Just north of the SR-134 Freeway in Burbank, vertical construction is all but finished for the Warner Bros. Second Century expansion, and exterior finishes are climbing the hulking concrete buildings. — Urbanize Los Angeles
In August of last year, it was reported that the concrete frames of the Frank Gehry-designed project had risen. Now, as seen through new photos, the exterior finishes of the Warner Bros. Second Century expansion, which resembles staggered blocks, look to be reaching completion. The project is set... View full entry
The UNESCO-led effort to restore the historic Al-Nouri Mosque in Mosul has come to a halt this week after recent discoveries and feedback from the community have prompted a change of direction from the cultural agency. The Art Newspaper reports that the restoration was placed on hold after months... View full entry
There’s ever-growing panoply of efficiency measures — better insulation, improved heating and air-conditioning, less-polluting appliances — that could help the building sector rapidly decarbonize. By 2030, almost all new buildings could consume zero net energy — net meaning there’s some give and take from the grid to equal zero use. That’s a big deal, especially with a corollary switch to electrified forms of transportation. — Bloomberg
The list of new green technologies is long and includes innovations like low-carbon concrete, cross-laminated timber, and living wall systems that have all developed into scalable products over the past ten years. So far, big-name firms like Gensler, Lake|Flato, and KieranTimberlake have... View full entry
Four years after the project’s initial announcement, Foster + Partners has finally revealed designs for JPMorgan Chase’s new headquarters in Manhattan. At 60 stories, the 1,388-foot-tall tower will be the largest such development in the city and promises to feature an array of high-tech... View full entry
The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) has announced the launch of the WELL Performance Rating, a new rating that recognizes building owners and operators for achieving excellence in healthy building performance that enhances the well-being of their inhabitants. The rating was... View full entry
Onni Group, the Canadian real estate development firm which has emerged as one of the most prolific builders in Downtown Los Angeles, has broken ground on the neighborhood's first high-rise building since the onset of the global pandemic. — Urbanize Los Angeles
As reported by Urbanize Los Angeles, the Vancouver-based developer recently closed off and razed a parking lot at the southeast corner of Olympic Boulevard and Hill Street. Here, the City of Los Angeles has approved the construction of a new 60-story tower that will include 700 apartments. The... View full entry
Those involved with the house and the Prairie House Preservation Society expect it to be a big draw to the area for tourists, artists and the Norman community. Late last year, the Prairie House Trust bought the unusual two-bedroom, 2,100-square-foot home surrounded by open land and turned the management of it over to the nonprofit society. — The Journal Record
Greene’s sculptural creation will be turned into a museum under the scheme after being in the hands of private owners for many years. Greene’s longtime colleague at OU, and another pioneer of the highly experimental American School movement, Bruce Goff, is now also being used as a bit of a... View full entry
Why would the U.S. General Services Administration now raise a hind leg to this legacy by wrecking the Century and Consumers buildings, two early 20th Century skyscrapers at 202 and 220 S. State Street?
The buildings’ demolition would create an economic and pedestrian dead zone on State Street, something neither the street nor the city can afford. And it would be a shameful waste of some really good Chicago architecture.
— The Chicago Sun-Times
A $141 million adaptive reuse plan was initially approved in 2017 by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel, but the city decided to change direction only a few months later after an FBI security assessment determined that the two buildings’ continued existence creates too much risk for the iconic adjacent... View full entry
The Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida (HMREC) has just revealed architectural renderings for the new Holocaust Museum for Hope & Humanity in downtown Orlando, Florida. It aims to be the world’s first Holocaust museum designed around survivor and witness... View full entry
One of Denmark’s most highly publicized cultural projects has now officially begun its public operation after being previously inaugurated in a soft opening last June. Set amongst a massive new public park that opened earlier in the fall, Kengo Kuma and Associates’ design for the new... View full entry
The hulking Hickory Hollow Mall — a full 1.1 million square feet of retail space in southeast Nashville — was once the largest shopping center in Tennessee. But like dozens of malls, it’s been in a downward death spiral for more than a decade — despite a scrappy revival effort. Now, the mammoth complex surrounded by acres of parking is on track to join the ranks of malls making a transition into medicine. — Marketplace.org
According to a national database kept by Georgia Tech urban design professor Ellen Dunham-Jones, a total of 32 enclosed malls have shifted to housing health care services, with nearly a third established at the start of the pandemic. Covid lockdowns had a tremendous impact on brick-and-mortar... View full entry
Tensions over visitors, some of whom will, inevitably, want to claim a piece of the desert themselves, has been a part of the area’s story for years. But as the pandemic has boosted Joshua Tree’s allure for travelers, transplants and investors, it has magnified old conflicts and created new conundrums. — The New York Times
Numbers of short-term rentals have doubled in Joshua Tree and the neighboring community of Yucca Valley, presenting an existential crisis to some of its inhabitants dismayed at the new boom in development to meet the demands of the market. Even the tree species that the town is named for is under... View full entry
Québec City-based architects Bourgeois Lechasseur have completed a set of contemporary cabins in the woods near the Canadian metropolis. Titled Reflection, the two identical cabins sit on a flat clearing close to Massif Petite-Rivière-Saint-François, a popular ski resort. Photography by... View full entry
Two years after beating out more than 100 different international firms and being named to its commission, Barcelona’s Estudio Barozzi Veiga has finally unveiled renderings of its new “signature building” for the nonprofit Oolite Arts in Miami. The museum and educational center will... View full entry
Bedrock, the real estate arm of Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert’s empire, said Tuesday that it added a noted architect to a team it assembled to plan and build on a large portion of land along the Cuyahoga River near downtown. — Cleveland.com
That individual is world-renowned architect David Adjaye, who will join a team of consultants, city officials, and civic organizations focused on advancing the transformation of Cleveland’s Tower City Center into a marketplace as well as the 20- to 30-year proposal to develop a 130-acre... View full entry
