Up to 12 million people are “urbanising” every year in India, a rate surpassed only by China. It means the country will need a sustained building spree that would see more than 75 million people employed in construction by 2022.

As it races to build 110 million extra homes needed, plus necessary transport infrastructure, by 2025 the size of India’s construction market would reach $1 trillion, the third largest in the world, according to KPMG. — globalconstructionreview.com

After a strong 2015, there is a growing sense that the construction industry expansion will be more tempered over the next eighteen months. [...]

The American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) semi-annual Consensus Construction Forecast, a survey of the nation’s leading construction forecasters, is projecting that spending will increase just less than six percent for 2016, with next year’s projection being an additional 5.6% gain. — AIA

The [plastic] materials are thoroughly cleaned, before being ground into a rough power, mixed, melted and extruded into a range of shapes – mostly beams, blocks and pillars – which lock together to form buildings. Importantly, [Conceptos Plásticos] also trains communities in how to build these structures, giving them ownership over their homes [...]

Like LEGO blocks, these interlocking structures don’t need adhesive to be strong and sturdy, which makes them a good option for mobile shelters. — forbes.com

Hoping to show the world his country is doing just fine despite sanctions and outside pressure over its nuclear weapons program, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has put his soldier-builders to work on yet another major [skyscraper] project

Pyongyang’s new Pyonghattan, officially called “Ryomyong Street,” is to have the country’s tallest apartment building, at 70 stories, along with a 50-story building and a handful of smaller ones in the 30-40 story range. — The Japan Times

A team of construction workers is pouring concrete onto the frame of a structure that will eventually become a wastewater treatment plant. It's 1 a.m. on a clear night in the suburbs of Phoenix.

The temperature is still in the high 80s. But that's way down from the area's recent record high temperatures, up to 118 degrees. [...]

"We try to pour and place and finish concrete when it's below 90 degrees," says Daniel Ward, the construction company's project director. — npr.org

In a ceremony packed with construction workers, news crews, and real estate folk, the final bucket of concrete made its way to the top of 3 World Trade Center, marking the topping out of this 1,079-foot supertall tower. The 80-story building was designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and spans 2.5 million square feet. Once complete in 2018, it will be the fifth tallest tower in New York City. — Curbed NY

Elevators are [the] transportation breakthrough that made steel frame construction genuinely useful... tall apartment buildings make it possible for there to be plenty of housing for everyone even where land is scarce.

If elevators were more widely used, they could unleash not just a boom of new construction in America's most expensive areas but an important secondary boom of higher wages for workers at all skill levels. — vox.com

[...] the stalagmite rings were older than any known cave painting. It also meant that they couldn’t have been the work of Homo sapiens. Their builders must have been the only early humans in the south of France at the time: Neanderthals.

The discovery suggested that Neanderthals were more sophisticated than anyone had given them credit for. They wielded fire, ventured deep underground, and shaped the subterranean rock into complex constructions. — theatlantic.com

As Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct sat free of cars overhead and drivers attempted to move around the city during the roadway’s planned 2-week closure, a new drone video Tuesday showcased again what all the fuss is about. A view inside the SR 99 tunnel won’t get much better than this until you’re actually able to drive through it. [...]

The 4-minute video captures what has been built behind nearly 1,600 feet of mining along Seattle’s waterfront. — geekwire.com

Work will go ahead to construct an “elevated island park” in the Hudson River off Manhattan after a judge dismissed a lawsuit from environmental and civic advocates.

The $130m park, which has been given the go-ahead by the US Army’s Corps of Engineers, will be based on the Hudson River...

Judge Joan Lobis, who threw out the lawsuit, said: “A significant purpose of maintaining event spaces in the park is to generate funds for the ongoing upkeep of the park, which is surely a park purpose.” — Global Construction Review

Eleven people died while working on Olympic facilities or Games-related projects between January 2013 and March 2016, according to a report released Monday by Rio de Janeiro's Regional Labor and Employment Office.

The report, released by Elaine Castilho, the auditor for the Rio Olympic Games works, also notes that no workers died in the preparations for the 2012 Summer Games in London. — ESPN

Workers have almost completed mounting the copper paneling on the American Copper Buildings (née 626 First Avenue), the new tilting, two-towered development on Manhattan’s East Side, but their most striking feature—a three-story, 100-foot-long skybridge—is still open to the elements. [...]

The skybridge itself, though, is designed to be the showstopper. The architects placed a 75-foot lap pool on the bridge, so residents can swim 300 feet in the air [...]. — bloomberg.com