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A two-person delegation from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) will be present as observers of next week’s COP27 summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, in an unprecedented move first announced yesterday by the organization. Landprocess founder Kotchakorn Voraakhom and Climate... View full entry
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has announced a new policy mandating the use of small-scale green infrastructure on curb extension projects throughout the city. A set of five design standards will be introduced to help expand the adaptation and maintenance of the measures with the larger aim of improving... View full entry
The federal government wants to build a massive system of storm surge gates and seawalls to protect the New York harbor region from flooding and has put forth a much-delayed plan that would remake coastal areas from upper Manhattan down to Jamaica Bay.
The Army Corps estimates construction on the $52 billion project would begin in 2030 and be complete by 2044. The project must be first approved by federal, state and local officials and funded before any of the work can start.
— The City
The New York District, North Atlantic Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has released a 569-page report outlining a coastal storm risk management feasibility study. According to The City's Samantha Maldonado, a public comment period will be held through January 6th, 2023, as a means to... View full entry
The University of Oregon has been awarded more than $16 million in federal funds as part of a grant to the Oregon Mass Timber Coalition from the Build Back Better Regional Challenge. A total of $41.4 million was awarded to the coalition by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic... View full entry
New York City is beefing up the effort to prevent a similar tragedy to Hurricane Ida a year removed from the historic storm’s wake of destruction, which left 13 residents dead and hundreds of others permanently displaced. Mayor Eric Adams was on hand yesterday to showcase newly-installed... View full entry
Former New York City Council member Eric Ulrich has been appointed as Commissioner of the NYC Department of Buildings (DOB) by Mayor Eric Adams. Ulrich will serve alongside Kazimir Vilenchik, the new First Deputy Commissioner, and replaces Gus Sirakis, who has been serving as the DOB’s Acting... View full entry
The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and the Mayor's Office of Climate Resiliency (MOCR) have released the Financial District and Seaport Climate Resilience Master Plan, a framework for comprehensive flood defense infrastructure to fortify Lower Manhattan in response to the... View full entry
The University of Arizona is launching a new interdisciplinary center that will partner with Native American nations to work on projects that address environmental issues. Called the Indigenous Resilience Center, the program will be a partnership between Native nations and the university’s... View full entry
Jennifer Diamond, a spokeswoman for the team fighting the Caldor Fire, wasn’t sure who wrapped the Phillips Tract cabin but said she’s helped cover a historic backcountry building with foil in the past. Aside from historic buildings, firefighters might choose to wrap a remote cabin where property owners have already cut back vegetation, cut down overhanging trees and cleared roofs and gutters of debris. — The San Francisco Chronicle
The cabin was among many in the South Lake Tahoe region to adapt a temporary version of an adaptability approach that has become increasingly popular during a year that has already seen over a million acres scorched in California alone. The ongoing Caldor Fire has destroyed more than 700 homes as... View full entry
With the Memorial Day deadline now passed for President Biden’s massive new $2.25 trillion infrastructure bill, architects and planners are watching closely and with interested eyes to see what is included in any future version of the bill that has the potential to make outsized impacts in... View full entry
A coalition of leading design and construction organizations have called on Congress to include funding in any new infrastructure proposal that would significantly improve the resilience and performance of buildings across the country, The American Institute of Architects announces. In a... View full entry
Today, with the developing inconveniences of life, the hardships and frustrations, and the multitude of circumstantial consequences many of us face, it can be tough to know how to navigate the challenges we encounter. How do we trek this rocky path? In his book The Obstacle is the Way, Ryan... View full entry
The US has become terrible at building big things, and negligent in even maintaining our existing infrastructure. [...]
That all bodes terribly for our ability to grapple with the coming dangers of climate change, because it is fundamentally an infrastructure problem.
— MIT Technology Review
MIT Technology Review senior editor, James Temple, penned an urgent plea for a renewed, but sustainable, American public works boom that could significantly speed up the painfully slow infrastructure planning process in the face of rapidly changing climate conditions. "To prepare for the climate... View full entry
Venice is full of water, Venice floods, the climate is visibly changing, and sea levels are rising, so you would expect Venice, of all places, to have an official strategy for what to do about it—but you would be wrong. The management plans produced by the City of Venice for Unesco in 2013 and 2018 barely mention the subject and twice, in 2016 and 2019, Unesco’s World Heritage Committee has failed to call them out on this astonishing failing. — The Art Newspaper
"We are used to thinking that, given enough will and money, there is a solution to everything, but this report says that we must get used to the idea that in many cases there will be no solution," writes a frustrated Anna Somers Cocks for The Art Newspaper and explains how a new report by the... View full entry
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed a $10 billion plan to push out the lower Manhattan coastline as much as 500 feet, or two city blocks, to protect from flooding that’s expected to become more frequent as global temperatures rise. [...]
Portions of the extended land would be at 20 feet above sea level. The city can’t build flood protection on the existing land because it’s too crowded with utilities, sewers and subway lines, he said.
— Bloomberg
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has unveiled the city's comprehensive plan to increase resilience in Lower Manhattan, a low-lying, highly critical area that has proven to be vulnerable to storm surges and flooding. The newly published Lower Manhattan Climate Resilience Study recommends extending the... View full entry
