Southwark council declared that its New Architect Design Services Framework was a “first-of-a-kind” attempt to engage with a new generation of diverse designers. As councillor Leo Pollak put it: “It is the framework some architects have been waiting for all their years.”
It turns out that black architects will have to wait even longer.
— The Guardian
Writing in The Guardian, architecture critic Oliver Wainwright highlights the long-standing barriers Black and other minority architects in the UK face with regards to attaining public building contracts. Wainwright finds that while the 2010 Equality Act compels localities to improve how... View full entry
Following a surprise announcement that foreign students will not be allowed to remain in the United States if their colleges adopt all-online education for the coming semester, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have sued the federal government to stop the... View full entry
DesertXpress Enterprises LLC, an affiliate of Virgin Trains USA, has struck a lease deal with the California DOT (Caltrans) for a right of way along Interstate 15 as part of its $4.8 billion, 170-mile XpressWest bullet train from Southern California to Las Vegas. — Construction Dive
First mentioned on Archinect last September, the planned 170-mile long high-speed rail line that could connect Las Vegas with Southern California's Apple Valley station, about 90 miles northeast of Downtown Los Angeles, is making progress. XpressWest, a Brightline company and subsidiary of Virgin... View full entry
In the week since news broke over the leadership crisis taking place at the Architectural Association in London over the direction of the school under Eva Franch i Gilabert, dueling open letters have been circulated within the architecture community commenting on the episode. "A power-grab... View full entry
The Ayn Rand Institute, a nonprofit(??) “devoted to applying Rand’s ideas to current issues and seeking to promote her philosophical principles of reason, rational self-interest and laissez-faire capitalism,” has recently accepted—I assume grudgingly—government assistance to the tune of a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan between $350K and $1 million, according to The Wall Street Journal‘s Pat Fitzgerald. — Lit Hub
This news comes from a Twitter post from The Wall Street Journal's Pat Fitzgerald (@PatFitzgerald23). In the world of architecture, Ayn Rand is perhaps best known for writing The Fountainhead, a novel that follows Howard Roark, a talented architect who refuses to fit into the status quo... View full entry
According to The New York Times' Allyson Waller, "Chris Town was assembling a bed frame for a friend's son in a 19th century house in Guilford, Connecticut....when the floor gave out beneath him." Town had fallen into a fieldstone cistern well that was concealed beneath the floor boards... View full entry
A recently published interface pulls together data on what architecture firms received approval for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funding from the United States Small Business Administration (SBA). The interface collects publicly available information published by SBA that has been sorted... View full entry
Will Hunter, a founder of the London School of Architecture (LSA), has announced a plan to step down as the chief executive of the institution. The Architects Journal reports that Hunter aims to transition out of his current role at the end of the 2020-2021 academic year. Hunter founded the... View full entry
Adjaye Associates has designed a memorial in Windrush Square located at the center of Brixton, South London to honor Cherry Groce, who was shot in her home by the Metropolitan Police in front of her children on September 28, 1985. Becoming paralyzed from the incident, Groce passed away in... View full entry
Each week, Archinect is highlighting a selection of exciting firms with current job openings. For even more opportunities, visit Archinect Jobs and browse our active community of architecture students and professionals, firms, and schools. Operating from offices in Copenhagen, New York, London... View full entry
Rather than fancy restaurants and gimmicky stores, lobbies could host outside organizations to convene and organize. The museum might act as a partner and participant, catalyst, and amplifier. Here, there are no bananas stuck to the wall, but ample meaningful information for an active audience. Guards would protect patrons over property. And during the next protest, lobbies could open up and transform into staging grounds, sanctuary spaces, and broadcasting stations for citizen journalists. — artnet
Architect Florian Idenburg offers alternative uses for boarded up museum fronts in New York City during the social uprising and protests and questions the corporate policies now running the museum's public interface on city's sidewalks. "Amid the stream of information about systemic racism... View full entry
The ghost kitchen is an increasingly crowded space. In addition to Reef, there are Zuul and Kitchen United in the United States, Deliveroo in London and Paris, and Panda Selected in China. CloudKitchens, the new venture run by Travis Kalanick’s City Storage Systems, buys real estate, brings in kitchen facilities, and leases them to chefs and small-business owners, most of whom do not have other brick-and-mortar spaces. — The New Yorker
Anna Wiener, a contributing writer to The New Yorker, surveys the landscape of delivery- and takeout-only "ghost kitchens" that have taken root in American cities following the COVID-19 pandemic by focusing in on kitchen pod start up company Reef Technology. View full entry
This week's featured virtual event happenings, from Archinect's Virtual Event Guide, address urban design, sustainable infrastructure, Stefano Boeri and Sou Fujimoto, equity in higher ed, designing careers, and much more. Are you hosting a virtual lecture? Presentation? Tour? Interview?... View full entry
The American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) has published its latest monthly Interior Design Billings Index (IDBI) report, finding that the demand for interior design services is poised to grow considerably over coming months as businesses and institutions undertake additional interior... View full entry
Even before the pandemic reconfigured every aspect of our daily lives, it was clear that the cash register — the kind with a drawer that pops out after your groceries are tallied — was headed for the dust heap of technology, joining fax machines and CD players. Many convenience stores, like CVS, Rite Aid and Target, started installing self-checkout stations a decade ago. — The Philadelphia Inquirer
Architecture critic Inga Saffron of The Philadelphia Inquirer examines the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has supercharged the automation of grocery stores and other spaces, finding that with the boom in grocery delivery services that has taken hold since the pandemic hit, some purveyors... View full entry
