While other regions grappled with destructive waves and rising seas, the West Coast for decades was spared by a rare confluence of favorable winds and cooler water. This “sea level rise suppression,” as scientists call it, went largely undetected. [...]
But lines in the sand are meant to shift. In the last 100 years, the sea rose less than 9 inches in California. By the end of this century, the surge could be greater than 9 feet.
— Los Angeles Times
In her LA Times long read, Rosanna Xia tells the tale of coastal cities up and down the Golden State and their increasing struggles to defend beaches, infrastructure, and (mostly pricey) properties against the rising sea that relentlessly chews away on a coastline many perceived as permanent... View full entry
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has unveiled $1.6 million in grant funding dedicated to preserving historical sites that demonstrate significance with relation to Black history and African American cultural heritage from around the country. The funding, part of a larger, multi-year... View full entry
Since 1983, Iraq has lobbied to have Babylon, the "Mesopotamian metropolis," recognized as an official World Heritage Site. For three decades, Iraq persisted until finally, on July 5th, a committee met in Azerbaijan to vote for the city to be recognized by UNESCO. According to a piece in Al... View full entry
Just North of Dallas' city center lies a lesser known mansion designed in 1964 by infamous architect Philip Johnson. With six bedrooms and seven full bathrooms, this 11,387 square foot home in Preston Hollow, known as Beck House, is the architect's largest home design. Recreation Room... View full entry
There is enough room in the world’s existing parks, forests, and abandoned land to plant 1.2 trillion additional trees, which would have the CO2 storage capacity to cancel out a decade of carbon dioxide emissions, according to a new analysis by ecologist Thomas Crowther and colleagues at ETH Zurich, a Swiss university. — Yale Environment 360
Following new research, Thomas Crowther and colleagues at ETH Zurich estimate that there are 3 trillion trees on Earth, more than seven times the number previously estimated. Crowther argues that given this new knowledge, it is possible that new and existing forests could become more... View full entry
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has agreed to join a global declaration acknowledging the existence of an environmental and climate emergency. In recent months, New York City, the Vatican, the city of Vancouver, and the government of Ireland, among some 700 additional... View full entry
The Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) has unveiled a new "archipedia" website focused on extensively cataloging a wide range of structures and other facets of the built environment. Dubbed SAH Archipedia, the online encyclopedia was developed by SAH and the University of... View full entry
The National Park Service is diverting nearly $2.5 million in entrance and recreation fees primarily intended to improve parks across the country to cover costs associated with President Trump’s Independence Day celebration Thursday on the Mall, according to two individuals familiar with the arrangement. — The Washington Post
The move from the National Parks Service (NPS) comes as the department works to find funding to help ease its nearly $12 billion maintenance backlog. NPS estimates that it needs over $2 billion to repair its building stock, as well as over $186 million to improve NPS-administered housing, for... View full entry
For nearly 200 years, since the opening of Pennsylvania’s Cheyney University in 1837, H.B.C.U.s have educated thousands of students, including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Justice Thurgood Marshall, Toni Morrison, Representative Elijah Cummings and Senator Kamala Harris. But from a high of 120 such schools to about 101 in 2019, many have faced an uncertain future. In the last 20 years, six have closed, and several others remain open in name only after losing accreditation.
A recent New York Times report chronicles the increasing pace of financial woes and accreditation hurdles facing Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in the United States. The report states that in the last 20 years, six HBCUs have shuttered, leaving only 101 of these... View full entry
Platform, a new website dedicated to hosting conversations, writings, and perspectives on the built environment, has taken off. The venture, billed as an "open digital venue for exchanging ideas about working with, researching, teaching, and writing about buildings, spaces, and landscapes,"... View full entry
“These are expensive projects. There’s no question. But if we are to reap the benefits of mass transit, we have to provide mass transit that is attractive to individual travelers and their families,” said Rick Cotton, the executive director at the Port Authority, without explaining the rise in cost. “Experience shows that rail mass transit is the most attractive alternative, and we’re committed to provided that.” — AM New York
While the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey works to implement an $8 billion overhaul of LaGuardia Airport, costs for a planned AirTrain link connecting the airport to regional mass transit continue to grow. According to AM New York, when first proposed in 2014, the two-mile... View full entry
Big Plans: Picturing Social Reform, an exhibition currently on view at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, examines how landscape architects and photographers concretized contemporary social critiques through their work in American cities during the late 1800s and early... View full entry
Oregon legislators took a historic leap toward greener, fairer, less expensive cities Sunday by passing the first law of its kind in the United States or Canada: A state-level legalization of so-called “missing middle” housing. — Sightline Institute
In a rare show of bipartisan cooperation, both of Oregon's legislative houses have voted to eliminate single-family zoning across the sate, legalizing so-called "missing middle" housing, including duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, and row houses. If signed into law next month by Oregon... View full entry
The Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and developers Lovett Commercial have unveiled plans to transform the 55,000-square-foot Barbara Jordan Post Office in Houston into a mixed-use cultural center and park for the city. Rendering of proposed atrium located within the renovated post... View full entry
The newest design for the LACMA campus, masterminded by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, has received more criticism than your average museum expansion. LA Times writer Christopher Knight had some choice words about the futile nature of the proposal while Kate Wagner has dismissed it as little... View full entry
