The well-heeled Silicon Valley suburb of Woodside has come up with a novel way to block plans that would potentially bring in more affordable housing: Declare itself Cougar Town.
Last week, officials in the enclave of 5,500 people announced that all of Woodside was exempt from a new state housing law that allows for duplex development on single-family home lots. The reason? The entire town is habitat for potentially endangered mountain lions.
— The LA Times
The move is potentially foreshadowing of the ways in which local governments in California will, as predicted before Governor Gavin Newsome signed S.B. 9 into law in September, attempt to brush off the state’s efforts to mandate zoning that would engender an increase in multi-family residential... View full entry
A unionization effort at SHoP Architects that drew attention from across the industry has now been defeated after organizers officially withdrew their petition with the National Labor Review Board (NLRB) to form a labor union within the office. After a push toward unionization was first made... View full entry
Black communities will be disproportionately saddled with billions of dollars of losses because of climate change as flooding risks grow in the coming decades, according to research published Monday. — NBC News
According to U.S. and U.K.-based researchers in a new study within the journal Nature Climate Change, not only will the annual cost of flooding across the U.S. reach $40 billion by 2050, but predominantly Black communities will be the most impacted. The findings were obtained by modeling flood... View full entry
Architectural journal “Attention” has recently released an innovative all-audio issue of the publication, titled "Community is a Practice" (Issue 6), written and narrated by Portland State University School of Architecture faculty members Anna Goodman and Molly Esteve. Anna Goodman... View full entry
The Biden administration on Monday reversed a Trump-era rule dictating what kind of art can be commissioned for federal buildings as part of an effort to have public art better reflect America's diversity.
The new rule removes content and style restrictions that Biden administration officials say excluded many artists from consideration for the Art in Architecture program, which commissions visual art in federal buildings.
— CNN
The rule is a holdover from the Trump administration, which enacted the measure late in 2020 with the vague but distinct guideline that commissions must depict “historically significant Americans or events.” Critics immediately saw the mandate as a racist attempt to whitewash public art in the... View full entry
Ports from coast to coast are eyeing improvement projects to help alleviate supply chain issues that have plagued businesses since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The focus on port projects in the recently enacted Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is part of an overall push from the Biden administration to help alleviate the clogged supply chain in the U.S — Construction Dive
As reported by Construction Dive, an additional $241 million in grants through the United States Maritime Administration Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP) will join the $17 billion being directed towards seaports. The additional funds will go toward 25 projects in 19 states. And... View full entry
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer may be leaving the nation’s top court, but his days of making high-profile decisions are not over yet. Breyer will reportedly remain one of the jurors of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, regarded as the highest honor in the field. — Fast Company
The 83-year-old Breyer has served on the Pritzker Prize jury since 2011. He reportedly became interested in the discipline after having first-hand involvement in the selection of architects for the then-new Moakley Courthouse in Boston as part of his responsibilities as Chief Judge of the U.S... View full entry
A diverse consortium of architects has been announced for a massive new development called Cultural Terrace on the site of the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in Irvine, California led by IBI Group and MVRDV. The firms will be joined by landscape architects Agency Artifact and the local... View full entry
Ten people were injured Friday morning when a bridge that carries Forbes Avenue over Frick Park in Pittsburgh collapsed, officials said, with six vehicles including a Port Authority bus left stranded in the twisted mess of a bridge that had been listed in poor condition for the past decade. — The Pittburgh Post-Gazette
President Biden is visiting the city today in a pre-planned visit to Carnegie Mellon University’s Mill 19 research hub, where, ironically, he is expected to deliver a speech on the dire need for infrastructure investment in Pittsburgh and the rest of the country. The Biden Administration... View full entry
On the heels of [the] horrific Bronx fire that killed 17 people, including eight children, Senator Charles Schumer and Congressman Ritchie Torres on Tuesday unveiled a "4-point federal fire safety package" that includes addressing sprinklers, self-closing doors, heaters and federal investigation powers. — ABC 7
The pair of lawmakers had recently joined together to push the federal government to include the Cross Bronx Expressway into the infrastructure bill. Their new fire safety plan includes a mandate on automatic space heater shutoff features. The early-January fire that killed 17 at the Twin Parks... View full entry
A creative answer to one of the most pervasive issues in American public housing is being sought by one of the largest civic authorities in the country as the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) has issued a challenge to design an affordable new all-electric heat pump for the 21st century... View full entry
The fight for affordable housing in New York City has come to one of Lower Manhattan’s most important developments in recent memory. An online petition organized by the New York Review of Architecture and Citygroup has been circulating that appears to call for a 75% increase in the number of... View full entry
This week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Forest Service announced a $50 billion plan to fight wildfires. The goal is, in fact, to reduce wildfires. But one of the side effects may be a huge infusion of ecologically harvested wood into the supply chain for building materials. For architects, this firefighting tool could also be a new source of carbon-sequestering wood for sustainable building projects. — Fast Company
The timber industry is currently under tremendous strain to meet demands as suppliers face labor shortages that have triggered high prices for their clients, who are increasingly looking to build bigger and taller buildings using what is considered to be a more sustainable material. The... View full entry
Yet today these two pieces of fascist architectural propaganda are the centrepiece of a bold artistic experiment in addressing the debate around contested monuments, one which offers a template for other communities divided over whether to tear down or keep up monuments with racist, imperialist or fascist connotations. — BBC
Bolzano, the capital city of the province of South Tyrol in northern Italy, has become an important case study over its demonstrated ability to thoughtfully frame several of its local fascist monuments in a contemporary light that presents the public with a challenge to improve its own... View full entry
The Urban Investment Group within Goldman Sachs Asset Management announced that it closed a $75 million investment with the National Affordable Housing Trust (NAHT) to establish the Black Developers Initiative Affordable Housing Fund, which will finance high-quality affordable housing across the country sponsored by Black-led developers — GlobeSt.com
Six organizations in San Francisco, Georgia, New York and Dallas received the capital grants for community and affordable housing projects. Two of the projects work to address housing disparities, while the rest touch on topics surrounding the issues at the core of the $130 billion financial... View full entry
