Three men have been sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia over their alleged opposition to the country’s NEOM project, according to a report published last week by the human rights monitoring group ALQST. Image courtesy ALQST The Saudi Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) handed down the sentences on... View full entry
A survey of architectural professionals conducted by a U.S. union coalition has revealed widespread dissatisfaction with pay, hours, and agency in workplace decisions. The survey of 436 professionals was led by the Department for Professional Employees, whose 24 affiliated unions include the... View full entry
A worker-led organization has launched in the United Kingdom with the aim of improving salary transparency in the architecture profession. The Pay 100, founded earlier this year, is currently calling on architecture workers in the UK to submit their salaries to the group, who will ultimately... View full entry
Back in June, we covered news of research set to be undertaken at Penn State on the subject of embodied carbon in cities. The research, one of many stories this year focusing on embodied carbon, signals a growing awareness in academic and professional circles of the need to include whole-life... View full entry
Burnout. Fatigue. Anxiety. Mental health. These words have become integrated into the everyday lives of architects, especially since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, looming economic crises, and socio-political injustices taking place globally the state of mental health among individuals... View full entry
Damage caused by Hurricane Ian’s massive storm surge, flooding and winds will require skilled workers to help the state of Florida rebuild. Staffing the projects to restore the state is easier said than done. Both Florida and the U.S. as a whole have many job openings and few skilled laborers. As some projects in the state halt, they may free tradespeople for other vital work. — Construction Dive
Figures reported by Construction Dive indicate a cause for concern regarding a lack of skilled workers for the many openings available, which has been magnified in the wake of Hurricane Ian. The disaster, which hit Florida in late September, has resulted in billions of dollars in property damage... View full entry
The debate surrounding sustainability and the Stirling Prize is heating up again in the lead-up to RIBA’s October 13th announcement of the coveted annual award. Just eight weeks after the Institute's new president Muyiwa Oki was swept into office on a platform of change, UK-based critic... View full entry
Norman Foster is in San Marino this week to present what he says is a new set of sustainable urban design principles to the 83rd meeting of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s Committee on Urban Development, Housing, and Land Management. The so-called San Marino Declaration... View full entry
The Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA|LA) has released an open letter to mayoral candidates Rick Caruso and Karen Bass suggesting 10 fixes to zoning requirements and the approval processes that would positively impact citywide efforts to tackle an ongoing housing... View full entry
AI concrete startup AICrete has announced that it has raised $4 million in seed funding led by venture capital firms CLEAR Ventures and VoLo Earth Ventures, along with Cortical Ventures. AICrete is a recipe-as-a-service platform that optimizes materials for cleaner and more cost-efficient... View full entry
Nearly five months have passed since the tumultuous March 25 Basecamp panel discussion and the wave of controversies that came after. While the LA-based architecture school has slowly faded from heavy media reporting, the team at Archinect has kept an eye out for any updates and changes... View full entry
The disappearance of such affordable homes is central to the American housing crisis. The nation has a deepening shortage of housing. But, more specifically, there isn’t enough of this housing: small, no-frills homes that would give a family new to the country or a young couple with student debt a foothold to build equity. [...]
At the root is the math problem of putting — or keeping — a low-cost home on increasingly pricey land.
— The New York Times
America has a long history of gradually siphoning away architecture made for predominantly middle-class people (think pre-war buildings in Manhattan or Levittown tract housing on Long Island) and is now simply under-delivering what could otherwise be an equalizing force as a result of prevailing... View full entry
Poundbury, Paisley and Perspectives all ultimately failed to conquer the complex commercial and political challenges they faced. Their royal patron’s attempts to create human-centred townscapes have led to car-dominated suburbs. His efforts to uplift grand historic buildings have carved them into dreary flats. Our King is someone who sees the right problems but, ensconced in the very establishment that prevents meaningful solutions, he can only meddle around the edges of effecting real change. — The Guardian
The new British King is memorably the originator of the panned Poundbury estate that has failed to fall in line with its stated goals towards sustainability and car-free pedestrian orientation, according to Phineas Harper. He thinks the scion is hemmed in by a stolid commercial banking system and... View full entry
A change has come to one of the industry’s oldest professional associations after The Architectural League of New York's Executive Director Rosalie Genevro announced on September 22 that she will be stepping down from the organization after more than 37 years in her post. Genevro says she will... View full entry
Some of Northern Europe’s leading architecture firms have signed an open letter lamenting the lack of “serious development” laden in Autodesk’s proprietary design software, an aging suite of tools the authors claim is asking usurious prices despite neglecting years of industry-wide... View full entry
