The alleged deception: The retailers market and sell the hefty lumber as 4x4s without specifying that the boards actually measure 3½ inches by 3½ inches...The retailers say the allegations are bogus. It is common knowledge and longstanding industry practice, they say, that names such as 2x4 or 4x4 do not describe the width and thickness of those pieces of lumber. — Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel
Taking literal interpretations to a new, class-action-lawsuit extreme, a group of men are suing Home Depot and Menard's for failing to specifically label their 4 X 4s as being 3.5" X 3.5" (one can only imagine the litigious hurt and fury when these men discover that Aunt Jemima's Syrup is not made... View full entry
In 2013, it took an architect an average of 14 years to complete the initial education, myriad examinations and extra curricular activities neccessary to acheive licensure. In 2016, that figure dropped by 1.5 years thanks in part to an accelerated testing schedule. As a press release notes... View full entry
Now, although the horror is still raw and much about it is still unknown, it has also become clear that Grenfell exposes in the harshest possible way questions of the current state of social housing, about the accessibility, affordability and quality of homes, and their impact on people’s lives. — The Guardian
The Guardian's feature examines the new documentary Dispossession: The New Housing Swindle which addresses the build up anger surrounding the issue of affordable housing and the failed attempts at combatting it, including Margaret Thatcher's right-to-buy policy and the effects of the 60s and... View full entry
Britain said 34 high-rise apartment blocks had failed fire safety checks carried out after the deadly Grenfell Tower blaze, including several in north London where residents were forced to evacuate amid chaotic scenes. — Reuters
Two weeks ago, a low-income residential tower in London tragically caught fire resulting in the death of at least 79 occupants. The incident has sparked a national (and even international) conversation about the safety standards set by London officials for low-income residents as it has been... View full entry
A crowdfunding campaign has been launched for the latest civic development in North London; the Camden Highline. For years, the disused railway has been talked about among local residents, with many wanting to see a little bit of New York in Camden Town. Image Courtesy of Camden Town... View full entry
Almost 20 years since Frank Gehry’s $100m titanium-clad Guggenheim Bilbao opened, another city on Spain’s north coast is getting a major contemporary art centre designed by an internationally acclaimed “starchitect”. — The Art Newspaper
Renzo Piano's first big commission in Spain, The Centro Botín, is opening today. The architect claims that its comparisons with the museum that became a model for culture-driven regeneration schemes worldwide are too simplistic. According the president of the Fundación Botín’s visual arts... View full entry
For those of you in the Los Angeles area, you are already aware of the Arroyo Seco Weekend music festival, taking place in Pasadena this weekend. The festival is a new event hosted by the same people that run Coachella, Desert Trip, and other amazing art/music/culture events. For this... View full entry
As the country’s crime rate and prison population have steadily declined for years, dozens of correctional facilities have closed altogether. So when the number of migrants started to rise—more than 50,000 entered the Netherlands last year alone—the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) saw a solution. — National Geographic
Many prisons in the Netherlands have been repurposed to house refugees who are waiting to be granted asylum status, a process that usually takes at least six months. Free to come and go as they please, the refugees are not allowed to work but are encouraged to learn Dutch and build connections... View full entry
Design services at architecture firms continue to project a healthy disposition on the construction industry as the Architecture Billings Index (ABI) recorded the fourth consecutive month of growth. [...] (AIA) reported the May ABI score was 53.0, up from a score of 50.9 in the previous month. This score reflects an increase in design services (any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings). — AIA
“The fact that the data surrounding both new project inquiries and design contracts have remained positive every month this year, while reaching their highest scores for the year, is a good indication that both the architecture and construction sectors will remain healthy for the foreseeable... View full entry
The American architect – part of the New York Five and one of the city’s most iconic modernists – talks to Port about his body of work and branching out from his beloved colour white — Port Magazine
This post is brought to you by PPI. Seventeen US architecture schools now offer their students a faster track to becoming an architect; NCARB’s Integrated Path to Architectural Licensure (IPAL). Students in IPAL programs will document the same number of hours of work experience, pass the same... View full entry
Classical revival is perhaps the architectural style most identified with colonization. This building, which references Washington architecture, is a building of formal rooms, offices, and hierarchies, echoing structures of European authority. — Royal Architectural Institute of Canada
This June the federal government announced that the US' former embassy building in Ottawa will become a space dedicated to Inuit, Métis and First Nations communities which the task force of the RAIC finds to be a deeply inappropriate space for an Indigenous Centre. "Canada's Indigenous... View full entry
Inside the pavilion is a long table embedded with exhibits and audio stations telling the stories of people who are either experiencing homelessness or at risk of becoming homeless, along with excerpts from data sets, state reports, urban theory, poetry, and literature. — Yale News
Working with New Haven-based homeless services provider Columbus House, students from the Yale School of Architecture designed an interactive pavilion that will be featured at this year’s festival together with an exhibition of student work in the YSoA architecture gallery showing proposals... View full entry
For Lovecraft, the ubiquitous angle between two walls is a dark gateway to the screaming abyss of the outer cosmos; for Ballard, it’s an entry point to our own anxious psyche. — Places Journal
H.P. Lovecraft and J.G. Ballard both put architecture at the heart of their fiction, and both made the humble corner into a place of nightmares. Will Wiles delves into the malign interiors of their imagined worlds and the secret history of the spaces where walls meet. View full entry
There are tens of thousands of buildings in more than 87 tower blocks across the United Kingdom clad in the same aluminum composite that experts claim was largely responsible for the severity of the blaze that erupted on Grenfell Tower in Kensington and claimed at least 79 lives. The material... View full entry
