BlackRock, the world's largest asset management firm, has announced that it will use climate risk assessments and environmental sustainability as guiding metrics for how it makes investment decisions moving forward. The impact of this shift could have profound changes for the architecture and... View full entry
Following reports that plans for the western Hudson Yards site would include a massive 700-foot-long wall separating the development from the High Line, Related Companies, the developer behind the $25 billion mega-development, has published a rendering in an attempt to contradict those previous... View full entry
In a statement Monday, Uber announced, on behalf of PeopleForBikes, the North American Bikeshare Association, and the League of American Bicyclist, it authored a letter urging the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure to prioritize the safety of vulnerable roadway users such as... View full entry
The McHarg Center at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design of has launched Ian McBlog, a new online publication dedicated to uplifting the voices of "the rising generation of designers who will lead—and are already leading—the response to our overlapping crises... View full entry
If I have to do one more portable project, I'm going to lose my mind! This was part of a story an early mentor of mine told me. It was the end of my first year right out of school and we were meeting for my performance review. I had just finished working on my third masterplan for a local... View full entry
Family members of two of the four people killed in the April crane collapse site have filed wrongful death suits against companies involved in crane operations at the South Lake Union construction site.
Gusting winds knocked the crane over the afternoon of April 27, after workers prematurely removed pins holding 20-foot sections together, leading to a tragedy that state regulators called “totally avoidable.”
— The Seattle Times
The collapse in April killed two iron workers, Andrew Yoder, 31, and Travis Corbet, 33; Alan Justad, 71, a former city planning official; and Sarah Wong, a 19-year-old Seattle Pacific University student, The Seattle Times reports. The families have filed suites against Morrow Equipment... View full entry
Architecture is a highly collaborative practice that calls us to work with many different kinds of people. Sometimes this brings challenges. With firms seeking to build diverse teams, a diversity of personalities and work styles can be forgotten. Particularly for leaders, it can be bewildering to... View full entry
Suzanne Morse Moomaw, associate professor of urban and environmental planning at the University of Virginia's School of Architecture, is the new director of the University of Virginia Press. UVA Today reports that Moomaw has served on the press's board of directors since 2015 and will be on... View full entry
A new lawsuit aims to halt the construction of a homeless shelter in Griffith Park, arguing that Los Angeles officials skirted city and state rules when they approved the project on a Riverside Drive parking lot...
In the lawsuit, the group [Friends of Waverly Inc.] asserts that Los Angeles officials abused their discretion when they granted the planned shelter an emergency exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act.
— Los Angeles Times
According to the Los Angeles Times the lawsuit "argues that the city skipped necessary hearings for the project, flouting the city charter and ignoring the rights of nearby property owners." The $6.6-million project is due to include a 10,800-square-foot building with around... View full entry
City-focused reporting has suffered another setback this week as news that the Guardian Cities initiative at The Guardian will be shuttering has been made public. In a farewell letter published in The Guardian, Guardian Cities editor Chris Michaels writes, "Since its... View full entry
To kick off the inaugural Master Lecture Series put on by the Florida State University College of Fine Arts in collaboration with Florida A&M University School of Architecture and Engineering and the Tallahassee chapter of the AIA, Chris Downey will be speaking. Downey is a San... View full entry
The history of housing discrimination in this country is in significant part a history of deliberate government policy, not market forces or individual choice. Ghettos such as those in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Baltimore, in fact, reflect federal policies of the mid-20th century that made segregation a condition for federal support of various kinds. That was social engineering of the most shameful sort. — Washington Post
The Washington Post editorial board sounds off on a recent plan advanced by United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson that seeks to further weaken Obama-era "affirmatively furthering fair housing" regulations. According to the editorial, the wording... View full entry
With the new year (and new semester) just getting under way, now is as good a time as any to take in a good architecture exhibition.We have collected a few of the most interesting exhibitions currently (or soon-to-be) on view at four university campuses across the country, highlighting curatorial... View full entry
Writing in The New York Times, architecture critic Michael Kimmelman sounds off against recently revealed intentions by Related Companies, the developer of Hudson Yards, that could wall off a semi-public park slated for the western end of the mega-project's second phase site. The... View full entry
Throughout the 20th century, architecture in Antarctica was a pragmatic and largely makeshift affair, focused on keeping the elements out and the occupants alive. [...]
Construction in Antarctica, long the purview of engineers, is now attracting designer architects looking to bring aesthetics — as well as operational efficiency, durability and energy improvements — to the coldest neighborhood on Earth.
— The New York Times
The NYT looks at the increasingly maturing architectural designs of Antarctic research stations, from early, highly pragmatic shelters to Britain’s now iconic Halley VI, designed by Hugh Broughton Architects, all the way to the brand new (and very nice looking) Brazilian Comandante Ferraz... View full entry
