A local community advocacy group in Los Angeles has filed a lawsuit that has the potential to delay the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s $650m building project, which was approved by the county Board of Supervisors in April. Fix the City vs. the County of Los Angeles, dated 13 May and officially filed this week, challenges the Environmental Impact Report for the building scheme, claiming that it violates the California Environmental Quality Act [...] — The Art Newspaper
A new roadblock that could significantly delay the debated Zumthor LACMA makeover is taking shape, and the impact on the neighborhood's parking capacity is at the center of it. The Art Newspaper reports that "according to the lawsuit, the certified Environmental Impact Report 'fails to properly... View full entry
Hugely influential architect, and godfather of Chicago's architectural community, Stanley Tigerman has passed away. The provocative, and famously salty, architect blazed a singular trail within late-20th Century architectural design by fusing the technical prowess of modernist era design with... View full entry
Italy’s cultural heritage ministry announced on Friday (May 31) that it would revoke a lease granted to Bannon after reports of fraud in the competitive tender process. The former Breitbart chief and aide to US president Donald Trump was reportedly paying €100,000 ($110,000) per year to rent the 13th Century Carthusian monastery, but now will have to search for another spot. — QZ
What was once the potential site for a training academy for the far-right, the Italian state evicts the conservative Catholic organization Dignitatis Humanae Institute (DHI) due to reports of fraud. According to a recent report from The Economist, institute director Benjamin Harnwell was shocked... View full entry
As part of their ongoing efforts to expand their scholarship programs, The Architects Foundation recently announced 10 student recipients of the 2019-2020 Diversity Advancement Scholarship, which supports students about to enter architecture school. Established in 1970, the Diversity... View full entry
New preview photos have been released of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts' anticipated expansion project, called the REACH. The Steven Holl Architects-designed ensemble of three contiguous pavilions broke ground in 2014 and is scheduled to officially open to the public with a... View full entry
With the first big kick-off for the 2022 FIFA World Cup still more than three years away, the Zaha Hadid/Aecom-designed Al Janoub Stadium in Al Wakrah, Qatar recently hosted its inaugural soccer match with 40,000 fans and royal family members in attendance. The stadium—not entirely... View full entry
The AIA Small Project Awards competition is a reminder that architecture is capable of creating positive impact, no matter the size or scope of the project. Now in its 16th year and established by the Small Project Practitioners, the program distinguishes small-project practitioners for the... View full entry
A site in Queens home to the United African Society of Newtown, the first community of free African Americans founded in New York State, is currently being marketed by real estate entity Cushman & Wakefield for $13.8 million as a development opportunity. What's left of the 1828 community... View full entry
Last month, SpaceX successfully launched 60 500-pound satellites into space. Soon amateur skywatchers started sharing images of those satellites in night skies, igniting an uproar among astronomers who fear that the planned orbiting cluster will wreak havoc on scientific research and trash our view of the cosmos. — The New York Times
“This has the potential to change what a natural sky looks like,” Tyler Nordgren, an astronomer who promotes night skies told The New York Times. Astronomers and night sky-enthusiasts worry because SpaceX is planning to send potentially thousands of satellites into orbit as part of a new... View full entry
Founded in 1991 by Nader Khalili, the California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture has researched and developed solutions, including the SuperAdobe, a structure made with patented, long plastic bags filled with dirt from the building site and held in place with barbed wire. Khalili’s ultimate aim was to empower refugees and the poor to build homes using minimal materials and without the need for highly skilled practitioners such as architects, engineers and contractors. — LA Times
Marissa Gluck of the LA Times writes a thoughtful piece remembering the late Kahili and the influence he's made in the architecture community. Read more about Gluck's coverage of CalEarth and its revival here. Correction 6/13/19: The original article unintentionally used similar language to the... View full entry
The City Council voted to close a zoning loophole that has allowed developers to boost building heights with excessive mechanical spaces—but it’s only the first step in addressing the issue, say lawmakers. — Curbed NY
The zoning amendment will limit the city's notoriously over-sized mechanical spaces to 25-feet in height before additional space begins to eat into a project's allowable buildable area. New York City lawmakers are pushing to close other loopholes, as well, including rules impacting the use... View full entry
Called the NikeLab Chicago Re-Creation Center, the space feels like being inside a giant Nike shoebox designed by Abloh himself. It features the self-aware, over-indexed print labeling that Abloh is known for. The Re-Creation Center sign itself has “for promotional use only” printed on top. The rest of the space’s irony is more subtle, or arguably nonexistent. — Fast Company
Virgil Abloh is a name that's grown synonymous with what is trending in design and fashion. A connoisseur of creating new things from the simplest of concepts, Abloh's collaboration with Nike has emphasized his influence not only in design but in design culture. Having worked with some of the... View full entry
The Taliban captured the 12th-century Minaret of Jam and killed 18 Afghan security personnel tasked with protecting the World Heritage Site. Pro-government forces have yet to re-secure the area. The current condition of the brick structure and the surrounding communities, who were both threatened by torrential flooding just last week, is still unknown. — The Antiquities Coalition
Nearly two decades after the American-led invasion of Afghanistan began, significant works of Islamic heritage continue to fall under threat in the country. Just last week, for example, the 12-Century era Minaret of Jam, the world's second tallest Islamic tower, appears to have been captured by... View full entry
Celebrating its 500th anniversary, the National Estate of Chambord is staging an exhibition entitled Chambord, 1519-2019: l’utopie à l’œuvre, centered on concepts such as the history and projected future of Chambord, political, social, and environmental utopia, and ideal... View full entry
Blackstone Group is cashing in on its bet on the suburban rental class.
The private-equity firm late Tuesday sold more than $1 billion of shares of Invitation Homes Inc., the giant single-family home landlord it launched following the financial crisis in a wager that many Americans would be willing to rent the suburban lifestyle they could no longer afford to own.
— Wall Street Journal
In the two years since private-equity firm Blackstone Group launched its suburban home management service, Invitation Homes, the company's stock has gone up by over 26%. During that same time, homeownership has fallen to its lowest levels since the mid-1990s, rents have edged upward in the... View full entry
