While the numbers are relatively small, these victories represent a massive shift in how designers see themselves: We went from being a privileged set of artisans to workers seeking solidarity with other workers in all industries. Learning from the workers and organizers who have put in the hard work before us, designers need to continue to take advantage of the current climate and organize more workplaces. — The Progressive Magazine
Chris Beck is an architect and member of the newly formed BA Union at New York-based Bernheimer Architecture, which recently ratified a collective bargaining agreement as the industry’s first union at a private-sector U.S. architecture firm. Writing for The Progressive Magazine, he says... View full entry
Organizing at the community level and putting pressure on politicians can go a long way, but it’s not enough. Architects have to start seeing themselves as political actors with high stakes in the same way communities and unions do. Architects are workers and they depend on work.
The fight for climate justice, resiliency, and workers’ and tenants’ rights are only going to get harder in an era of political decay, cronyism, and systemic crisis.
— The Nation
The fight over congestion pricing and residential building retrofits in New York City are just a couple of the many flashpoints architects should involve themselves in heavily in order to better advocate for the profession, critic Kate Wagner writes. Rightly, she states, “The field’s most... View full entry
The fifth cycle of Exhibit Columbus will center on the theme ‘Yes And,’ a technique for “affirming and building upon an idea to create a shared narrative” loaned from improvisational theater methods and aimed at spurring “existing material to shape positive change.” “Through a cycle... View full entry
Following its over-quarter-century run, Rene Peralta bid A Bittersweet Farewell to Woodbury University School of Architecture in San Diego. Janosh echoed his sentiments "Woodbury's SD campus represented an unusually thoughtful and conscientious moment in Architectural education". Plus, Niall... View full entry
The International Union of Architects this week revealed the theme for this year’s World Architecture Day. Held annually on the first Monday of October since its creation in 1985, the day occurs parallel to the United Nations’ World Habitat Day, aligning the architecture community’s efforts... View full entry
The British government’s plans to construct a new two-mile underground tunnel near the Stonehenge UNESCO World Heritage site have been called off in what’s being framed as a major victory for preservationists. The BBC has more on the late budgetary decision, which ends a yearslong legal... View full entry
The Tribune recently asked why mass timber construction is so lagging in Chicago while nearby Milwaukee and other cities in the Pacific Northwest and Europe are making strides to embrace the movement by altering their building codes and fire safety regulations. Even after an amenable update to its... View full entry
The historic effort by staff at Bernheimer Architecture to form the industry’s first union at a private-sector U.S. architecture firm is now complete after their ratification of a collective bargaining agreement in the firm's New York office this week. The vote on Thursday was unanimous. Founder... View full entry
The latest report from UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation on the stasis of multifamily developments in California has identified existing construction defect liability laws as a barrier to enabling housing justice statewide. This issue involves the risk taken on by... View full entry
The U.S. Department of Transportation announced that more than $5 billion in grant awards will be used to repair or replace nationally significant large bridges across the United States. The money is being delivered via Large Bridge Project awards through the Federal Highway... View full entry
A new planned community is built on the urban design philosophy known as ‘gender mainstreaming.’ [...]
Ms. Kail acknowledges that the parameters of gender mainstreaming are in flux. Where there used to be “a focus on the everyday life of white, middle-class women and their children,” she said, over the past decade or so, a new crop of urban planners has widened the lens, just as she’s stepping out of it.
— The New York Times
Vienna (the city previously declared by the Times to be a "renters utopia") owes a tremendous thanks to Eva Kail for its apparent equity strides. Though recently retired, the urban planner touts the new Aspern Seestadt development and its "female face" as the embodiment of the movement to infuse... View full entry
The crisis of housing in New York City isn't going anywhere soon: The latest data from a key city agency has revealed a pronounced stalemate in the number of new apartment buildings currently planned for construction in all five boroughs. A lack of tax incentives, including the expiration of rule... View full entry
Through my research on elevators, I got a glimpse into why so little new housing is built in America and why what is built is often of such low quality and at high cost. The problem with elevators is a microcosm of the challenges of the broader construction industry — from labor to building codes to a sheer lack of political will. [...]
It’s become hard to shake the feeling that America has simply lost the capacity to build things in the real world, outside of an app.
— The New York Times
Stephen Smith, through the New York nonprofit Center for Building in North America, has been exposing variables that undermine the housing market's intricate calculus in the form of building codes, cost of labor, zoning regulations, and the construction industry. He says: "Elevators in North... View full entry
The penultimate segment of the forthcoming California High-Speed Rail connection from Southern California to the San Francisco Bay Area has been approved for construction. The stretch begins at Palmdale in northern LA County and connects to Burbank. It will be followed by the final link between... View full entry
Saudi Arabia's gargantuan The Line megaproject appears to be experiencing changes in its design team composition. According to the Architect's Journal, Morphosis Architects has reportedly left the signature development of the larger $500 billion NEOM initiative. The Thom Mayne-led studio was... View full entry
