Behind every facade design is a team of architects, engineers, fabricators, material specialists, and installers working together to produce successful building envelopes. From pre-construction to installation, the world of facade design has become a niche market for firms and individuals with... View full entry
After over six years of planning and construction, Renzo Piano Building Workshop’s colorful GES-2 House of Culture has officially opened its doors in Moscow. Situated on the edge of Bolotnaya Square, Piano’s latest museum, once a former power station, is a testament to the old Soviet concept... View full entry
Scrapped plans for a new concert hall in London are getting a much-needed reset thanks to an updated design by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Sheppard Robson. The pair originally was set to design the hall as part of a scheme sponsored by the Barbican and London Symphony Orchestra to... View full entry
More architects are speaking out in the controversy surrounding the planned Munger Hall development at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The Santa Barbara Independent is reporting that eight architects representing several different UC campuses sent administrators a letter dated... View full entry
Chinese authorities have taken over the Gensler-designed, under-construction Evergrande Guangzhou Football Stadium, commissioned by indebted property developer Evergrande, which was due to become the world’s largest football stadium by capacity, according to Reuters. — Global Construction Review
The Chinese government will either sell or take over the stadium via the state-owned Guangzhou City Construction Investment Group. As reported by Reuters, construction on the stadium has been halted for at least three months, in which Evergrande has been struggling to meet repayments on over $... View full entry
Last Friday, Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley announced the development of the Barbados Heritage District with Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye leading its design. The cultural center will be located at Newton Plantation, located just outside the country’s capital Bridgetown. The... View full entry
Banksy is getting into the shuffle in the effort to preserve a grade-II listed former prison complex in England called Reading Gaol. The BBC is reporting that the famed street artist intends to sell the stencil he used for an Oscar Wilde-inspired mural placed on the building’s exterior wall in... View full entry
The end is finally here for the saga surrounding artist Hiroshi Sugimoto's reworking of the Washington, D.C. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden following an approval Thursday from the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC). The NCPC go-ahead comes after another round of discord... View full entry
Energy efficiency among New York City buildings has improved a bit, but almost half of those forced to post a grade are still failing. According to The City’s analysis of preliminary data from the Department of Buildings, 48.3 percent of buildings received either a D or F grade. Receiving a D is essentially the worst a building can do, as Fs are reserved for properties that don’t submit data. — The Real Deal
More than 20,000 buildings exceeding 25,000 square feet were surveyed. As reported by The Real Deal, the share of Ds dropped to 39.2 percent from 44.1 percent from the same time last year, indicating some of the least energy-efficient buildings made improvements. The share of F grades, however... View full entry
It doesn't happen every day that a large piece of urban infrastructure is crowned the globe's best new building design, but at today's closing ceremony of the annual World Architecture Festival, one industrial facility reigned supreme over a shortlist of 200 noteworthy new buildings: CopenHill... View full entry
The first phase of OMA’s POST Houston, a project revitalizing the historic Barbara Jordan Post Office in Houston, Texas, is nearing completion. Finalized areas of the building opened to the public for the first time. Image: OMA / Steve HydeDesigned by OMA Partner Jason Long and OMA New York... View full entry
Will the fire-ravaged interior of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris be more like Disneyland than France’s most emblematic place of worship when it reopens after a major restoration? So fear the outraged critics of a new interior design for the monument which was presented during a video conference earlier this year. — The Art Newspaper
Father Gilles Drouin is the man behind the new interiors, which he says are meant to respond to the multicultural visitorship that was originally not taken into consideration by the church, which spoke to a largely Christian audience before the fire. Critics have panned Drouin’s vision... View full entry
A new lawsuit filed on behalf of victims and family members of the Champlain Towers South collapse alleges that the incident was caused by construction work on an adjacent property. 98 people were killed when the condominium tower in Surfside, Florida collapsed suddenly in the early morning of... View full entry
In a unanimous consent calendar vote, the Council approved a master conditional use permit and a transfer of floor area rights agreement for Olympic tower, which would replace the Downtown Car Wash located at the northwest corner of Olympic Boulevard and Figueroa Street - directly north of L.A. Live. — Urbanize LA
The Olympic Tower development is one of a slate of exuberant high-rise tower projects planned for LA's downtown area in the next decade. The Nardi Associates-designed building will top out at 57 stories and play host to a mixture of hotel accommodations, condos, retail, and 33,500 square feet... View full entry
Malaysia on Tuesday completed the tower spire of the building that’s set to become the world’s second-tallest skyscraper.
The Merdeka 118 will reach a height of 678.9 meters when completed in 2022, the tallest structure after the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The project will be an economic catalyst for the capital city of Kuala Lumpur, Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said at a ceremony.
— Bloomberg
The new imposing tower in central Kuala Lumpur was designed by Australian firm Fender Katsalidis Architects. View full entry