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The Global Seed Vault, built in the Arctic as an impregnable deep freeze for the world’s most precious food seeds, is to undergo a multi-million dollar upgrade after water from melting permafrost flooded its access tunnel.
No seeds were damaged but the incident undermined the original belief that the vault would be a “failsafe” facility, securing the world’s food supply forever. Now the Norwegian government, which owns the vault, has committed $4.4m (NOK37m) to improvements.
— The Guardian
The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) proclaimed yesterday its commitment to enforcing measures of sustainability within the Canadian architecture community. The statement was released in support of a letter published by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in the wake of... View full entry
Just a few hours ago, President Donald Trump announced that the United States will withdraw from the non-binding Paris Agreement intended to mitigate climate change. The President of the American Institute of Architects Thomas Vonier, FAIA has issued a statement in response, reaffirming its... View full entry
It was designed as an impregnable deep-freeze to protect the world’s most precious seeds from any global disaster and ensure humanity’s food supply forever. But the Global Seed Vault, buried in a mountain deep inside the Arctic circle, has been breached after global warming produced extraordinary temperatures over the winter, sending meltwater gushing into the entrance tunnel. — The Guardian
Containing almost one million packets of seeds, the Global Seed Vault is intended to serve as something of a biological back-up in the era of mass, man-made environmental destruction. It's buried under permafrost, which was thought to ensure that the structure would remain impregnable for... View full entry
"Architecture and design can mitigate climate impact while simultaneously reducing operating costs for building owners," says AIA President Thomas Vonier, FAIA, in a recently-released press statement issued in conjunction with Earth Day. ”We need the federal government to keep and even expand... View full entry
The AIA has released a revamped version of its Disaster Assistance Handbook, which they claim is “significantly enhanced” and “will serve as a go-to resource for architects, built environments professionals, municipal government officials and emergency managers involved in disaster... View full entry
Communities across the country are confronting the mounting evidence of climate change and developing means of fortifying buildings and infrastructure against rising sea levels and ever-more-intense storms, even as the Trump administration reverses policies premised on climate change.
“We’re not spending money on that anymore,” Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, told reporters in Washington recently. “We consider that to be a waste of your money.”
— The New York Times
"People who live, work or build in flood plains like West Chelsea and elsewhere say they cannot be so dismissive. They are spending money."The New York Times has compiled case studies as well as an associated glossary of steps taken in New York City and its environs to help shore up the built... View full entry
With layered narration from writers and the input of a climate scientist, the 40-foot long table installation known as "Indoor City" designed by Founder Rome Prize Fellows Phu Hoang and Rachely Rotem (MODU) with Jonathan Berger, Hussein Fancy, Christoph Meinrenken, Jack Livings and Matthew... View full entry
Prompted by the success of a similar competition it ran in New York several years ago, The Rockefeller Foundation has launched a completely Ben-Carson-HUD-free contest that challenges architects and urban planners to "imagine climate change solutions" for the San Francisco Bay Area. Opening for... View full entry
[Henk] Ovink’s approach called for a systematic rethinking of American traditional disaster response: to simply rebuild whatever was destroyed...In the US, the Rebuild By Design competition represents a dramatic shift in disaster planning, adopting a more comprehensive and collaborative research and design approach to address complex problems and improve resiliency...The competition was widely hailed as a success, but there was room for improvement before its approach could be replicated. — The Guardian
What's next for Rebuild By Design? Following the success of its 2013 competition, Rebuild By Design — now its own organization — is already working to continue helping U.S. cities prepare for climate change and potential natural disasters. In the article, the group looks back at how their... View full entry
President-elect Donald Trump has added another name to his cabinet: former Texas Governor Rick Perry will head the U.S. Department of Energy. The announcement has drawn mixed responses. The oil and gas industry, on the one hand, welcomed the fossil fuel industry-friendly climate change skeptic... View full entry
What impact will Donald Trump’s league of global-warming deniers and fossil-fuel boosters have on U.S. climate action? The short-term prognosis might not be as damaging as some fear, but...it seems safe to assume that for the next four years, domestic climate policy will be in the deep freezer—while the rest of us heat up...[But] U.S. cities have the power to shrink that footprint and prepare for the worst, even in the absence of financial or regulatory support from the federal government — Citylab
A quick profile at how five American cities will continue progressing toward their goals to combat climate change, even without federal support from a Trump administration and a Republican-controlled Congress.More on Archinect:Trump says climate change is a "hoax", yet moves to protect his... View full entry
Long before he set his sights on Mexico, Donald Trump had his eyes on a different wall. He wanted to build one on the Irish coast of County Clare – a 13ft high structure erected to protect his luxury golf resort, the Trump International Golf Links and Hotel, from increasingly volatile storms and rising sea levels. — the Guardian
While the president-elect announced a climate-change skeptic as the leader of the Environmental Protection Agency transition team, this move to protect his investment suggests Trump recognizes the effects of a changing climate.More on the President-elect:Architects Respond to the AIA’s... View full entry
Car and Driver caught up with Foxx in Pittsburgh. The DOT chief, previously mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina, reflected on the promise of autonomous and connected cars, the recent Smart City Challenge, the massive increase in traffic deaths, the potential of the shared vehicles unfolding right outside the window, and more. What follows is a transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for grammar and brevity. — blog.caranddriver.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:U.S. Transportation Secretary Foxx on the troubled relationship between infrastructure and race: "We ought to do it better than we did it the last time"Uber lets you hail its self-driving cars in Pittsburgh later this monthColumbus, Ohio wins DOT's $50M Smart... View full entry
Although Cleveland often serves more as a punchline than a solution (the Cuyahoga River caught fire in 1969 due to pollution), a climate change conference convened by the United Nations and currently being held in Quito, Ecuador sees new potential in the city. As StreetsBlog reports, if Cleveland... View full entry
