A recently-inaugurated renovation project for Michelin’s corporate headquarters in Clermont-Ferrand, France, has given a new identity to the 130-year-old legacy brand that was “in need of a new setting to project into the future,” according to President Florent Menegaux. The project was... View full entry
Zaha Hadid Architects has designed a collection of tents to be used as schools, clinics, and emergency shelters for displaced communities. The 27 tents, constructed with the support of the Education Above All Foundation, have been donated to the International Organization of Migration (IOM) and... View full entry
Snøhetta has recently unveiled designs for a new 12,000-square-foot library project in the Bronx’s Westchester Square it says will expand on the diverse neighborhood’s lineage as a “place where knowledge is acquired and shared for generations to come.” The new building for the New York... View full entry
A giant aquarium containing a million litres of water in the lobby of the Radisson Blu in Berlin has burst, flooding the hotel and nearby streets.
A spokesman for Berlin's fire brigade told the BBC the vast majority of the fish had died, and the cold weather had made rescue attempts more difficult. The tank had contained more than 100 different specie.
A police source told local media there is no evidence the break was the result of a targeted attack.
— BBC
The reportedly €12.8 million ($13.85 million USD) feature inside the central Mitte district’s Radisson Blu Hotel is considered to be the largest cylindrical fish tank in the world and was, until the accident, home to 1,500 fish. Only two human injuries were reported. The current cold... View full entry
[The] Los Angeles City Council put an end to the expansion of local natural gas infrastructure on December 7th when they unanimously approved an ordinance requiring that all new buildings within city limits be constructed all-electric. With this vote, Los Angeles became the largest city in the state and the second largest city in the country to mandate a definitive shift away from fossil fuels in new construction. — NRDC.org
LA City Hall had previously adopted a similar ordinance for all its municipal buildings in 2020 and passed a ban on gas appliances along with a mandate for emissions-free new constructions at the end of spring. The new building code changes are set to go into effect with the new year. A test run... View full entry
The historic hotel, with its haunted reputation and 600 rooms, reopened in December 2021 as a privately funded permanent supportive housing project. With most of the rooms reserved specifically for those in the bottom 30% of the area’s median income, it’s open to any [...] with a government-funded voucher. Many viewed the project as a promising new model in L.A. because of its size and flexibility.
And yet, a year later, two-thirds of the Cecil remains unoccupied.
— Los Angeles Times
The rare privately-funded $80 million conversion project for the influential Skid Row Housing Trust is one of many case studies on the issue of vacant single-room occupancy (SROs) in Los Angeles. The city housing authority’s Section 8 director thinks an absence of in-unit bathrooms and... View full entry
One of Frank Lloyd Wright’s final Usonian designs is now on the market in central California. Real estate firm Crosby Doe Associates recently listed Wright’s Fawcett Farm in Los Banos for a cool $4.25 million and is beginning to take offers on the 7-bed, 6-bathroom home that was completed just... View full entry
A new, two-tower mixed-use scheme from Studio Gang has been delivered in Amsterdam, representing a first for the firm on the continent as it looks to grow outside of the American market with recent expansions into Canada and now the EU. The 297,170-square-foot Q Residences are meant to address the... View full entry
Construction has commenced on the $160 million expansion to the Seattle Aquarium. Designed by LMN Architects, the new Ocean Pavilion is expected to open in 2024, and will form part of the campus’ vision of becoming “the world’s first planet-positive aquarium.” Project construction led by... View full entry
Another milestone has been reached in the ongoing Automated People Mover (APM) project at Los Angeles International Airport after the last structural steel elements near the historic Theme Building have been installed. The 180-ton final piece serves as a base for the new viewing pavilion and... View full entry
Nowhere is the gulf between digital promise and physical fact more spectacularly evident than at the new Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) in California [...]
Almost a generation in the making, it feels like the final death rattle of a bygone age, the last gasp of an era preoccupied with novel form for form’s sake. Perhaps it is fitting that this flimsy, paper-thin architecture is held together with tape.
— The Guardian
The Guardian critic paid a visit to the new museum building to offer a thoroughly dejecting assessment based on what he observed to be a disorienting entrance, confounding wayfinding system, atrium configuration, and defective cladding panels made necessary by a “performative shell” that... View full entry
Foster + Partners has shared photos of its just-finished MOL Group corporate headquarters campus in Budapest after a ribbon-cutting ceremony that was held last week in the Hungarian capital. At 143 meters (469 feet), the design is a collaboration with Finta Studio and now the city’s tallest... View full entry
A six month construction season is set to begin at the United Kingdom’s largest Antarctic research and operations hub. Called the Rothera Research Station, it supports leading researchers in frontier science in the region. This marks the start of the next phase of the British Antarctic... View full entry
Diller Scofidio + Renfro has shared new project details and a flythrough animation for their planned revitalization of the 63-year-old Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Kalita Humphreys Theater in Dallas. The project’s scope revolves around a “faithful reinterpretation of Wright’s original design... View full entry
A new civic landmark in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District is being celebrated after Rocco Design Architects Associates (RDA)’s Hong Kong Palace Museum (HKPM) officially opened its doors to the public. The 30,000-square-meter (323,000-square-foot) museum’s design pays homage to the... View full entry
