landing that would cap a stretch of the highway and again connect Old City with the Delaware River. — inquirer.com
A recent report from The Philadelphia Inquirer recaps the city's long-running effort to build a pedestrian plaza over Interstate-95 linking downtown Philadelphia with an existing waterfront park at Penn's Landing and the Delaware River. Designed by Hargreaves Associates, the proposed 4-acre park... View full entry
President Donald Trump issued an executive order that establishes a White House Council focused on "eliminating regulatory barriers to affordable housing." The council is to be chaired by the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson. The order reads: "These regulatory barriers... View full entry
...one issue stands out as particularly urgent and complex: housing. The lack of new supply, combined with the rising cost of living, has resulted in a severe shortage of affordable housing options for long-time middle and low income residents. As Google grows throughout the Bay Area—whether it’s in our home town of Mountain View, in San Francisco, or in our future developments in San Jose and Sunnyvale—we’ve invested in developing housing that meets the needs of these communities. — Google
Last week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced the company's pledge to invest in the development of affordable housing across the Bay Area. With the multi-billion dollar tech company calling the San Francisco Bay Area home with its beginnings starting over 20 years ago, Google is aware of its... View full entry
Sidewalk Labs, Snøhetta, Michael Green Architecture, and Heatherwick Studio have unveiled a controversial $1.3 billion plan to reprogram a portion of Toronto's industrial waterfront into a new smart city prototype that envisions a wireless, data-driven, and mass timber-filled future for the... View full entry
Russian firm Syndicate Architecture Bureau won an architectural competition organized by the Garage Museum and Strelka KB to design a temporary summer movie theater space in Moscow's Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure. Aerial view of Garage Screen summer movie theater. Photo by Iwan... View full entry
