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A crossover arts and manufacturing project from Herzog & de Meuron opened on May 19 following several years of construction that remade a former brownfield site into the new home of the non-profit Powerhouse Arts in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Coinciding with the ongoing cleanup of the Gowanus Canal... View full entry
Last year, skyrocketing demand sent a record $128 billion into investments for E.V. manufacturing and battery plants, which require a large footprint. A battery plant can cover 4.5 million square feet, roughly the size of 25 Walmart Supercenters. Projections suggest the country may need 120 or more additional such plants.
Before those batteries and the cars that use them can be made, they must be conceptualized. So automakers are pouring money into research and development facilities.
— The New York Times
The Times speculates that the money being dumped into facilities that support E.V. development could lead to a golden era of highly technical corporate design for car manufacturers. Projects such as El Dorado’s 300 Kansas in San Francisco and the Snøhetta-led Research & Engineering Campus for... View full entry
The Biden Administration announced a plan to help decarbonize the industrial manufacturing sector through a new $6 billion investment it says will eventually help lower emissions while signaling a newfound demand in the “marketplace for clean products.” As part of the government’s... View full entry
The Biden Administration has announced 21 winners of its $1 billion Build Back Better Regional Challenge funded through last year’s American Rescue Plan and administered by the U.S. Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration (EDA). Five-year capital grants ranging between $... View full entry
“Historically, spec buildings have been risky, but in a market environment like we are in now, where there is a race to get goods to people faster and to manufacture more things, the flexibility of the spec space becomes an asset, not a liability.” — The New York Times
Biomedical clients are among the most popular movers of the building trend, propelled by demand imbalances for lab space. E-commerce is another common tenant, followed by light manufacturing operations from companies like IBM that leverage high-paying jobs in smaller communities like West Chester... View full entry
Norwegian outdoor furniture manufacturer Vestre has moved into The Plus, its new factory in Magnor, Norway, designed by Bjarke Ingels Group. The 75,000-square-foot (7,000-square-meter) factory was built in 18 months and claims to be the world’s most environmentally-friendly furniture... View full entry
Construction will be an engine of global economic growth in the decade to 2030, with output expected to be 35% higher than in the ten years to 2020, according to a new global forecast. — Global Construction Review
The report, titled Future of Construction, by Oxford Economics and Marsh McLennan subsidiaries March and Guy Carpenter projects that growth in construction output will average 3.6% per year from now until 2030, outpacing that of the manufacturing and services sectors. According to the study, this... View full entry
Plans for a new museum dedicated to carbon fiber technology are taking shape in the Italian city of Piacenza, showcasing the building material by way of an experiential space that designers Carlo Ratti Architects (CRA) are hoping forms a perfect fit in the country’s prosperous Emilia-Romagna... View full entry
Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) have developed a system that uses curved supports to transform flat objects into elaborate and customizable 3D structures. Called Kiriform, the... View full entry
3D print applications have revolutionized industries from architecture, construction, furniture design, and fashion. Last year, 3D print fabrication aided in provided medical professionals, patients, and facilities with PPE during the COVID-19 pandemic. As fabrication continues to develop and... View full entry
In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, many architects, designers, and students are turning to 3D-printing to rapidly produce much needed equipment, like protective gear for healthcare workers and respirator valves for sick patients. In their own effort to help slow the spread of the coronavirus... View full entry
With the outbreak of Covid-19, architects, designers and adjacent professionals are desperately searching for indicators to help determine just how seriously the industry will be impacted. Last week, I published a chart illustrating that specification activity that we’re tracking post... View full entry
A project team lead by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), nARCHITECTS, Perkins Eastman, and W Architecture and Landscape Architecture has unveiled renderings for a new economic hub slated for the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. Overall view of... View full entry
In particular, the new numbers confirm that there is a major slowdown underway in the creation of jobs making things: manufacturing, mining and construction.
Those “goods-producing” sectors, as Labor Department classifications call them, added an average of 58,000 jobs a month in 2018. That is now down to 23,000 a month thus far in 2019 — and a mere 15,000 in July.
— The New York Times
The New York Times reports that as most economic figures remain steady, a look at some of the "fine print" of recent economic data might be cause for concern, particularly within the manufacturing and construction sectors, which are seeing lagging job growth. According to The New York... View full entry
According to The Wall Street Journal, President Donald Trump is moving to escalate America's trade war with China by imposing new tariffs on all Chinese-made products imported into the country. Currently, the administration's tariff-loving trade policy has been limited mostly to... View full entry
