A giant aquarium containing a million litres of water in the lobby of the Radisson Blu in Berlin has burst, flooding the hotel and nearby streets.
A spokesman for Berlin's fire brigade told the BBC the vast majority of the fish had died, and the cold weather had made rescue attempts more difficult. The tank had contained more than 100 different specie.
A police source told local media there is no evidence the break was the result of a targeted attack.
— BBC
The reportedly €12.8 million ($13.85 million USD) feature inside the central Mitte district’s Radisson Blu Hotel is considered to be the largest cylindrical fish tank in the world and was, until the accident, home to 1,500 fish. Only two human injuries were reported. The current cold... View full entry
The popular Gingerbread City holiday exhibition has returned to London’s Museum of Architecture featuring some tasty designs from top firms organized into five “mini-cities” master-planned for the second consecutive year by Madeleine Kessler Architecture. Each of the small cities... View full entry
Heatherwick Studio has offered a first look inside their new Shanghai studio, the first overseas office to be opened by the London design firm. The office is located within 1000 Trees, a building designed by Heatherwick which opened in 2021. Image credit: Qingyan Zhu for Heatherwick Studio Located... View full entry
Heather Flood has been appointed Dean of the School of Architecture at Woodbury University. Described by the institution as an “inspiring leader and designer, as well as a passionate advocate of design education,” Flood’s appointment is effective as of December 1, 2022. “I’m grateful to... View full entry
Searching for exciting landscape architecture career opportunities in New York City? Peruse this week's curated employment highlight from Archinect Jobs, with a selection of openings for landscape architects and designers in the Big Apple. To look up specific job titles from the architectural... View full entry
[The] Los Angeles City Council put an end to the expansion of local natural gas infrastructure on December 7th when they unanimously approved an ordinance requiring that all new buildings within city limits be constructed all-electric. With this vote, Los Angeles became the largest city in the state and the second largest city in the country to mandate a definitive shift away from fossil fuels in new construction. — NRDC.org
LA City Hall had previously adopted a similar ordinance for all its municipal buildings in 2020 and passed a ban on gas appliances along with a mandate for emissions-free new constructions at the end of spring. The new building code changes are set to go into effect with the new year. A test run... View full entry
The historic hotel, with its haunted reputation and 600 rooms, reopened in December 2021 as a privately funded permanent supportive housing project. With most of the rooms reserved specifically for those in the bottom 30% of the area’s median income, it’s open to any [...] with a government-funded voucher. Many viewed the project as a promising new model in L.A. because of its size and flexibility.
And yet, a year later, two-thirds of the Cecil remains unoccupied.
— Los Angeles Times
The rare privately-funded $80 million conversion project for the influential Skid Row Housing Trust is one of many case studies on the issue of vacant single-room occupancy (SROs) in Los Angeles. The city housing authority’s Section 8 director thinks an absence of in-unit bathrooms and... View full entry
A team comprising UNStudio, b720 Arquitectura, and Esteyco has been awarded first place in a competition for the Madrid-Chamartín Clara Campoamor railway hub. The winning scheme, which seeks to become an “international benchmark for sustainable, multimodal, connected, and integrated... View full entry
University of Stuttgart professor Achim Menges has been named among the winners of the 2023 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize by the German Research Foundation (DFG) for his interdisciplinary research into computational design and the application of robotic manufacturing methods in construction that... View full entry
In 2021, Verstas Architects completed the Helsinki Biennial Pavilion to serve as the entry point to that year’s Helsinki Biennial art festival. In addition to marking the beginning of the visitor journey through the festival, the pavilion was imagined by its designers as a "free, open space for... View full entry
The Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) has reported that its Construction Backlog Indicator (CBI) has increased to 9.2 months in November, the highest level since the second quarter of 2019. This reading is 0.4 months up from October and a 0.8-month increase from November... View full entry
One of Frank Lloyd Wright’s final Usonian designs is now on the market in central California. Real estate firm Crosby Doe Associates recently listed Wright’s Fawcett Farm in Los Banos for a cool $4.25 million and is beginning to take offers on the 7-bed, 6-bathroom home that was completed just... View full entry
Denmark’s second-largest city is set to add a signature piece of architecture after the announcement that a team led by Zaha Hadid Architects, Sweco, and Tredje Natur has been selected to design a new soccer stadium in Aarhus following an international competition. The trio beat out two... View full entry
A new, two-tower mixed-use scheme from Studio Gang has been delivered in Amsterdam, representing a first for the firm on the continent as it looks to grow outside of the American market with recent expansions into Canada and now the EU. The 297,170-square-foot Q Residences are meant to address the... View full entry
Revised plans for the proposed Ontario Place redevelopment in Toronto are once again drawing critical attention after being submitted to the city’s planning officials at the end of November. Storeys has the details on the updated scheme, which still calls for one-third of the 155-acre site... View full entry