Foster + Partners has shared an update to its recently announced retrofit of William Pereira’s iconic Transamerica Pyramid Center in San Francisco. New renderings appear to show fresh and open office spaces upgraded for workers’ comfort and workplace flexibility in addition to an on-site... View full entry
As public bathrooms continue to be one of the rarest commodities in the city, the Adams administration has not provided a timeline or any details for the installation of 15 automatic sidewalk toilets unused for more than a decade.
But only five of the toilets have been installed and the city has struggled to find suitable new spots. For years, the others remained mothballed in a Queens warehouse but city officials declined to detail where they are currently located.
— The City
The toilets are a holdover of the Bloomberg administration, which signed a franchising agreement with Cemusa (later JC Decaux) in 2006 that was supposed to provide 20 such facilities at a cost of around $500,000 apiece. Recently, the city declared it will not force dining establishments to offer... View full entry
Broadway Junction, the busy yet infamously underutilized area surrounding the Broadway Junction Subway station, may need to brace for a big change. The area, which sits between several neighborhoods including East New York, Bed-Stuy and Brownsville, has become the center of a private developer’s new vision for East Brooklyn. — BK Reader
At a virtual town hall held on March 22, Totem Group, a Brooklyn-based real estate development firm, shared preliminary plans to build a large mixed-use building next to the busy station complex. Totem’s proposal calls for the construction of four high-rise towers, with two including housing... View full entry
David Adjaye has been given a TIME100 Impact Award, and HOK has made the magazine’s list of the 100 most influential companies as part of the annual designation released this week. The two are the sole representatives of the architectural industry on a pair of lists that includes multiple online... View full entry
Seattle-based firm The Miller Hull Partnership has designed an important new laboratory building for the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) that will have a light impact on the lush natural landscape that surrounds it. Developed to offset the anticipated growth of UCSC’s research... View full entry
Start the second quarter of 2022 with a new architecture job. Continuing with our spotlights on employment opportunities in cities and regions across the nation, we focus on nine New Jersey-based firms looking to hire architects, interior designers, draftspeople, senior designers, and project... View full entry
New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art has made several big announces these past few months: From news of a $500 million wing expansion designed by Frida Escobedo, an upcoming rooftop installation from artist Lauren Halsey, to the museum's Ancient Near East and Cypriot Art gallery renovation... View full entry
The activist community can rejoice today on the news that groundbreaking London-based collective Forensic Architecture (FA) has been given an Institutional Peabody Award for its continued public service and contributions to electronic media. The group was cited for their work documenting the use... View full entry
Lanfranco Cirillo, the designer of a mysterious 18,000 sq. m mansion on the Black Sea that many believe was built for the Russian President Vladimir Putin, is being investigated by the Italian authorities for allegedly failing to pay a €50m tax bill. Officials raided the 63-year-old Italian architect’s own sizeable villa in February, where they discovered and confiscated a treasure trove of works by artists including Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, [and] Wassily Kandinsky. — The Art Newspaper
The architect’s private helicopter was also confiscated by Italian authorities, who have been on a tear as of late, seizing yachts and other luxury items from Russian nationals associated with President Vladimir Putin. Cirillo is well known as the man behind the biggest gem in Putin’s... View full entry
Two buckets. That’s all that was left at the end of the day when Nexii, a concrete alternative start-up, tore down one of its first demonstration projects. A 700-square-foot showroom and model home displaying Nexii’s building technology was constructed in 2019 near Vancouver to prove the buildability of the new material, which has far lower emissions than conventional concrete. — Fast Company
Combining their sturdy panel-based construction system with their concrete alternative, Nexiite, which produces about 35% lower carbon emissions than conventional concrete, Nexii was able to deconstruct the showroom in six days, saving almost every part of the building for future reconstruction... View full entry
The city of Los Angeles is moving forward with a historic plan from Handel Architects and OLIN for a slice of Downtown’s Bunker Hill neighborhood called Angels Landing. The LA Times is reporting the city’s granting of entitlements needed to build on the parcel designated Y-1, which features... View full entry
Cathedrals, churches and basilicas across Italy are at risk of being razed by earthquakes that could strike at any moment. But the government is on a mission to protect some of the country’s most significant and vulnerable religious buildings from disastrous seismic shocks. A new national project backed with €250m from Italy’s multibillion-euro pot of EU Covid-19 recovery funding is unprecedented in Europe for its scale and reach, officials believe. — The Art Newspaper
In one of Europe’s most earthquake-prone countries, the anti-seismic plan will allow the Italian culture ministry’s heritage safety department to distribute resources around the country that will mitigate the impact of future disasters. Straps and chains will be wrapped around bell towers... View full entry
A new face will lead one of the UK’s most prestigious design institutions after the announcement that RISD professor Amy Kulper will be the next Director of University College London’s The Bartlett School of Architecture. Kulper is presently the head of the Architecture department at RISD and... View full entry
As the 94th Academy Awards returned to Los Angeles' famed Dolby Theatre for the first time since 2020, creative director David Korins took center stage with what is now his second design for perhaps the most important part of Hollywood's annual celebration of film culture and the cinematic... View full entry
Owner Michael Shvo and his partners have hired world-renowned architect Norman Foster to redesign the iconic tower’s interiors and plan to invest $250 million to renovate the 1972 building and expand its Redwood Park. The owners also plan to roughly double the size of neighboring 545 Sansome St. and add a new facade to create a modern office building at the cost of around $150 million. — The San Francisco Chronicle
Work is expected to begin within the week and take around a year to be completed. The project will include the expansion of Redwood Park and, potentially, the adjacent 545 Sansome Street, which will be rebranded as 3 Transamerica pending approval by the city. Previously on Archinect: San... View full entry
