Shanghai Tower has officially completed as the tallest building in China and the second-tallest building in the world. [...]
The completion of Shanghai Tower is especially notable for pushing Chicago’s 442-meter Willis Tower (originally Sears Tower), once the world’s tallest building, out of the Top 10 list for the first time since it completed in 1974. Willis Tower was among the Top 10 Tallest Buildings for 41 years
— ctbuh.org
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat goes on to say: "Given the rapid development of urban centers in these regions and the new heights that are being realized by contemporary tall buildings, CTBUH data projects that it will be less than five years before Willis Tower also falls out of... View full entry
The company promised to “faithfully reproduce” several beloved artifacts in the lobby, including wall tapestries, paper lanterns and sliding doors, the lacquered furnishings and map of time zones...But those plans have done little to assuage the concerns of preservationists, many of whom contend that Tokyo is destroying its greatest postwar architectural assets to accommodate the 2020 Olympics and a recent surge in tourism. — The New York Times
The New York Times profiles the historic Hotel Okura Tokyo, which began reconstruction last September, much to the dismay of preservationists worldwide. The Times covers its modernist legacy and the pressures of the real estate and tourist market that Tokyo can't avoid.Previous news about the... View full entry
The rise of international architecture competitions has given western architects an opportunity to make their mark on eastern Europe and Central Asia [...]
Regardless of record-high fees, some of their projects are being cancelled half-way through or take a good decade to build. But the ones that are brought to life often become some of the most recognised works of its authors. For starchitects the miles between eastern Europe and Central Asia is the place where dreams and ambitions come true.
— calvertjournal.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:Azerbaijan counts human cost of architectureZaha's Baku win ignites protests over forced eviction and suspicions over worker's rights and human traffickingWho’s Winning the Architecture Arms Race?In Kazakhstan, a Shimmering Skyline on the Steppe View full entry
Governor Cuomo unveiled the sixth signature proposal of his 2016 agenda: transform Penn Station and the historic James A. Farley Post Office into a world-class transportation hub. The project, known as the Empire Station Complex.... is anticipated to cost $3 billion – will be expedited by a public-private partnership in order to break ground this year and complete substantial construction within the next three years. — State of New York
Governor Andrew Cuomo announced another piece of his proposal to revitalize New York's transportation infrastructure at Madison Square Garden this afternoon. Looking towards a private-public enterprise to develop the site, the proposal is budgeted at $3 billion and take three years to build.While... View full entry
The proposed Fourth and Columbia Tower...would be a mixed-use office and residential tower rising up 1,111 feet above the street. It would be 101 stories, with two levels of retail shopping, four levels of above-grade parking, and six levels of office space. It would also play home to 350 hotel rooms, and 1,200 residential units...But being the tallest could be something [developer] Crescent Heights may not want to give up. — KOMO News
Previously on Archinect:Proposed Seattle Tower, designed by LMN Architects, could become the West Coast's tallest View full entry
In 1502, at the request of the Turkish sultan, Leonardo da Vinci came up with the design for a stone bridge that would cross the Golden Horn [...]. With a span of some 240 meters, it would have been the longest bridge in the world—if it had been built. Now, more than 500 years after the sultan rejected da Vinci’s design, a team of students and volunteers in the Finnish town of Juuka are in the process of constructing a scale model of the original drawing—out of ice. — history.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:Gaudí’s uncompleted masterpiece will finally be finished—in iceIceCave Iceland is a city in the glacierFrank Gehry designs "Icehenge" desk for Inland Steel in Chicago View full entry
The primary strategy for blocking airborne sound is to add a layer of dense, flexible material to the problem surface...Stopping vibration-borne noise is usually trickier and more expensive. It requires suspending walls, ceilings or floors so that the vibrations aren’t conducted to a building’s framing, which can transmit sound throughout a building...A compounding issue is that it takes only a very small gap to let in a lot of sound. — NYT
Roy Furchgoff surveys the noise-control industry, which at least anecdotally in New York is growing. Related and recently, architecture critic Michael Kimmelman and producers Alicia DeSantis, Jon Huang and Graham Roberts documented the sounds of some archetypal NYC spaces. View full entry
While a dream house tells us what we want, and a haunted house tells us what we fear, a haunting house sits somewhere in between: seductive rather than spooky, suggesting an alternate reality that is more adventurous or transgressive or fulfilling than the one actually being lived. — NYT
Kate Bolick writes about the Pink House, located on the road to Plum Island, overlooking a vast flat landscape of pristine salt marsh Massachusetts. Rumored to be a "spite house", it served as personal real estate fantasy, as well as inspiration for artists, photographers and now... View full entry
The companies that made and installed the exterior panels on The Address Downtown Dubai hotel say that most of the towers built in the city prior to 2012 used non-fire-rated exterior cladding.
The disclosure comes as investigators probe the causes of the spectacular blaze [...] on New Year’s Eve.
An investigation by The National into the origins and specification of the exterior panels used on the building raises serious questions over the fire safety of hundreds of buildings.
— thenational.ae
Related stories in the Archinect news:Flying firefighters: the jetpack is quickly becoming a realityThe troubles of evacuating one of the world's tallest residential buildings during a fireFire fears for Gulf's high-rise blocks View full entry
When three architecture students from Cal Poly Pomona, Kirill Volchinskiy, Hana Lemseffer and Necils Lopez invest their skills and resources with the community, the possibilities are endless.We are a team of 3 architecture students who have worked for a year to make this project a reality and... View full entry
What they weren’t trivializing or coarsening with commerce, railroad executives were simply neglecting. Whether desperately or cynically, they seemed to understand that redevelopment of their money-losing, nine-acre station would be more palatable if the public could be made to forget the glories of Mr. McKim’s original design. Pink granite walls were allowed to turn gray. Straw-colored travertine looked nicotine-stained. Jules Guerin’s murals disappeared under veils of grime. — nytimes.com
The destruction of Old Penn Station in favor of its soulless, uninspiring replacement has garnered an ample share of outraged pixels—but what if the long-accepted narrative has a twist? Apparently, the inspiring sweep and elegance that is so often attributed to Penn Station had fallen victim to... View full entry
The architect David Adjaye had designed a $100 million building with a facade of red ceramic tiles, combining a high-end mall and a separate exhibition space...Some art critics said displaying the collection in a wing of a mall eroded the line between art and commerce. — NYT
Rachel Donadio reports from the grand opening of the Aishti Foundation, a private museum in Beirut, designed by the architect David Adjaye. Earlier Christopher Perrodin had questioned why the project wasn't "on anyone's radar?? We see a fusion of commercial and culture within one... View full entry
October 2015↑ SANAA's meandering "River" community center opens to the public SANAA's gleaming "River" community center, which Archinect first mentioned in 2012, finally opened its doors to the public. While the building is generally favored, Archinector Will Galloway shared an op-ed by... View full entry
A mosque, a church and a synagogue go up on the site of an old Jewish country club ...
It sounds like the setup to a joke — but it's not. It's actually happening in Omaha, Neb. The Tri-Faith Initiative may be the first place in history where these three monotheistic faiths have built together, on purpose, with the intention of working together. [...]
Similar initiatives are underway elsewhere. One in Berlin would house all three religions in a single building.
— npr.org
Similar tri-faith building initiatives are also germinating in other parts of the world: A church-mosque-synagogue, in Berlin View full entry
Some of Detroit's most famous vacant sites finally may see new construction getting under way in 2016, turning some of the city's longest-running symbols of distress into emblems of renewal.
The Hudson's site on Woodward, the old Tiger Stadium site at Michigan and Trumbull, and the State Fairgrounds near Woodward Avenue and 8 Mile all seem likely to see redevelopment progress in 2016 after in some cases decades of disuse.
— freep.com
Related news on Archinect:The return of redlining: how the mortgage industry is threatening Detroit's rejuvenationDetroit joins Shenzhen, Berlin, Turin and others as an UNESCO "City of Design"How Detroit can learn to revive its derelict industrial sites from other cities View full entry