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But so far, things have remained “on schedule,” and the Olympic stadium is on pace to be completed by the end of next year. [...]
Takeo Takahashi, the general manager of the stadium project, told the media that “roughly four-tenths” of the construction has been completed, but the situation is “as planned.”
— The Japan Times
It's been deliberately quiet around the NEW New National Stadium in Tokyo after the original, winning design by Zaha Hadid Architects was publicly attacked, and eventually officially canceled by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe himself, and a replacement Olympic Stadium scheme was hastily selected from a... View full entry
A recent thesis project from three students explores adaptable architecture using drones and "smart" materials. The project, Cyber Physical Macro Material, uses lightweight carbon fiber building blocks with integrated sensing communication to create dynamic public spaces. Cyber Physical Macro... View full entry
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is back at it again with more outlandish ideas to solve Los Angeles' traffic. Earlier this month, Musk's latest venture–The Boring Company–resuscitated its flawed proposal to dig new car tunnels for Los Angeles, this time to connect the Red Line subway with Dodger Stadium [...] The Chicago tunnel idea is bad enough, but the Dodger Stadium plan is exceptionally poor even if one takes Musk's promises at face value. — urbanize.la
Alon Levy pokes holes in Elon Musk's public transit plans for Los Angeles. Musk's plan involves tunneling under Sunset Boulevard between the Dodger Stadium and one of three Red Line stops: Vermont/Sunset, Vermont/Santa Monica, or Vermont/Beverly. Levy cites major issues with construction... View full entry
Sutton Place residents filed a lawsuit Sunday in a last-ditch attempt to stop a luxury condo tower from rising on East 58th Street.
The plaintiffs, a group called the East River Fifties Alliance, are residents from the surrounding neighborhood, including condo owners whose views would be blocked by a roughly 800-foot tower under construction at 430 E. 58th St.
— crainsnewyork.com
Construction on NYC's Sutton 58 condo project was previously halted after Sutton Place residents secured a rezoning proposal. The rezoning mandated squatter buildings making Sutton 58 noncompliant. Since then a city zoning board granted the project a reprieve, resulting in the resident's lawsuit... View full entry
Since topping off last December, the new Statue of Liberty Museum continues to shape up ahead of schedule and is currently expected to open in May 2019. Last month, the Statue of Liberty Museum-Ellis Island Foundation launched a fundraising campaign that would help the construction of the new... View full entry
Now, Dubai has taken a step further along the road to making such dreams a reality by announcing that 25% of the city-state’s new buildings will be made using 3D printers by 2025.
The move is part of an ambitious 3D-printing strategy announced in 2016 by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice-president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and the ruler of Dubai.
— weforum.org
According to the Dubai Future Foundation the city aims to reduce labor by 70% and cut overall costs by 90% with their 3D-printed construction plan. The strategy not only aims at addressing the UN's projected density for urban areas in the future, but also holds potential to solve Dubai's severe... View full entry
If you live or work in a city, then you probably see the impact of growing urbanization every day—gridlock traffic, construction cranes peppering the skyline, soaring housing costs. Sure, these are major challenges and annoyances for city dwellers, but they also represent a huge opportunity for the global architecture, engineering, and construction industry: one that requires building the future for a 10-billion-person planet. — autodesk.com
According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 68% of the world population are projected to live in urban areas by 2050. Autodesk explores the implications for architectural growth in this timeframe with market research firm Statista. Take a look at the projected... View full entry
Ten years after the housing collapse during the Great Recession, a new and different housing crisis has emerged.
Back then, people were losing their homes as home values crashed and homeowners went underwater. Today, home values have rebounded, but people who want to buy a new home are often priced out of the market. There are too few homes and too many potential buyers.
— NPR
NPR takes a closer look at the impact of the housing affordability crisis in midsized, fast-growing cities, like Des Moines, IA, Durham, NC, and Boise, ID—far away from the usual, well documented housing hot spots of the big coastal cities. View full entry
Hundreds of families displaced by Northern California’s fires could face another challenge to rebuilding their homes — a persistent shortage of construction workers.
California lost nearly 20 percent of its construction work force between 2005 and 2016 [...]. And more than 40 percent of construction job postings in the state remain unfilled for at least six weeks, according to the study, the third longest wait in the nation.
— The Mercury News
California's housing crisis will only get exacerbated as several devastating wildfires are ripping through entire regions of the Golden State while construction firms are struggling to hire enough workers to rebuild communities. According to Cal Fire, more than a thousand homes have already been... View full entry
Cut peat blocks were already being used for building houses thousands of years ago. Now, scientists at the University of Tartu have developed a material which could make it possible to print energy-efficient houses out of milled peat and oil shale ash using a 3D printer. — Research in Estonia
"As peat and oil shale ash are not very expensive, house builders would be especially happy about the price of the material. According to Liiv, scientists calculated that the cost for the construction of a house shell printed from this material with a floor surface of 100–150 square meters could... View full entry
Are you particularly adept at managing construction projects? If you have several years of construction experience under your belt and are looking for a leadership position, construction management may be the ideal fit for you. From navigating the complexities of site details to working with... View full entry
Four months ago, ground was broken for the $1-billion Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Exposition Park. Construction has now gone vertical, with a tower crane soaring above Vermont Avenue.
The 300,000-square-foot facility, which is being built as a legacy project by Star Wars creator George Lucas, replaces two former parking lots with a four-story, 115,000-square-foot structure that will serve as the permanent home for the filmmaker's 10,000-piece collection.
— urbanize.LA
Inspired by the work of inventor Philip Ross and his company MycoWorks, Maurer argues that one of the keys to addressing Cleveland’s housing crisis lies in an unlikely source: mushrooms. Specifically, in using mycelium – the vegetative part of a fungus – and Cleveland’s other “natural” resource, construction waste, in a process called “biocycling”, which essentially recycles old buildings into new ones using plant materials. — The Guardian
“I like to refer to Cleveland as ‘ground zero’ for biocycling,” says Maurer, who believes the city has the perfect conditions and challenges to serve as a prototype for the process. Cleveland architect Christopher Maurer of Redhouse Studio argues how mycotecture (architecture that uses... View full entry
Speculations for the topping out of the 73-story 30 Hudson Yards have been swirling for the last couple months, and now the fateful day has finally arrived. [....] YIMBY received confirmation that the tallest building of the Hudson Yards mega-development has finally reached its pinnacle, with an American flag rising above the building’s parapet. — New York YIMBY
Visualization of the Hudson Yards development with the KPF-designed supertall 30 Hudson Yards tower in the foreground. Image: KPF.Now only 50 Hudson Yards remains to be finished from the phase one batch of Hudson Yards towers. "Phase two will see the construction of several new retail... View full entry
A Menlo Park company called Katerra announced that it had acquired Michael Green Architecture, a 25-person architecture firm in Vancouver, British Columbia. On June 12, the company revealed that it had bought another, larger architecture firm, Atlanta-based Lord Aeck Sargent. This comes five months after Katerra raised $865 million in venture capital from funders led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund, which has also invested heavily in the co-working startup WeWork. — City Lab
Startup Katerra looks to revolutionize the construction industry through streamlining the entire process with their design-build model. The company has acquired Michael Green Architecture, known for designing tall wood buildings, and Lord Aeck Sargent. With these two firms... View full entry