President Donald Trump is pushing for congressional funding that would allow the General Services Administration (GSA) to undertake a long-delayed renovation and modernization plan for the White House West Wing. Included in a recent legislative framework floated by Republican senators aimed... View full entry
The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts has announced its slate of 2020 Grants to Individuals, a set of 52 awards totaling $320,800 in funding for research endeavors that highlight a multiplicity of architectural, urban, and social perspectives. As in years... View full entry
Launched July 1st by a group of students and alumni from the Harvard GSD, Design Yard Sale is a month-long fundraising event that "sells and auctions creative works to support [Colloqate Design and The Bail Project], two organizations fighting systemic, and anti-Black racism."... View full entry
Long Beach-based Studio One Eleven has announced plans to convert a former medical office designed by midcentury modern architect Edward Killingsworth into an "essential service center" that will provide services for needy families as well as food for area residents experiencing food... View full entry
A design and construction team led by New York City-based architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro has completed work on the United States Olympic and Paralympic Museum (USOPM) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The 60,000-square-foot museum complex is designed with accessibility at its... View full entry
Lawmakers created the program in an effort to help low-income communities, and the provisions in the 2017 tax law on opportunity zones were based on bipartisan legislation. But Democrats have become increasingly critical of the program in recent months, following news reports about how wealthy people are benefiting from the program. — The Hill
Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib are hoping to repeal the controversial Opportunity Zones program that brings certain tax breaks to investments in new development projects that are located in designated economically-distressed areas, The Hill reports. Though passed... View full entry
On today’s show Donna and I are joined by Cruz Garcia and Nathalie Frankowski of WAI Architecture Think Tank. The last time we had Cruz and Nathalie on the podcast was for our Next Up series at the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial. We’ve since also had Cruz on the podcast to... View full entry
A development team that includes architects Steinberg Hart has topped out the first of two mixed-use residential towers in San Jose, California, part of a 630-unit development called MIRO that will rise as the city's tallest buildings. Designed for Bayview Development Group and... View full entry
Back in June, as part of Archinect's Spotlight on 2020 Thesis Projects, Sean Joyner connected with Demar Matthews a recent M.Arch graduate of Woodbury University, and they chatted about his rigorous investigation of Black architectural aesthetics in America. Xavi Freeman was impressed "This young... View full entry
The American Institute of Architects Los Angeles (AIA|LA) has announced its 2020 AIA|LA Presidential Honorees, bestowing its prestigious 2020 AIA|LA Gold Medal on architect Michael B. Lehrer of Lehrer Architects. The AIALA Gold Medal is the "highest honor the organization bestows on an individual"... View full entry
Housing developer Ush has completed the assembly of a modular 80-unit housing project designed by The Architects Collective with landscape design by Tavi Design Group. in Los Angeles. The modular units came in complete with appliances, finishes, and fixtures. The six-story structure was... View full entry
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has published its latest AIA Consensus Construction Forecast Panel, a metric that collects the perspectives of "leading economic forecasters" to help project potential near-term demand for construction services. AIA's latest report signals that the... View full entry
The 2020 AJ100 survey found that post-occupancy evaluation is ‘always’ done by just 4 percent of AJ100 practices and ‘frequently’ done by 22 percent, while a quarter of firms never do so and around half (48 percent) only seek to evaluate the performance of their projects ‘occasionally’. — Architects' Journal
Philip Watson, director at HLM Architects, reflected on the survey, writing, "Too often it seems, architects want to design a building, take pictures prior to its occupation – without the messy inconvenience of having people and their clutter in them – and move on to the next... View full entry
MAD Architects, led by Ma Yansong has been selected along with French architectural firms, Jacques Rougerie Architecture, Atelier Phileas Architecture, and Apma Architecture to design the Aquatic Center for the 2024 Paris Olympics. Located in the Saint-Denis district of Paris, the design team's... View full entry
Thirty years on, the A.D.A. has reshaped American architecture and the way designers and the public have come to think about civil rights and the built world. We take for granted the ubiquity of entry ramps, Braille signage, push buttons at front doors, lever handles in lieu of doorknobs, widened public toilets, and warning tiles on street corners and subway platforms. [...] The A.D.A. has baked a more egalitarian aesthetic of forms and spaces into the civic DNA. — The New York Times
Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic for The New York Times highlights how public discourse surrounding designing for people with disabilities has changed in the three decades that have passed since the creation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Highlighting the tensions that exist... View full entry
