The Parker Center, depending on who you ask, is either a midcentury icon, or a powerful symbol of Los Angeles' racist past. Located downtown, the building was home to the LAPD up until 2009 when they relocated due to expensive retrofits needed on the site. Designed by Welton Becket—the architect... View full entry
[Hearn's] venture also controls rights to the building's name, which has remained unchanged since John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co. developed it [...] Hearn has been in talks with companies interested in putting their name on the skyscraper since the structure's namesake no longer pays for that right. "We've had interest in it, but have not made a deal yet," Hearn said. That process could be resumed by a new owner. — Chicago Tribune
Chicago-based developer Hearn Co. currently plans on selling the John Hancock Center's office space, parking garage and, perhaps most interestingly, its naming rights later this summer. According to the Chicago Tribune, Hearn would use the proceeds from the naming rights toward a $10 million... View full entry
Frrank Lloyd Wright was never one to fret about meeting deadlines, sticking to budgets or roofs that leaked. So there is something fitting about the delayed, but altogether triumphant, restoration of Wright's Unity Temple, [...] the finest public building of Wright's Chicago years and home to one of the most beautiful rooms in America.
Instead of finishing on schedule last fall, the $25 million project is wrapping up just in time for the 150th anniversary of Wright's birthday, June 8.
— chicagotribune.com
"Success, it's often said, has many fathers, and so it is with here," Kamin writes. "A team of consultants led by Chicago's Harboe Architects has lavished exacting care on every aspect of this project, from the restoration of jewel-like art glass to the recreation of textured plaster walls." View full entry
Located in Los Angeles' highly dense MacArthur Park neighborhood, "The Six" is a hard-to-miss, 52-unit housing complex for veterans who are disabled and/or were previously homeless. Designed by Brooks + Scarpa for the Skid Row Housing Trust, the building gets its name from the ubiquitous military... View full entry
Last year, artist Edoardo Tresoldi made waves with his wire mesh sculpture in Foggia, Italy. Installed adjacent to the basilica of Siponto, the sculpture is a full-size cathedral in its own right, built on the ruins of an older church that once stood on the site. The wire mesh creates an ethereal... View full entry
Innovative Industrial Properties, Kalyx and other similar groups are following the same strategy: buy buildings, retrofit them and lease them to commercial or medical marijuana growers. But it can often cost millions to turn a vacant warehouse into a facility suitable for cannabis cultivation. — NYT
David Gelles reports that the spread of legalization means the weed business is booming and with it, demand for commercial, industrial space. The latest post-industrial trend in states like California, Colorado, Massachusetts or even New York is a retrofitted industrial-scale "cultivation... View full entry
Tomorrow evening the Neutra VDL House will host an exhibition of work by high school students (age 16-18) from the Ramon C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts, curated by VAPA high school student Avery Wilcox. Each artwork offers new interpretations of the Neutra VDL House expressed in... View full entry
As with any Apple product, its shape would be determined by its function. This would be a workplace where people were open to each other and open to nature, and the key to that would be modular sections, known as pods, for work or collaboration. — Steven Levy for WIRED
Since 2009, Foster and Partners have been working on a new headquarters for the tech giant Apple, originally in close collaboration with Steve Jobs, its founder, who saw it as one of his last crucial contribution to his legacy. Even though dramatic photographs of the ring-shaped structure have... View full entry
The 2017 RIBA Awards cycle continues with the recent reveal of six winning buildings for the 2017 West Midlands Awards. “The winners deliver an architecture with a narrative and a poetry, while also fully responding to the functional needs of the facilities they created,” stated RIBA Jury Chair Natalia Maximova. “It is a year of quieter and well-mannered design, nevertheless, no less confident and powerful for that reason.” — Bustler
Here's a glimpse of the winning projects:The Compound by BPN ArchitectsPhoto: Tom Bird.St. Michael’s Hospice, Hereford by ArchitypePhoto: Dennis Gilbert.Croft Lodge Studio, Leominster by Kate Darby ArchitectsPhoto: James Morris.Alan Walters Building, University of Birmingham by Berman Guedes... View full entry
"The Conservative Party’s manifesto outlines its vision to further empower communities. Whoever forms the next government should ensure that plans to build high quality housing and infrastructure are linked with industrial and devolution strategies to encourage more jobs and a better quality of life for people across the country." — RIBA President Jane Duncan
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has responded to the publication of the Conservatives manifesto, published earlier today."The RIBA welcomes the Conservatives’ acknowledgment that the UK’s architects are the finest in the world. This is recognition of the vital role that good... View full entry
"I am pleased to see that the Liberal Democrats have recognized the key role of the built environment sector in tackling issues such as energy demand, climate change and urban flooding through their plans for infrastructure and housing.
“Proposals for new housebuilding should be balanced with ambitions to deliver high quality, well designed and sustainable homes across the country.”
— RIBA President Jane Duncan
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has responded to the publication of the Liberal Democrats manifesto, published earlier today. On Brexit:“I warmly welcome the commitment from the Liberal Democrats to protect the rights of existing EU citizens in the UK, and UK citizens in the... View full entry
Angelenos may be mildly alarmed to learn that local favorites Johnston Marklee Architects's striking Helios House (co-designed with Office dA) has slipped two spots to eighth place from its ranking on last year's top ten global filling stations as assembled by Design Curial. However, it's for a... View full entry
Symbolizing mountain ranges in architecture has the potential for a dramatic, iconic payoff, especially when the materials used to do so play an integral role in the interior experience of the building (think: the fabric peaks of the Denver International Airport, which allude to the Rocky... View full entry
Completion of the world’s new tallest tower, Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia, has been pushed back to 2019, its developer said yesterday.
Formerly known as Kingdom Tower, the structure is to reach more than a kilometre in height, which means it will surpass Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.
Construction began in April 2014, and was to have finished in 2018. [...]
“The project was delayed... but it’ll open (in) 2019,” Prince Alwaleed said during a media visit to the site, reports AFP.
— globalconstructionreview.com
"Saudi Binladin Group has been hit by a fall in work brought by lower Saudi public spending following the collapse in oil revenues," GCR reports. "Last year workers in Mecca burned buses in protest over unpaid wages amid reports of mass lay-offs." View full entry
The Mayan Riviera has had a rapid increase of visitors each year—over 10% annually—and its residential population has almost doubled since 2000. In fact, it has more international visitors than any other region in Latin America. While great for the economy, this influx can have a negative... View full entry