As a result of reduced tax revenue from the 2017 corporate tax cuts enacted by President Donald Trump, the development of at least 15,000 affordable housing units has been either delayed or eliminated entirely, The Sacramento Bee reports. The reason? A significant portion of affordable... View full entry
Commissioned by Princeton University, this project is simple in form but sophisticated in function. It involves an “open source building” to host research on the future of construction and computation. Just as biologists use an electron microscope to study organisms, architects will use this structure to study buildings. — The Living
The idea of algorithms designing buildings may sound exciting to some and concerning to others. However, after decades of attempts at harnessing this process, companies like The Living may have cracked the system to automatically generating building designs. The New York-based research studio... View full entry
Which is the world's most vertical city?
You might think of Hong Kong, given its famous skyscraper skyline, but by different measures of verticality other cities come out on top
— The Guardian
"According to building data research company Emporis," writes Matthew Keegan for the Guardian Cities series, "Seoul in South Korea has more high-rise buildings, with 16,359. Emporis defines a high-rise as a building at least 35m, or 12 storeys tall. In second place is Moscow, Russia, with... View full entry
From managing job sites to working with contractors, construction managers and administrators play a key role in seeing a project into fruition. Are you an individual well versed in code compliance, managing construction documents, and contractor submittals? Can you lead building sites in and out... View full entry
The desert outside Tennant Creek, deep in the Northern Territory, is not the most obvious place to build and transmit Singapore’s future electricity supply. Though few in the southern states are yet to take notice, a group of Australian developers are betting that will change. If they are right, it could have far-reaching consequences for Australia’s energy industry and what the country sells to the world. — The Guardian
Singapore is already considered to be one of the "greenest cities" in Asia and perhaps soon the world. With plans to have at least 80% of its buildings green by 2030, steps to make this goal a reality are well underway. Although obstacles like lack of cooperation from developers and investment... View full entry
Municipal laws in New York City are hampering the city's real estate developers and building owners as they look to embrace the use of drones to perform periodic building and facade inspections on their properties, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. In New York City... View full entry
Challenging conditions in the U.S. housing market, along with tighter currency controls by the Chinese government, caused a stunning drop in foreign demand for American homes.
The dollar volume of homes purchased by foreign buyers from April 2018 through March 2019 dropped 36% from the previous year, according to the National Association of Realtors.
— CNBC
NAR’s Profile of International Transactions in U.S. Residential Real Estate 2019 survey reports that "for the seventh consecutive year, China exceeded all other countries in terms of dollar volume of purchases, buying an estimated $13.4 billion worth of residential property, a 56% decline from... View full entry
Some of what went wrong that night has been reported in the French news media, including Le Monde and Le Canard Enchaîné. Now, The New York Times conducted scores of interviews and reviewed hundreds of documents to reconstruct the missteps—and the battle that saved Notre-Dame in the first four critical hours after the blaze began.
What became clear is just how close the cathedral came to collapsing.
— The New York Times
A stunning visual report from The New York Times lays out a chain of events chronicling the heart-wrenching battle to save Notre-Dame cathedral as it burned uncontrollably on April 15, 2019. The article points to several key lapses in the design of the cathedral's fire safety systems... View full entry
From landscape architecture to engineering design, last week's Employer of the Day featured firms are as diverse as their current job listings. Read on to learn more about these roles. Our latest recap starts with leading design practice Martha Schwartz Partners, whose currently hiring a... View full entry
A new housing typology will be coming to the Chicago neighborhoods of West Humboldt Park and Bronzeville, where Perkins + Will architect Greg Tamborino will bring his independently-produced, competition-winning affordable housing designs to a pair of vacant lots. Tamborino was recently announced... View full entry
Demand for design services at architecture firms decreased in June in comparison to the previous month, according to a new report today from The American Institute of Architects (AIA).
AIA’s Architecture Billings Index (ABI) score for June was 49.1, which is down from 50.2 in May. Any score below 50 indicates a decrease in billings. Both the project inquiries index and the design contracts index continued to soften in June but remained positive.
— AIA
"With billings declining or flat for the last five months, it appears that we are settling in for a period of soft demand for design services," said AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. "With the new design contracts score reaching a 10-month low and the project inquiries score hitting... View full entry
The plan is the fourth pillar in a five-year philanthropic effort dubbed AI for Good, which already includes previously announced target areas centered on the earth, humanitarian action and accessibility. The $10m cultural heritage initiative will focus on finding ways to celebrate people, language, places and historic artifacts, — The Art Newspaper
Microsoft, a leader in the tech industry, has initiated a new extension to their $125M AI for Good program. The company aims to use artificial intelligence as a way to preserve cultural heritage. According to an announcement made by Microsoft President Brad Smith, "We want technology to advance... View full entry
In light of the Gauja National Park's 45th anniversary, the Nature Conservation Agency of Latvia and Bee Breeders organized a competition seeking design ideas for a footbridge that will serve as an architectural landmark to the historic 90,000-hectare park, as well as allow cars and trucks to... View full entry
With a certain bulb-shaped observation tower in the news again, perhaps now is a good time to revisit another seminal observation tower project: The Welton Becket and Associates-designed Reunion Tower in Dallas, Texas. Crafted as a three-story, lightbulb-studded geodesic dome hoisted atop a... View full entry
Venice is full of water, Venice floods, the climate is visibly changing, and sea levels are rising, so you would expect Venice, of all places, to have an official strategy for what to do about it—but you would be wrong. The management plans produced by the City of Venice for Unesco in 2013 and 2018 barely mention the subject and twice, in 2016 and 2019, Unesco’s World Heritage Committee has failed to call them out on this astonishing failing. — The Art Newspaper
"We are used to thinking that, given enough will and money, there is a solution to everything, but this report says that we must get used to the idea that in many cases there will be no solution," writes a frustrated Anna Somers Cocks for The Art Newspaper and explains how a new report by the... View full entry