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As the decade draws to a close, it might be worth considering one overlooked ten-year anniversary: In October 2009, the e-commerce giant Amazon introduced same-day delivery service. [...] Amidst these transformations, one long-standing building typology has found itself again at the cutting edge of commerce: the vertical urban warehouse. — Urban Omnibus
Architectural critic, curator, and educator Nina Rappaport penned an insightful Urban Omnibus essay on the revived vertical urban warehouse typology — and the physical infrastructure that surrounds these facilities — in the age of online retail and instant gratification. "New York... View full entry
Amazon is offering $20 million to the Arlington County Affordable Housing Investment Fund in exchange for being allowed to build a bigger headquarters complex in the county than zoning allows.
...it would be the greatest single infusion of money ever into Arlington’s housing fund, which in recent years received between $14 million and $16 million annually from the county government and $5 million to $6 million in loan repayments from developers.
— The Washington Post
According to The Washington Post, the affordable housing proposal has been long awaited by Arlington residents who worry about the arrival of thousands of well-paid Amazon employees and the higher rents and housing costs that could result. In exchange for the donation, Amazon hopes to... View full entry
Living in a smart home neighborhood, the Fergusons experience both convenience and surveillance. And that's typical in Black Diamond, where Lennar Homes offers smart homes as part of a 4,800 unit development that includes other builders. This neighborhood isn't a one off. There are smart home developments in suburbs outside of cities such as Miami and San Francisco. Lennar is making Amazon tech standard on each of the 45,000 homes it builds this year. — NPR
Families in a Lennar Homes development in the Seattle suburb of Black Diamond are settling into their newly built and Amazon smart technology-equipped homes — some to their excitement, others fearing constant surveillance. "In this community, there are smart homes on one side of the street... View full entry
Amazon said the new store would be distinct from organic and high-end chain Whole Foods Market, which Amazon acquired in 2017 for $13.7 billion, but declined to answer further questions about how the store would be different or what it would be called. — The Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times reports that the grocery store will feature conventional checkout services, unlike the company's Amazon Go stores, which do not have cashiers. The store, according to the report, will be distinct from Whole Foods Market establishments, as well. View full entry
With Seattle's housing costs increasingly out of reach, it's no surprise that Amazon, one of Seattle's largest employers, is dabbling in housing issues itself. According to a recent article by Aria Bendix of Business Insider, Amazon is following through in a surprising way: By building a homeless... View full entry
JBG Smith, the biggest developer in the D.C. area and landlord of Amazon’s future Northern Virginia headquarters, Tuesday announced that it would redevelop about 2.6 million square feet of space at five multifamily buildings and an office building in Crystal City. The buildings are all within half a mile of the Amazon headquarters site and near Reagan National Airport, representing part of a broader development push in the area now called “National Landing.” — Curbed DC
In total, JBG Smith plans to redevelop around 6.9 million square feet at National Landing with a third of that area devoted to office space and the rest developed as residential spaces that could generate between 4,000 and 5,000 dwelling units, as well as ground floor retail, reports Curbed DC... View full entry
In the height of daytime, the sky suddenly blackened, and day became night in Sao Paulo.
Sure, smog is bad in the Western Hemisphere’s largest city, where traffic jams can stretch for dozens of miles. But not this bad. What was going on? Was the end near?
— The Washington Post
A combination of meteorological events paired with smoke that had traveled hundreds of miles from intense forest fires in remote parts of the Amazon caused a period of sudden midday darkness in the most populous city in the Western Hemisphere on Monday, reports The Washington Post. Meanwhile on... View full entry
Investment in cloud infrastructure has surged since 2015, and the market for data-center equipment is expected to grow at an average annualized rate of roughly 16% this year and next, according to Citigroup Inc.
Cloud servers, though, typically have a lifespan of only about three years, according to experts, meaning that some of the earliest equipment already has passed its use-by date.
— The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the anticipated market for scrap metal and other components used to make cloud computing infrastructure. As the cloud computing era gets underway globally, efforts to recycle the short-lived data servers that power the cloud have been complicated by... View full entry
The Los Angeles office market has been on the upswing since 2013 and showed no sign of stalling in the second quarter as tech and entertainment firms continue to expand into new space.
Developers are responding to the demand by building new offices that are often rented long before they are completed, which was unusual during previous real estate cycles when tenants typically waited to see finished buildings before making commitments.
— The Los Angeles Times
The tech industry's expansion into the Los Angeles office market continues unabated, The Los Angeles Times reports. In recent months, Los Angeles has grown to become home to the third-largest tech workforce on the west coast, with San Francisco and Seattle still far in the lead. The... View full entry
Amazon boss Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world with a current net worth of $125 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index. And he’s investing much of his Amazon fortune in the development of space technologies through his aerospace company Blue Origin.
Why? “Because I think it’s important,” Bezos tells Norah O’Donnell of CBS Evening News in an interview which aired Tuesday.
— CBS News
In a CBS Evening News special, Amazon's Jeff Bezos shares with Norah O'Donnell the importance of his space initiatives and his aerospace company Blue Origin. In a passionate voice, Bezos exclaims, "We humans have to go to space if we are going to continue to have a thriving civilization." He goes... View full entry
Amazon has increasingly turned to robots and automation technology to fetch products from the shelves of its warehouses to ship to customers. Now the company says it needs to help its workers adapt to the rapid change.
The e-commerce giant said on Thursday that it planned to spend $700 million to retrain a third of its workers in the United States, an acknowledgment that advances in technology are remaking the role of workers in nearly every industry.
— The New York Times
Amazon is planning to spend $700 million over the next five years retraining 100,000 human workers to help smooth a transition toward greater automation in its operations. “When automation comes in, it changes the nature of work but there are still pieces of work that will be done by... View full entry
Now, in 2019, Jeff Bezos wants his private space company to take over the public imagination about life in space. Bezos is the head of a retail empire, and he knows how to sell an image, but what he’s offering today is a watered-down version of nostalgia for yesterday’s future. Bezos’s proposal is a version of O’Neill’s project that somehow manages to look and feel less futuristic than its predecessor. — CityLab
The possibility of humans living in space is nothing new. Authors, scientists, and designers have all dreamed and formulated how this could be possible. Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, recently pitched his idea for space habitation and how his private space company Blue Origin would make this... View full entry
The buildings, which resemble glass jars, preserve an image of Amazon’s supposed benevolence as a company and an image of neoliberal capital as growth, as opposed to absence and austerity... Amazon’s decision to abandon plans for its New York–based HQ2 still fresh in everyone’s mind, it’s hard to see The Spheres as anything but an oversized swear jar brimming with half-hearted promises and watery intensions. — Los Angeles Review of Books
Though the greenhouse is one of the oldest building types, its conflation with the office building types in the 20th century was still regarded as a wondrous spectacle. Kevin Roche's Ford Foundation building, for example, was a marvelous example of the combination of corporate modernism and... View full entry
Last month, Amazon announced that it was canceling its controversial plan to build a second North American headquarters in New York City's Long Island City neighborhood. For residents and activists concerned about gentrification and overcrowding, the decision to abandon the plan was seen as a... View full entry
Amazon, the giant online retailer, is closing all 87 of its U.S. pop-up kiosks, which let customers try and buy gadgets such as smart speakers and tablets in malls, Kohl's department stores, and Whole Foods groceries. It's the latest change in Amazon's bricks-and-mortar retail strategy, which includes bookstores, grocery stores, and cashier-less stores. — NPR
Amazon has been a frequent headliner in the news as they prepare for headquarter expansions and retail store changes. However, despite its popularity and rapid consumer fulfillment process, Amazon has decided to discontinue its pop-up kiosk program. A spokesperson from Amazon shared that the... View full entry
