At the city’s first tiny home village, scheduled to open in January, each of the 39 closet-sized homes is costing $130,000, about 10 times what some other cities are spending. Five more villages are planned to open later. — Los Angeles Times
LA Times Senior Writer Doug Smith reports on the progress, and higher-than-usual costs, of erecting tiny home villages in a City of Los Angeles effort to take on its ballooning homelessness crisis. "Mayor Eric Garcetti announced the program in March," writes Smith, "signaling that the concept of... View full entry
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Board of Directors last week adopted new rules in its Code of Ethics regarding the design of justice facilities. "We are committed to promoting the design of a more equitable and just built world that dismantles racial injustice and upholds human rights,"... View full entry
floors in the exchange building gleamed with terrazzo-tile. Walls were decorated with marble wainscoting. Cherry wood lined windows and doors. Intricate wrought-iron railings accented a grand staircase. The exterior proclaimed its importance with Beaux Arts-style classical columns, porticos, arched windows and decorative brickwork. — Colorado Sun
Nancy Lofholm covers the $8.5 million sale of Denver’s Livestock Exchange Building and digs into the history and plans for it's reuse, as part of the larger revamp of the National Western Complex. View full entry
Architect and educator Peter Exley, FAIA was inaugurated as the American Institute of Architects' 97th president yesterday. Exley is the co-founder and director of Chicago-based architecture, design, and consulting firm, Architecture Is Fun, Inc., which won the AIA Chicago Firm of the Year award... View full entry
Facebook plans to invest $150 million to build 2,000 homes for low-income residents in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The Silicon Valley-based social media giant said Wednesday the money would support the development of affordable homes for families making less than 30 percent of the region’s median income.
— The Real Deal
According to The Real Deal, "the funds will be available to local governments and nonprofit groups in the form of low-interest loans. Projects in San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda, and Contra Costa counties are eligible. " The investment is due for full distribution by... View full entry
Inspired by some recent events, Margie Lavender reflected on the Progress and Equality of Women in Architecture. spiketwig commented "This really reflects my experience as well - for the most part I do not experience overt discrimination, but there have been the occasional incidents I've written... View full entry
Dubai largest listed developer Emaar Properties has halted new building work after a construction boom in recent years led to oversupply in the Gulf city, its chairman said on Monday.
Dubai’s real estate market, where supply has outstripped demand for much of the past decade, has come under additional pressure this year from the coronavirus crisis.
— Reuters
"We as a group have stopped supply," said Mohamed Alabbar, Chairman of Dubai's largest developer Emaar Properties, after denying similar claims back in April. The suspension includes work on the new Dubai Creek Harbour mega-development and its centerpiece, the Santiago Calatrava-designed Dubai... View full entry
Snøhetta has designed a mixed-use building in Hong Kong, named Airside. Commissioned by Nan Fung group, the 176,000-square-meter structure is located in the center of the former Kai Tak airport. A 200-meter tall tower set atop a podium fit with roof gardens and urban space at ground level... View full entry
The American Institute of Architects has revealed the recipient of this year's top accolades. The 2021 AIA Gold Medal goes to architect, educator, and sustainability pioneer Edward Mazria, FAIA, FRAIC. In a statement, the AIA points out that Mazria is being recognized for "his work sounding the... View full entry
ElDante Winston [...] PhD student in MIT’s History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art program is keenly interested in how spaces designed for violence retain a memory of violent acts in the present day. — MIT News
"These are places of violence that, when you go to them now, you just watch people mill around and eat gelato," ElDante Winston, a PhD student in MIT's History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art program, says about certain, prominent examples of Renaissance architecture, the subject of... View full entry
The website featuring a parody of Trump's presidential library went viral a little over a month ago. A discussion about it in the Archinect forum included comments like "much too nice," "not enough gold," "I like that Putin makes an appearance in most of the renderings," "far too tasteful for... View full entry
Following a letter released November 27, 2020 by The ---- Johnson Study Group calling for all institutions to remove the name of Philip Johnson from "every leadership title, public space, and honorific of any form," Sarah Whiting, Dean and Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture at the... View full entry
Vestiges of racism and oppression, from bricked-over segregated entrances to the forgotten sites of racial violence, still permeate much of America’s built environment. — The New York Times
For the NYT, photojournalist Richard Frishman shares powerful images of sites, buildings, and places throughout the United States along with their almost forgotten, sometimes preserved, stories from America's segregated past. "All human landscapes are embedded with cultural meaning," Frishman... View full entry
The National Science Foundation (NSF), last week, released video of the Arecibo Telescope's cable failure and collapse. Part of the Arecibo Observatory, the telescope was completed in 1963, and was the largest single-aperture telescope until 2016. This year, NSF decommissioned the telescope... View full entry
The pandemic accelerated a need for digital menu boards, artificial intelligence, expanding drive-thrus into dual lanes and adding drive-thru only units where available. Many other fast food restaurants like Wendy's, Taco Bell, Del Taco, Burger King, KFC and McDonald's have also shown interest in developing many of these concepts. — Construction Dive
With indoor dining areas closed in many, if not most, restaurants since the beginning of the pandemic, the nation's fast food and fast casual franchises are rethinking fundamental design concepts of their operations that will likely become part of the American vernacular for decades to come, such... View full entry
