The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday on a motion to identify a location to implement its first Park Block -- modeled after the city of Barcelona’s Superblocks, a block grid system that restricts traffic to major roads and opens up city blocks and streets to pedestrians. — NBC Los Angeles
The “Park Block” motion was initially introduced by Los Angeles District Councilmember Kevin de León last year. The program aims to save lives lost due to poor air quality and traffic violence. As detailed in a report by LA City Council’s Transportation Committee, the Blocks will serve to... View full entry
Plans have been unveiled for the reportedly “world’s largest urban construction project in wood” in the Swedish capital. Named Stockholm Wood City, and designed by Henning Larsen and White Arkitekter, the scheme will extend over 2.7 million square feet across several buildings. Image credit... View full entry
The newest addition to New York City’s High Line has opened to the public. Named the Moynihan Connector, and designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill with James Corner Field Operations, the timber bridges form a link between a series of civic spaces from Midtown West to the West Village. The... View full entry
Phase 1 of the Amazon HQ2 has been completed in Arlington, VA, which includes the newly-created Met Park and rooftop terraces designed by James Corner Field Operations. The park is part of a broader $2.5 billion headquarters featuring buildings by NBBJ and ZGF Architects. Image credit: Michael... View full entry
The Architectural League of New York has named Jacob R. Moore as its next Executive Director, following a thorough national search. Moore succeeds Rosalie Genevro, who announced her decision to step down last year after leading the organization for nearly 40 years. “Jacob brings tremendous... View full entry
Arup has recommended enacting a new 1.5-mile-long protective wall following the results of a new study calling for an $877 million flood barrier protecting the central waterfront of Downtown Boston. The recommendations call for a barrier to be put in place between Christopher Columbus Park and... View full entry
“It’s less about e-commerce than it is about how people want to live and what they want to experience [...] People want to connect, they want to be social, so we’re trying to give them more reasons and more opportunities to do that.” — The Globe and Mail
The movement is not without its detractors, however, as planning experts like the University of British Columbia’s Dr. Penelope Gurstein balance the media’s mostly effusive coverage for such projects with criticism that they are marketed towards affluent retirees and wealthy overseas... View full entry
Arizona has determined that there is not enough groundwater for all of the housing construction that has already been approved in the Phoenix area, and will stop developers from building some new subdivisions, a sign of looming trouble in the West and other places where overuse, drought and climate change are straining water supplies. — The New York Times
This decision, announced last Thursday, means that Arizona will no longer provide developers in some areas of the Phoenix region new permits to construct homes that rely on groundwater. Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, sources half of its water supply from groundwater. The announcement... View full entry
This Wednesday marked the long-awaited opening of BIG’s planned Stuyvesant Cove Park in Manhattan, marking an end to what was for some a contentious process that drew ire from various community groups on the two-year path towards its eventual completion. Commissioned to be a first-line response... View full entry
Archinect's Lexicon focuses on newly invented (or adopted) vocabulary within the architectural community. For this installment, we're featuring a term central to how technology and artificial intelligence may be seamlessly incorporated into future buildings and cities. "Ubiquitous computing,"... View full entry
Belgian-French construction group BESIX and Dutch dredging and heavylift company Boskalis have been announced as the first European contractors to be awarded a design and build lump sum contract by NEOM to work on the first phase of development for the Port of NEOM project. BESIX will work... View full entry
New York City’s Chief Housing Officer Jessica Katz is set to leave her post in the Adams administration by early July, she told Gothamist, leaving open a critical role tasked with overseeing the city’s response to its growing housing and homelessness crises. — Gothamist
Katz told Gothamist the job was both “frustrating” and a “real sprint.” She is credited with overseeing the beginnings of New York Mayor Eric Adams’ first housing plan as well as streamlining several key projects involving supportive and transitional housing during her... View full entry
SWA has unveiled the design, undertaken with HKS, for a major urban infrastructure project which seeks to reconnect a historically Black neighborhood in South Dallas. The Southern Gateway Public Green comprises a five-acre park in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas, built to reconnect a... View full entry
The New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA) has selected a team comprising RS&H, Populous, and Zia Engineering & Environmental Consultants to spearhead the Spaceport America Master Plan Project. Located adjacent to the U.S. Army White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico, Spaceport... View full entry
Carlo Ratti and Harvard's Economics department chair Edward Glaeser recently detailed their vision of New York as a “Playground City” in an interactive opinion feature for the New York Times. The six-point plan calls for a number of radical solutions — including the widespread (but not... View full entry
