Under the Faircloth Amendment [signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1999], the supply of public housing is capped at 1999 levels. In order to build a new public housing unit, the federal government is required to either abolish an existing unit or sell it to a private buyer. [...]
Article 34 of the California state constitution requires majority voter approval at the ballot for government-funded construction of any low-income housing project including public housing.
— San Francisco Examiner
Writing in The San Francisco Examiner, data scientist and fair housing advocate Sasha Perigo highlights the federal Faircloth Amendment as perhaps the most significant obstacle standing in the way of a trio of recently proposed public housing expansion programs that could vastly increase public... View full entry
workers have gotten sick, and even died, after cutting this engineered stone and breathing in its dangerous dust, public health officials say.
Overseas, some are even calling for a ban on selling engineered quartz for countertops.
— NPR
NPR takes an investigative look at some of the workplace safety issues that have arisen amid explosive growth in the engineered quartz industry over recent decades. The report looks into the incidence of silicosis—a debilitating and progressive lung disease caused when someone... View full entry
It’s hard to reconcile our work without first acknowledging that for nearly every injustice in this world, an architecture is constructed to perpetuate that injustice. Our profession overwhelmingly serves those with means and ignores the consequences of our decisions for those without means, resulting in the collective disinheritance of historically marginalized communities. — Next City
In a compelling Op-Ed for Next City, Colloqate founder and design director Bryan Lee, Jr. lays out a few of the principles of the Design Justice movement, a perspective that is central to the Design Justice Platform created by his New Orleans-based nonprofit design practice. Lee... View full entry
Boston-based architecture practice Leers Weinzapfel Associates recently completed the construction of the 202,027-square-foot University of Arkansas Adohi Hall, noted to be the "first large-scale mass timber residence hall and living learning setting" as well as the "largest cross laminated timber... View full entry
The red-hot housing market has made it difficult for adults, especially Millennials and single families, to afford decent accommodations. With the increasingly popular tiny home movement, it's become clear that this appealing lifestyle trend is turning into a viable solution to the looming housing... View full entry
A new exhibition currently on view at the Center for Architecture in New York City highlights the disappearing nature of single-story buildings across the East Village and Lower East Side neighborhoods. The Single Story Project highlights New York's low-slung buildings. Image courtesy of the... View full entry
On this installment of Archinect Sessions, we’re sharing a conversation I had a couple of months ago with Sofia Borges and R. Scott Mitchell, the leaders of a design-build studio at USC that addressed one of the most pressing issues in Los Angeles today—homelessness. ... View full entry
California Senator and presidential contender Kamala Harris and California Representative Maxine Waters have introduced the "Housing is Infrastructure Act," a $107 billion bill that aims to upgrade and expand affordable housing across the country. The bill is the latest in a series of efforts... View full entry
Dion Neutra, the son of the 20th century architect Richard Neutra and a practitioner in his own right who also waged a decades-long war to save his father’s iconic buildings from the ravages of time, remodeling and demolition, has died at his home on Neutra Place in Silver Lake, a neighborhood studded with Neutra architecture.
Neutra, who was 93, died Sunday in his sleep, said his brother, Raymond Neutra.
— The Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times highlights the life and career of Dion Neutra, the son and collaborator of Richard Neutra, the famed Los Angeles architect behind many of the city's sleek Modernist-era structures. Dion worked alongside his father on some of the firm's most creative works, including the VDL... View full entry
How can we make stronger building materials? An experiment conducted by Rice University's Brown School of Engineering explores this limit by manipulating materials like plastic, metal, and concrete to match the strength of diamonds. 3D printed blocks made at Rice University. Image... View full entry
New York City-based legal group Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) has filed a class action lawsuit against a collection of public agencies representing the borough of Queens, New York "challenging the inaccessibility" of the new Steven Holl Architects-designed Hunters Point Library, according... View full entry
The U.S. is at the beginning of a tidal wave of homes hitting the market on the scale of the housing bubble in the mid-2000s. This time it won’t be driven by overbuilding, easy credit or irrational exuberance, but by an inevitable fact of life: the passing of the baby boomer generation. — The Wall Street Journal
A report in The Wall Street Journal highlights the coming vacancy crisis set to impact America's retirement communities and exurbs as members of the Baby Boomer generation age out of independent living with fewer members of younger generations left—or willing—to take their... View full entry
A project team lead by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), nARCHITECTS, Perkins Eastman, and W Architecture and Landscape Architecture has unveiled renderings for a new economic hub slated for the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. Overall view of... View full entry
Eleanor Marshall examined how and why "there is a significant pay gap between men and women in architecture" on both sides of the Atlantic. Will Galloway totally supports transparent salaries "It may not solve the underlying problems, still worth it to make the difference an obvious one. Employers... View full entry
Students at the Yale University School of Architecture have completed construction on the 2019 Jim Vlock First Year Building Project, a student-led design-build exploration that has brought a three-unit "triple-decker"-style home into existence. View of a upperlevel balcony-porch attached to... View full entry
