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A Romanian man who used threats of violence and indebtedness to keep a group of his countrymen as slaves while he pocketed their wages from a London construction site has been sentenced to seven years in jail. — Global Construction Review
David Lupu, a 29-year-old Romanian, was found guilty of holding 15 of his countrymen in slavery or servitude in two small one-bedroom apartments in East London and sentenced to seven years in jail. Lupu had lured the men to work as demolition workers in the UK, falsely promising a wage of £... View full entry
In 2016, a Manhattan crane collapse in Tribeca killed one person, seriously injured two others and left another with minor injuries. Workers were trying to secure the crane against winds by lowering the boom when the crane collapsed to the ground. The accident was caused by a series of operator... View full entry
On March 8, 2018, President Trump signed an order to place a 25% and 10% tariff on steel and aluminum imports, respectively, effective March 23, 2018. The new tariff granted a temporary exemption to certain countries including Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, South Korea, and the... View full entry
Last December, plans were unfurled for 130 William, a reverential new skyscraper to jostle amongst the spired giants of lower Manhattan.
[...] we can note that the project has achieved two small construction milestones in its journey against the sky: crews have reached street level and standing upright is a red kangaroo crane that will bring the rectangular tower to its full 66-floor, nearly 800-foot-tall summit.
— CityRealty
Rendering courtesy of Lightstone.Fully revealed only a few weeks ago, the Lightstone-developed, Adjaye Associates-designed 800-foot luxury condo tower is already making construction progress with its crane fully installed and prepared to stack 66 floors wrapped in a hand-cast concrete facade with... View full entry
Today’s libraries have also evolved into complex institutions compressed into small spaces, making their design needs equally intricate. ... In the end, the problem of how to build good public architecture briskly and frugally has little to do with design and everything to do with bureaucracy. Virtually no one feels the urgency or has the clout to reform a sclerotic system. — New York Magazine
The National Transportation Safety Board reports that its investigators remain at the scene of the deadly Miami pedestrian bridge collapse that occurred last week on the Florida International University campus. NTSB investigators and contractors remove and catalog core samples from the... View full entry
The pedestrian bridge that collapsed at Florida International University in Miami on Thursday was built using Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) technology, according to a statement from the university.
Unlike traditional methods of construction, ABC streamlines the building process so that bridge projects can be completed quicker and more cost effectively.
— cnn.com
The FIU bridge which collapsed last week was engineered using Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC), a method used by many companies for its time and cost efficiency. Weighing 950 tons, the bridge was meant to connect FIU's campus to an adjoining neighborhood where many students live. Of the... View full entry
After several years of planning and proposals in different cities, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, funded by the “Star Wars” filmmaker George Lucas, is breaking ground today on a new building here that its leaders predict will take about four years to complete.
Designed by Ma Yansong of MAD Architects, the museum will occupy a corner of Exposition Park, an urban hub near the University of Southern California that already contains three museums [...].
— The New York Times
Image courtesy of Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.After protective fencing went up last month at its Exposition Park site in South Los Angeles, the $1-billion Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, designed by MAD Architects, finally broke ground today. View full entry
The US construction industry may lose more than 28,000 jobs if Donald Trump’s plan to raise tariffs on imported steel and aluminium goes ahead, a pro-free trade think tank has warned. [...]
While Trump claims tariffs would create jobs in America’s steel and aluminium sectors, a Washington, DC, thinktank, Trade Partnership, warned that such a policy would “reverberate throughout” the economy, costing more jobs than it would gain as it pushed up the cost of the metals.
— Global Construction Review
Unswayed by warnings from top economists, industry groups, and members of his own party, Donald Trump today signed two tariff proclamations at the White House that will erect 25% and 10% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports respectively. While the administration claims that the import tariffs... View full entry
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) President Carl Elefante, FAIA, and EVP/Chief Executive Officer Robert Ivy, FAIA, released the following statement today in response to the Administration’s plan to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. "The Administration’s announcement of... View full entry
Fifteen Hudson Yards, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Rockwell Group, has now topped out and stands over 900 feet tall. This is the first tower within the 28-acre NYC site with for-sale residencies. Sales for the 285 condominiums have now surpassed 50%, with the... View full entry
Using lidar-equipped robots, Doxel scans construction sites every day to monitor how things are progressing, tracking what gets installed and whether it’s the right thing at the right time in the right place. You’d think that construction sites would be doing this by themselves anyway, but it turns out that they really don’t, and in a recent pilot study on a medical office building, Doxel says it managed to increase labor productivity on the project by a staggering 38 percent. — IEEE Spectrum
"You could send in some humans with lidar backpacks, but that would be more expensive," IEEE Spectrum explains. "The company is also using drones in a limited capacity right now, since they require human supervision, but it’s easy to imagine how much more efficient this process could get as... View full entry
One year after Los Angeles unexpectedly won the right to host the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, the spaceship-like project is now ready to push dirt in Exposition Park. Protective fencing now encircles the site of filmmaker George Lucas' $1-billion legacy project, which replaces two parking lots at the intersection of 39th Street and Vermont Avenue. The eventual four-story, 115-foot-tall building will feature[...] Lucas' 10,000-piece collection, a library, two theaters, classrooms, and offices. — urbanize.LA
Image courtesy of Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.Exposition Park in South Los Angeles has already a number of high-profile construction projects going on (new MLS soccer stadium and Coliseum makeover to host the 2028 Summer Olympics) or on the books, and the $1-billion Lucas Museum of Narrative... View full entry
Construction of the world's tallest skyscraper in Jeddah is going ahead, the head of the consortium behind the $1.5 billion project said, despite the detention of some businessmen backing the plan in Saudi Arabia's crackdown on corruption. [...]
Construction has reached the 63rd floor and the superstructure - the concrete shell and the cladding - is to be completed next year, Jomah said, adding that delays in some areas were inevitable because of technical challenges.
— Arabian Business
Progress on the soon-to-be tallest structure on earth has been troubled for a while, with the main contractor (and partial owner) Saudi Binladin Group going through a financial rough patch and, more recently, several project officials and royal family members being targeted by the country's... View full entry
In a 10-1 vote, the Austin City Council took the first step toward a boycott of any company that designs, builds or finances President Donald Trump’s $25 billion proposed border wall between Texas and Mexico. [...]
Four companies already have been tapped to design and build wall prototypes, including Texas-based Sterling Construction Company, Inc.
— KXAN
The Texas state capital is just the latest of several local and state governments having either passed or proposed legislation that would ban companies involved in designing, building, or financing Donald Trump's proposed border wall with Mexico from being considered for other public contracts. View full entry
