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Rivian Automotive Inc., the electric-vehicle startup backed by Amazon.com Inc., is in talks to invest at least $5 billion to build a factory near Fort Worth, Texas, according to a document obtained by Bloomberg News. — Bloomberg
The factory, labeled “Project Tera” according to the Bloomberg-obtained document, would be able to produce 200,000 vehicles a year and create at least 7,500 jobs by 2027. A number of incentives, including grants and a city tax abatement of up to $440 million, have also been proposed in the... View full entry
Images have been revealed of a 3D-printed structure being built to help simulate life on Mars. Named Mars Dune Alpha, the habitat was designed by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group for NASA and advanced construction developer ICON, intended to form part of future long-duration, explorative science missions... View full entry
Portland, Oregon-based designer Volkan Alkanoglu has installed a new timber and steel pedestrian bridge to showcase the “Plug-and-play urbanism” design strategy that is emerging behind the help of new technologies. The prefabricated off-site and installed in only a few hours... View full entry
After selling much of his real estate portfolio in the past year and listing his final property earlier this month to focus on his mission to Mars, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO is taking the phrase “Live below your means” to another level.
Musk, who turned 50 in June, revealed in a tweet that he is now living in a humble $50,000 home that he rents from SpaceX on its launch site in Boca Chica, Texas.
— The New York Post
The house comes from a Las Vegas-based company called Boxabl. The company aims to “significantly lower the cost of homeownership for everyone” with foldable, 375-square-foot prefabricated ADU called Casitas that have developed a significant following online since the Tesla founder’s Twitter... View full entry
The federal government has announced plans to return $2.2 billion allocated to fund border wall construction. This comes following President Joe Biden’s proclamation, made on his first day in office, to halt the redirection of money for the wall. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS)... View full entry
OMA/Jason Long have unveiled their design for The Terminal, a 5,000-capacity music venue for Houston, Texas. The scheme, developed in partnership with global live entertainment company Live Nation, will form the cultural anchor for POST Houston, a hub for culture, food, shopping, and recreation... View full entry
Block 185, the downtown Austin office tower project best known as the future home of Google, has made significant progress since its groundbreaking back in the downright prehistoric era of 2019 — and though it hasn’t reached its full height of 594 feet just yet, the 35-floor building’s ever-growing prominence on the downtown skyline is becoming increasingly difficult to overlook. — Towers
The 35-story Block 185 office tower, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects in collaboration with the local office of STG Design for developers Trammell Crow Company, will be Google's regional HQ in Austin. Completion is scheduled in 2022. Previously on Archinect: Pelli Clarke Pelli, Gensler... View full entry
In an attempt to pick up border wall construction where former President Donald Trump left off, a state lawmaker in Texas has introduced legislation that would see the construction of a border wall along the Texas-Mexico border.
HB 2862 would create a special "border security enhancement fund" to pay for the projects [...]
— Construction Dive
The legislation, introduced by Republican Texas House Rep. Bryan Slaton, also proposes to name the fortification system the "President Donald J. Trump Wall." Construction Dive points out that it was "only a matter of hours after Biden was sworn in that he rescinded Trump's national emergency... View full entry
Musk [...] said on Tuesday he’s aiming to create a city called “Starbase” in Texas, teasing a new idea on Twitter as his space company expands its footprint elsewhere in the state.
That footprint, first planted in the Lone Star state over a decade ago, is growing rapidly under Musk’s dogged effort to build a “gateway to Mars.”
— The Verge
Nearly a decade after launching the world's first commercial launchpad in Boca Chica near Brownsville, South Texas, SpaceX/Tesla/Hyperloop/Boring Company entrepreneur Elon Musk has shared a grand, and fashionably vague, announcement of a new urban stepping stone for his ambitious Mars colonization... View full entry
The Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin is planning a $35 million campus redesign led by the firm Snohetta. It will feature architectural and landscaping improvements throughout the museum’s 200,000-square-foot grounds like a dramatic biomorphic canopy redefining the entrance plaza as well as a public mural commission by the Cuban-American painter Carmen Herrera. — The New York Times
View of the Mari and James A. Michener Gallery Building, featuring the Moody Patio, Carmen Herrera mural, and inverted vault at the gallery entrance. Image courtesy of Blanton Museum of Art. A virtual groundbreaking celebration will take place on February 18 with completion of the $35 million... View full entry
From the list of architectural career opportunities on Archinect Jobs, we have selected six current openings for architects, graphic designers, and early-career academics in the Lone Star State. If y'all need to look up specific job titles from the architectural profession, consult Archinect's... View full entry
While no contractors have been officially announced for the project, Tesla procurement manager Jessica Munoz told the Community Impact Newspaper that two general contractors have been selected but not yet named. The firm also is looking for subcontractors for various jobs including site logistics, painting, flooring, fireproofing, interior finishing, plumbing, heating, ventilation, air conditioning and electrical projects. — Construction Dive
In July, Tesla announced the purchase of a site near Austin-Bergstrom International Airport to build its largest electric car assembly plant, dubbed "Giga Texas." The ambitious opening date has reportedly been set to May 1, 2021. View full entry
Real estate magnate Gerald D. Hines, the developer behind many of America's most iconic skyscrapers from the late-20th century, has passed away at age 95. Hines is perhaps best known as the backer for many of downtown Houston's skyline-altering developments, including SOM's One Shell Plaza... View full entry
So, in East Austin, in Houston’s Freedmen’s Town and Third Ward and Montrose, in Dallas’ Bishop Arts and Oak Cliff, among other gentrifying and -fied neighborhoods, the architectural language (what architects call “vernacular”) has become inseparable from the vocabulary of policy, where other complicated words, like “displacement,” “segregation,” “inequity,” and “NIMBYism,” are warring furiously. — Texas Observer
Allyn West penned a photo-essay looking at 'The Architecture of Gentrification' across Texas. View full entry
The Dallas Theater Center (DTC) has announced that New York City-based architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro have been selected to renovate the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Kalita Humphreys Theater in Dallas, Texas. According to a press release unveiled by the DTC, the “renovation efforts... View full entry
