“The mural had fallen into disrepair, its imagery so faded from the sun that some shapes were barely recognizable. On a trip to L.A. in 2017 to restore one of his murals, Davis visited Watts Towers and noted what terrible shape the work was in. It gnawed at him, how fragile the mural was, slowly and quietly deteriorating in plain sight.” — The Los Angeles Times
The mural-lined Watts Towers campus is currently at the end of a three-year conservation effort being overseen by LACMA. The largest is artist Alonzo Davis’ tribute to acclaimed visual artist and former Watts Towers Arts Center director John Outterbridge, who died last year. Davis, who... View full entry
A trippy trend in building technology has taken top billing at the 6th annual Tallinn Architecture Biennale in the Baltic nation of Estonia. Using 3D-printing technology, the Australian team of Simulaa and Natalie Alima has taken a timber-frame formwork imbued with mycelial fibers that grow... View full entry
Rider Levett Bucknall's Crane Count decreased by 4.5% from Q1 to Q3 2021. The index measures the number of fixed cranes across cities in the U.S. and Canada, as a representation of the active construction workload in those cities — Construction Dive
Of the 14 cities measured, only Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Toronto, saw an increase in the number of cranes during this period. Chicago, Denver, Honolulu, Phoenix, and Portland were reported as having significant decreases in the number of cranes, dropping between 32% and 78%. Boston, Las... View full entry
Construction will be an engine of global economic growth in the decade to 2030, with output expected to be 35% higher than in the ten years to 2020, according to a new global forecast. — Global Construction Review
The report, titled Future of Construction, by Oxford Economics and Marsh McLennan subsidiaries March and Guy Carpenter projects that growth in construction output will average 3.6% per year from now until 2030, outpacing that of the manufacturing and services sectors. According to the study, this... View full entry
I am very glad to see the genre of photographing architectural space being lifted to the level of portraiture and landscape photography,” Ms. Binet said. This is “not only a profession, not only a service. It’s also a form of art. — Hélène Binet
Binet’s work for the late Zaha Hadid features prominently in the show alongside 90 other select images showcasing the genius of Peter Zumthor, Le Corbusier, and others. The photographer’s recent centenary examination of Gottfried Böhm’s Cologne churches will be on view as well. “I think... View full entry
Ennead Architects has released images of their competition-winning design for the new International Performance Center in Shenzhen. The company, which is currently hiring a BIM Specialist and Computational Designer on Archinect Jobs, hopes that their scheme will “reimagine the possibilities... View full entry
For instance, by the end of this year, approximately 20,100 units in older buildings (that previously served other purposes) will be starting a new life as apartments — that’s almost double the number of apartments converted in 2020 and 2019 combined. So far, through adaptive reuse alone, this new decade has already created nearly 32,000 apartments, 41% of which are in former office buildings. — RENTCafé
The shift to work-from-home caused by the coronavirus pandemic has also resulted in office spaces becoming one-quarter of the adaptive reuse projects that will make more than 12,000 rental units available by the end of next year. Hospitals, hotels, and even a houseboat are among the disused... View full entry
Thirty years after their first project in the Japanese city of Fukuoka, OMA has announced the completion of its plan for the Tenjin Business Center development that will bring a “new urban lifestyle” to the country’s seventh-largest city. The Tenjin Business Center's pixellated corner... View full entry
The pressure to remake neighborhoods like Clairemont is due not to some sudden shift in what people want out of a home but rather to the sweeping social changes that have already played out inside them. As the Columbia University historian Kenneth Jackson wrote in “Crabgrass Frontier,” his seminal history of America’s suburbs: “No society can be fully understood apart from the residences of its members.” —
Applications for ADUs in San Diego have skyrocketed since 2018, part of a nationwide trend that is changing the way some cities are tackling the affordability crisis which has gotten out of hand as a direct result of antiquated housing policy that insisted on the type of single-family... View full entry
Sad news today as multiple outlets are reporting the death of Brutalist icon and former RIBA president Owen Luder in England at the age of 93. Luder held a number of different titles throughout his six-decade career and was a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) at the time of his... View full entry
For this week's highlight of featured employers, we have selected four architecture, interior design, and creative practices with current job openings in New York City, Los Angeles, and Vancouver. For even more opportunities, visit the Archinect job board and browse our active community of... View full entry
Foster + Partners, the largest architecture firm based in the United Kingdom, has announced a new partnership with a Canadian private family investment firm. The partnership with the Canadian firm, named Hennick & Company, sees the Hennick family now become the largest shareholder of Foster +... View full entry
The important first section of OMA’s redesigned master plan for the famed Berlin department store Kaufhaus des Westens (or KaDeWe) has officially opened to the public this week after a five-year renovation effort. Organized into quadrants, the reorganized mass introduces a smaller area plan with... View full entry
In an effort to tackle the effects of America’s ongoing affordable housing crisis on LGBTQ seniors, KFA and Leong Leong are teaming up with the Ariadne Getty Foundation on the design of a five-story apartment complex that will help meet the needs of the greater Los Angeles community. The... View full entry
Is architectural visualization more than a pretty image? The response to this question can be polarizing. Some argue that this advancement in 3D rendering software combined with the lofty ambitions of firms striving to pitch success to their clients has its fair share of pros and cons... View full entry
