As with every single other thing about Seattle, there’ve been some developments in residential design since 2008 [...] Here are five opportunities, in the form of developments in residential architecture over the past 10 years as identified — and expressed — by some plugged-in visionaries. — The Seattle Times
The Seattle Times tracked 5 developments in residential design addressing housing issues in the city. For each trend they spoke with an architecture professional working in the field. Below are Seattle's identified trends and some of the visionaries addressing them: 1. Multifamily Housing Moves... View full entry
A large crack formed in a window at the sinking and tilting Millennium Tower over the Labor Day weekend, prompting officials there to block off part of the sidewalk on Mission Street as a precaution, NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit has learned. City inspectors issued a notice of violation on Tuesday, giving the Millennium management 72 hours to report back on the extent of the problem and the soundness of the building’s façade in light of the failure. — nbcbayarea.com
The latest safety concern over San Francisco's sinking Millennium Tower occurred Labor Day weekend when residents heard creaking sounds followed by a loud popping noise in the building. Soon after the incident a resident living on the 36th floor found a crack in his window. The high rise is... View full entry
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... — bloomberg.com
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... View full entry
The world’s biggest offshore windfarm has officially opened in the Irish Sea, amid warnings that Brexit could increase costs for future projects.
Walney Extension, off the Cumbrian coast, spans an area the size of 20,000 football pitches and has a capacity of 659 megawatts, enough to power the equivalent of 590,000 homes.
The project is a sign of how dramatically wind technology has progressed in the past five years since the previous biggest, the London Array, was finished.
— The Guardian
The Walney Extension is made up of 87 turbines and has a total capacity of 659 MW, enough to power almost 600,000 homes in the UK. This makes it now the largest operational offshore wind farm, however with wind farm supersizing along the British coastline it may not hold the record for long. ... View full entry
The recently completed Bolueta high rise by VArquitectos is now the tallest reaching Passive House building in the world. Located in Bilbao, Spain, the project includes an adjacent 9-story building with 63 apartments dedicated for social housing. Bolueta by VArquitectos, located in Bilbao... View full entry
Bouygues Construction subsidiary Bouygues Bâtiment Ile-de-France has secured a contract worth €146m from Emerige to renovate 17 Boulevard Morland in the 4th arrondissement of Paris.
‘Morland Mixité Capitale’ is one of the first projects launched under the ‘Reinventing Paris’ programme.
Designed by David Chipperfield Architects and CALQ Architecture, the 44,000m² floor space complex will consist of a 161-room hotel, a youth hostel, shops, a nursery, a cultural amenity and 199 homes.
— World Construction Network
Eunpyeong Hanok Village was selling locals hanok, the traditional Korean tile-roofed residences that have, after hundreds of years, increasingly been destroyed and replaced by towering steel structures; indeed, not since the 1930s have hanok been constructed in significant numbers.
The decline of vernacular architecture in the face of global urbanization is, of course, hardly new, though traditional Korean hanok are a particularly stark contrast to modern city living.
— The New York Times
A new housing development, Eunpyeong, in northern Seoul is solely dedicated to constructing traditional Korean hanok houses. The design adheres to certain guidelines on proportion and design, with a low center of gravity, a courtyard, and an orientation towards nature. The hanok's popularity... View full entry
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is back at it again with more outlandish ideas to solve Los Angeles' traffic. Earlier this month, Musk's latest venture–The Boring Company–resuscitated its flawed proposal to dig new car tunnels for Los Angeles, this time to connect the Red Line subway with Dodger Stadium [...] The Chicago tunnel idea is bad enough, but the Dodger Stadium plan is exceptionally poor even if one takes Musk's promises at face value. — urbanize.la
Alon Levy pokes holes in Elon Musk's public transit plans for Los Angeles. Musk's plan involves tunneling under Sunset Boulevard between the Dodger Stadium and one of three Red Line stops: Vermont/Sunset, Vermont/Santa Monica, or Vermont/Beverly. Levy cites major issues with construction... View full entry
London is pure object in these images and likewise in those taken from the other aforementioned viewing points. Like visitors to a museum, we wander the corridors atop the Switch House and observe the artefacts curated for our all-consuming gaze: a shard, a walkie-talkie, a gherkin, etc. Like Tower Bridge, the new Museum of London, Battersea Power Station and the Tate Modern, the skyline of the city is presented as a display – complete with its own exhibition gift shop. — failedarchitecture.com
George Kafka argues that London's trend in preservation and commemoration in the built environment is directly related to the decline of small-scale spaces and small businesses centered around everyday life. Kafka cites recent developments in London's built environment over the past few years... View full entry
The city grid, which once served to organize the development of private real estate by providing access to land parcels, now has a more pressing role to play in making cities livable. Our reimagining of the grid starts from the premise that how we use public rights of way no longer meets the city’s needs, so we should transform the streets radically, dedicating them to pedestrians. — citylab.com
Jonathan Cohn and Yunyue Chen propose a new pedestrian plan for Manhattan's grid grouping blocks into larger neighborhoods and organizing streets into either thoroughfares or local streets. Cohn leads the transportation and public infrastructure studio of Perkins Eastman, while Chen received... View full entry
Teams that compete in the Solar Decathlon Build Challenge must design and construct fully functional houses...In the National Showcase, teams will ship their houses to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in June 2020 for display and operation on the National Mall. In the Local Build, teams will showcase their built houses in their communities and bring a smaller representative exhibit to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival — US Department of Energy
Plus, both the Solar Decathlon and Race to Zero competitions are merging, creating the new, U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon. For further details check out the 2019–2020 Competition Guide View full entry
From ground level, greater Miami looks like any American megacity—a mostly dry expanse of buildings, roads, and lawns, sprinkled with the occasional canal or ornamental lake. But from above, the proportions of water and land are reversed. [...]
Barring a stupendous reversal in greenhouse gas emissions, the rising Atlantic will cover much of Miami by the end of this century. The economic effects will be devastating [...].
— Bloomberg
Bloomberg reporter Christopher Flavelle takes a deep dive into the vast, intricate, and highly fragile network of natural aquifers and man-made infrastructure that has kept Miami (mostly) dry and equipped with fresh drinking water. But for how much longer? View full entry
Earlier this week, the Oregon Building Codes Division announced a statement of alternate method (SAM) that makes Oregon the first state to allow for construction of wooden high-rises without special consideration. Previously, Portland, Ore., was the first American city to issue a permit for an all-wood high-rise, Project’s 12-story-tall Framework. — engineering.com
The statement of alternate method (SAM) was developed over two years by a committee created from the International Code Council’s Board of Directors. The committee proposed 14 suggestions concerning cross-laminated timber standards and best-practices, which were all accepted by the Oregon... View full entry
If you live or work in a city, then you probably see the impact of growing urbanization every day—gridlock traffic, construction cranes peppering the skyline, soaring housing costs. Sure, these are major challenges and annoyances for city dwellers, but they also represent a huge opportunity for the global architecture, engineering, and construction industry: one that requires building the future for a 10-billion-person planet. — autodesk.com
According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 68% of the world population are projected to live in urban areas by 2050. Autodesk explores the implications for architectural growth in this timeframe with market research firm Statista. Take a look at the projected... View full entry
Scientists with the European Space Agency (ESA) have created a terrestrial simulation of moon dust to practice making bricks with. And it appears lunar “soil” is significantly different from its terrestrial equivalent, as it can be crushed, burned and compressed to form building materials, or used as the raw material for 3D printing. — globalconstructionreview.com
The European Space Agency (ESA) is experimenting with lunar dust as a building material with goals to avoid lifting hefty materials from Earth into space. Lunar dust is electrically charged and primarily composed of basalt (like volcanic rock) with 40% of its mass made of oxygen. ESA is testing... View full entry
