The Architecture Billings Index (ABI) was positive in July for the sixth consecutive month, and tenth out of the last twelve months as demand across all project types continued to increase. [...] (AIA) reported the July ABI score was 51.5, down from the mark of 52.6 in the previous month. This score still reflects an increase in design services (any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings). The new projects inquiry index was 57.5, down from a reading of 58.6 the previous month. — AIA
“The uncertainty surrounding the presidential election is causing some funding decisions regarding larger construction projects to be delayed or put on hold for the time being,” said AIA Chief Economist, Kermit Baker, Hon. AIA, PhD. “It’s likely that these concerns will persist up until... View full entry
project managers at a building site in North Korea’s capital Pyongyang are openly supplying their exhausted work force with powerful methamphetamines called “ice,” North Korean sources say. [...]
Officials in charge of the project are pushing workers hard to finish frame construction on the buildings, which include a 70-story high-rise apartment building and at least 60 other structures, before the weather gets too cold, sources said.
— Radio Free Asia
The construction project in question appears to be Ryomyong Street, a so-called "Pyonghattan" for its giant scope and reportedly the country's tallest apartments. According to a report in Foreign Policy, the spread of methamphetamine (aka "ice") first began in North Korea during the 1990s, when... View full entry
Perhaps the most notable business line to suffer from slow growth is WeLive, which offers young renters fully furnished apartments and a communal atmosphere. The two inaugural locations opened in lower Manhattan and Crystal City, Va., earlier this year in converted office buildings. But the costs of converting those spaces proved high given the extensive remodeling needed... Now the company is aiming to put WeLive locations mainly in newly built developments that can be custom designed. — wsj.com
More news from under the WeWork umbrella:Strange bedfellows: exploring shades of privacy in co-livingThe kibbutz, rebranded for Silicon ValleyChief creative officer Miguel McKelvey on WeLive's "relatively neutral" interior designCan WeWork re-engineer the spatial dynamics of society?WeLive... View full entry
In September 2017 Ben Derbyshire will officially become RIBA President-Elect, taking over from the current President Jane Duncan. Commenting on the announcement on HTA's website he said:“Once again we find ourselves in turbulent times. In winning this election I am conscious of a great sense... View full entry
This post is brought to you by BQE ArchiOffice. Many architects struggle with staying on top of their finances. After all, they were trained to draw and design, not how to run a business. Here are seven bookkeeping tips to help you better manage your finances with innovative tools. 1. Get... View full entry
Casinos like the Taj Mahal have destroyed Atlantic City’s public space. Gambling’s arrival replaced the outward-looking hotels, shops, and promenades of the mid-century boardwalk with clusters of dark, labyrinthine resorts, set back from the street and enclosed behind monitored security gates. [...]
Atlantic City’s model of a plush, self-contained casino abutting a ruined neighborhood has become a synecdoche for the last forty years of American urban development.
— jacobinmag.com
To dissect the urban effects of Trump's Atlantic City casino, Sam Wetherall traces the city's history as a booming resort town through the early 20th century, and into its current economic crisis:In 2014 alone, casino closures cost Atlantic City more than ten thousand jobs, a staggering figure for... View full entry
“They spend $25,000 per employee per year on perks like free beer and pool tables and massages ... That’s great, but can they spend $1,000 to help the rest of San Francisco survive?”
As it turned out, they could not. Representatives of tech organizations reacted fiercely against the tax, saying that it would suppress growth in the industry that has made the city – parts of it, at least – wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice.
— The Guardian
Widening the gap between San Francisco's wealthy and poor, the budget committee of the city's board of supervisors rejected on Monday the tech tax, which “would have imposed a 1.5% payroll levy on technology companies that generate more than $1m in revenues a year, including Uber, Google... View full entry
Prime Minister Theresa May recently announced that the newly-formed government will delay making any decisions about building a major nuclear power plant—the first in a generation—until the fall.Economists reacted with alarm to the announcement, according to Bloomberg, since the deferral... View full entry
Two weeks ago at the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump's daughter introduced him as a man who has overseen the construction of skyscrapers, thereby qualifying him to somehow take stead of the vastly more complex civic architecture of the United States. Never mind that Donald Trump... View full entry
Today, Airbnb is revealing a new division tasked with inventing new futures for the company, called Samara. Airbnb is also unveiling Samara’s first project: a communal housing project designed to revitalize a small town in Japan. That model isn’t meant to be a one-off. After this project, Airbnb will look to scale it to other declining small towns across the world. The idea is that Airbnb could become a force not only in sharing homes, but in urban planning. — FastCo.Design
Airbnb's experiment in urban planning was sparked by the success of an elderly woman in a rural Japanese town, Tsuyama Okayama, who listed her home on the site. While near Japan's most famous cedar forests, the town didn't receive many tourists.But build it and they will come: soon, tourists... View full entry
On June 23rd, 2016, the UK voted to leave the European Union. In the following month, the pound dropped 10% in value against the US dollar (the lowest since the 1980s), PM David Cameron resigned, Boris Johnson resigned, Nigel Farage too (not before insulting all of the European parliament), and... View full entry
Sixty-five hundred people and a sizable compliment of robots will work in the enormous, solar-panel topped, rail-adjacent Gigafactory when it opens in 2017, a structure which is described as a "joint venture" between Tesla, Panasonic and other supply partners. In this case, the drive to... View full entry
Facebook could be your next landlord. In an effort to drum up support for the controversial expansion of its headquarters, the social media giant is trying to give back to the community by building at least 1,500 housing units that can be rented by the general public—not just Facebook employees [...]
Facebook has pledged that 15 percent of the new units it creates will go to low- or middle-income families.
— Gizmodo
...Which is great until you realize that 85 percent of the building will probably be ridiculously expensive and probably populated by local tech bros.For more on Silicon Valley urbanism, check out these links:Silicon Valley campuses at risk as sea levels riseMark Zuckerberg's resolution for... View full entry
After a strong 2015, there is a growing sense that the construction industry expansion will be more tempered over the next eighteen months. [...]
The American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) semi-annual Consensus Construction Forecast, a survey of the nation’s leading construction forecasters, is projecting that spending will increase just less than six percent for 2016, with next year’s projection being an additional 5.6% gain.
— AIA
“Healthy job growth, strong consumer confidence and low interest rates are several positive factors in the economy, which will allow some of the pent-up demand from the last downturn to go forward,” said AIA Chief Economist, Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. “But at the same time, the slowing... View full entry
Buoyed by increasing levels of demand across all project types, the Architecture Billings Index (ABI) was positive in June for the fifth consecutive month. [...] The American Institute of Architects (AIA) reported the June ABI score was 52.6, down from the mark of 53.1 in the previous month. This score still reflects an increase in design services (any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings). The new projects inquiry index was 58.6, down from a reading of 60.1 the previous month. — AIA
The AIA reports these key ABI highlights for the month of June:Regional averages: South (55.5), West (54.1), Northeast (51.8), Midwest (48.2)Sector index breakdown: multi-family residential (57.9), institutional (52.7), mixed practice (51.0), commercial / industrial (50.3)Project inquiries index... View full entry