The community college had sued architectural and design firm Burt Hill Inc., now known as Stantec Architecture and Engineering LLC, for using unlicensed architects with no higher-education project experience and interns from Drexel University after being promised services from "senior-level" professionals [...]
Additionally, the community college claimed Burt Hill caused delays in the project and upped the final price of construction by over 50 percent from $28 million to $42 million.
— thelegalintelligencer.com
A new law recently passed in France mandates that all new buildings that are built in commercial zones in France must be partially covered in either plants or solar panels.
Green roofs, as they are called, have an isolating effect which helps to reduce the amount of energy needed to heat a building during the winter or cool it in the summer. They are capable of retaining rainwater and reducing problems with runoff, and also offer birds a place to call home in the urban jungle.
— CS Globe
I'd like to tell you a story about death and architecture...hospital architecture has earned its reputation...if we want better buildings for dying then we have to talk about it....where we die is a key part of how we die. — Alison Killing @ TED Talks
In this talk, architect Alison Killing looks at buildings where death and dying happen — cemeteries, hospitals, homes. The way we die is changing, and the way we build for dying ... well, maybe that should too.For those interested in more about the architecture of death, check out... View full entry
The Sessions co-hosts met all together for the first time in the meatspace last week, making the pilgrimage to Atlanta, Georgia for the AIA National Convention. Immersed in the tens of thousands of attendees for three days, we met an impressive array of professionals across the architectural... View full entry
The interior of the Four Seasons restaurant, a vision of Modernist elegance with its French walnut paneling and white marble pool of bubbling water, should not be changed, New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission decided [...].
The decision was a setback to Aby J. Rosen, the owner of the Seagram Building, which is home to the restaurant. Mr. Rosen had proposed what he characterized as minor changes to the interior that was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson in 1958.
— nytimes.com
Phyllis Lambert — part of the group of architects passionately opposing Rosen's revamp plans and personally interwoven with the history of the Seagram Building like no one else — penned this Op-Ed in the New York Times last week: Save New York's Four Seasons. View full entry
The effort to save Norms comes at a time when historic preservationists say postwar buildings — especially on a smaller scale — face an increased threat from development pressure. — L.A. Times
Anyone who has ever grabbed a post-Largo meal or 2 a.m. existential coffee at Los Angeles restaurant Norms will be delighted to hear that The Los Angeles City Council has deemed the Googie-style building a cultural and historic landmark. Although this demarcation doesn't guarantee that it will... View full entry
Dubai is home to the iconic 828-metre high Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower, but companies here are now vying to claim second place on the list of tallest towers in the emirate.
[...] the trend of building 'megatall' towers — those which reach more than 600 metres high – is likely to increase, particularly in the Middle East. [...]
Currently, Dubai has 917 high-rises and 465 skyscrapers, states Emporis, which collates data on building worldwide.
— emirates247.com
[Barclay's] plan, to fabricate a “master-planned community” for nearly 100,000 people on what is today a field of sand dunes, is called Santolina. If fully populated, the development would be about the size of New Mexico’s current second-largest city, Las Cruces, and bigger than Santa Fe [...]
Columbia University’s Earth Institute points to 2050 as a time when the drought will begin to worsen dramatically, right around when Santolina planners predict the development could approach full capacity
— theguardian.com
Have an idea for how to address the drought with design? Submit your ideas to the Dry Futures competition! View full entry
The daughter of the man who was awarded what is considered the most prestigious prize in architecture said her late father was increasingly concerned society was not adequately confronting the looming ecological challenges.
Frei Otto, a German, was named as the winner of the 2015 Pritzker Architecture Prize earlier this year, just days before his death...
The award was received by...the architect’s daughter who...said he had been worried that the concerns he tried to voice were not heard.
— independent.co.uk
Islamic State militants swept into the desert city of Palmyra in central Syria on Wednesday, and by evening were in control of it [...].
Palmyra has extra resonance, with its grand complex of 2,000-year-old colonnades and tombs, one of the world’s most magnificent remnants of antiquity [...] that has raised fears both locally and internationally that Palmyra, a United Nations world heritage site, could also suffer irrevocable damage.
— nytimes.com
Previously: Ancient Syrian city of Palmyra under threat by ISIS View full entry
“Our work creates actionable strategies, integrating healthy building protocols, healthy products and green science with design research to directly impact the health of our building materials,” said Alison Mears, dean of the School of Design Strategies at Parsons and director of the [Healthy Materials Lab]. — The New School’s Parsons School of Design
Co-founded by The New School's Parsons School of Design, Healthy Building Network, Green Science Policy Institute and Health Product Declaration Collaborative, the Healthy Materials Lab (HML) is focused on reducing the amount of toxic substances found in building materials, while also encouraging... View full entry
Riding a stretch of increasing levels of demand for thirteen out of the last fifteen months, the Architecture Billings Index (ABI) dropped in April for the second month this year. [...] (AIA) reported the April ABI score was 48.8, down sharply from a mark of 51.7 in March. This score reflects a decrease in design services (any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings). The new projects inquiry index was 60.1, up from a reading of 58.2 the previous month. — calculatedriskblog.com
Nicholas Korody profiled the work, of Greek-born architect Andreas Angelidakis.Therein Angelidakis explains "I guess the only thing I really 'design' is narratives for objects I find and put together, and this process does not need to be defined as completed by a realized object. You can keep... View full entry
Entitled "An Architect's Story", the video features Chris Downey, a blind architect and founder of "Architecture for the Blind" in San Francisco. The piece, which debuted at the AIA National Convention last week, focuses on Downey's approach to architecture before and after unexpectedly becoming... View full entry
Still, when Mayor Bill de Blasio today unveiled his plan for New York’s troubled housing authority, NYCHA, dismantling these aging towers was not a piece of it. The plan calls for charging more for parking, redeploying staff to other agencies to save costs and leasing land within the housing complexes to private developers to save money. [...]
So why does New York City still have so many high-rise housing projects?
— theatlantic.com
