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The Guardian's Oliver Wainwright sheds light on the incredible exploitive workplace abuses happening in the UK in a recent piece titled Furlough fraud, snooping and firings: architects speak out over lockdown exploitation. From never-ending work days, to secret webcam recordings, and even bizarre... View full entry
[...] the European Union sees a chance to create a new common aesthetic born out of a need to renovate and construct more energy-efficient buildings.
The proposal for energy retrofits is part of the climate actions at the core of the EU’s 1.8 trillion euro ($2.1 trillion) coronavirus recovery plan and could result in a sweeping architectural makeover, one that leaders have compared to a new Bauhaus movement for the continent.
— Bloomberg
For Bloomberg CityLab, Kriston Capps and Laura Millan Lombrana contemplate how the European Union's bold $2.1 trillion coronavirus recovery plan, and its embedded measures to make buildings more energy-efficient, could shape architecture and urban design on much of the continent. A new Bauhaus... View full entry
The commercial design industry—real estate professionals, architects, interior designers and furniture manufacturers alike—is optimistic that boredom, discomfort and a craving for workplace culture will soon drive the U.S. workforce back to their physical offices so things can get... View full entry
At the end of 2019, Second Home Hollywood opened its doors to the Los Angeles area as a remedy for flipping the script on co-working spaces and a community-driven work environment. Designed by the Madrid-based studio SelgasCano, its fresh take on integrating the indoor-outdoor aesthetic... View full entry
Predicting the future of cities is risky, especially if one heeds the words of the American baseball legend, Yogi Berra, that “the future ain’t what it used to be”.
In the period since the start of the pandemic it might seem as if everything is different, but in the long term, I would suggest that rather than changing anything, it has merely hastened and magnified trends that were already apparent before the virus struck.
— The Guardian
In his opinion piece for The Guardian, architect Norman Foster ponders how current and past pandemics have influenced and will continue to shape the infrastructure, and subsequently culture, of our cities. Foster briefly touches on a number of trendy topics, including electric vehicles, ride... View full entry
The Luxe Rodeo Drive is the first high-end hotel in the Los Angeles area to go out of business because of the pandemic, and industry experts point to an unusually high loan delinquency rate among hotel borrowers as a sign that more closures are likely to follow. — Los Angeles Times
According to the Los Angeles Times, the drastic decline of tourism and travel has "devastated" the hotel industry. "High-end hotels have also closed in other parts of the country, including the 44-story Hilton Times Square hotel in New York City, which went out of business this month,"... View full entry
Creating an entirely virtual museum is already one approach for the future, but it’s a slippery slope. Museums might be enticed by the idea of having their entire collections online in order to avoid the possible transmission of disease, but then what happens to the buildings...With everything online, a museum building would morph into something that’s more or less just storage. — The Smithsonian Magazine
With self-quarantining, social distancing, and the closure of businesses and public venues, what happens to institutions like museums and their relationship with the public? While exhibitions can be seen online, does that solution defeat the purpose of a museum itself? According to... View full entry
What are architects and urban planners foreseeing as people cautiously gather? Streets “curated” for various uses and dynamic cityscapes that both advance wellness and knit communities together. [...]
Architects and other designers who have devoted efforts to creating public places that encourage gathering and sociability now say their task is to make congregating in these spaces possible again — and perhaps to achieve some community-enhancing goals in the process.
— The New York Times
According to Infrastructure, Technology and Mayors' Priorities for confronting a Health, Economic and Societal Crisis, a new U.S. conference of Mayors (USCM) study conducted in partnership with Siemens USA by The Harris Poll, the majority of mayors believe that investing in infrastructure is... View full entry
German film director Wim Wenders is planning a new documentary covering the recent work of Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. Regarding the forthcoming release, Wenders tells the dpa news agency, "His work means a lot to me. I have been accompanying two of his arguably most important buildings from... View full entry
A Fort Myers, Florida, contractor has been arrested and charged with attempting to defraud the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) meant to help keep workers employed during the coronavirus. Casey David Crowther, 35, has been charged with making a false statement to a lending institution. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in federal prison. — Construction Dive
Crowther received $2 million in funds from the PPP loan for his company, Target Roofing & Sheet Metal, and allegedly included misleading statements as to how the money would be used, stating that it would only be used for business purposes, Construction Dive reports. Shortly... View full entry
Instead of a house with a picket fence and a front yard, many urbanites have opted to rent in newly developed apartment buildings or to buy condominiums in denser, walkable suburban communities, where apartments tend to be bigger and offer more outdoor space than comparable units in the city. — The New York Times
Sydney Franklin of The New York Times highlights the growing demand for dense—but not too dense—urban developments located in secondary cities by those fleeing New York City as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Franklin highlights a collection of recently completed low- to mid-rise... View full entry
Titled Coronation, the documentary film looks at the lockdown in Wuhan, China during the COVID-19 outbreak that took place earlier this year. The work, which Ai Weiwei remotely directed and produced from Europe, takes viewers into the heart of the rapidly constructed emergency field hospitals... View full entry
Boston Architectural College (BAC) has launched a new online access portal called BAC Cloud Canopy for its remote learning community. The online platform is designed, according to an announcement, to provide "virtual touch points" for "the disenfranchised, the marginalized, the... View full entry
SAR Academy and High School, a private Modern Orthodox Jewish facility in the Bronx, was the first NYC school to close due to COVID-19. The school administration quickly acknowledged the need to reevaluate its building facilities and operations, along with class schedules and sizes amongst other... View full entry
