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New York’s Kings County is likely to have the most new apartment units delivered in 2016 of any submarket in the U.S., by Axiometrics’ estimation. Some 6,073 units have been identified for delivery in Brooklyn next year as of Nov. 16, a huge increase from the 969 that came to market this year. [...]
renters are able to pay the submarket’s average effective rent of $3,823 (asking rent minus concessions), according to October apartment data.
— forbes.com
More news from the borough:First rendering revealed for Brooklyn's first skyscraperHow an "egalitarian incubator" music venue hopes to revive Brooklyn's art sceneWork finally resumes at Brooklyn's modular prefab towerThe Chinese government is building affordable housing in BrooklynLife After... View full entry
The number of Mexican immigrants living in the U.S. illegally has declined. In 2014, 5.6 million unauthorized immigrants from Mexico lived in the U.S., down by about 1 million since 2007. [...]
Mexican unauthorized immigrants are more likely than unauthorized immigrants overall to work in the construction industry ... Among Mexican unauthorized immigrants ages 16 and older who were employed in 2012, 19% worked in construction and 13% worked in a wide range of businesses
— pewhispanic.org
The Wall Street Journal previously reported on the trend of declining Mexican-born workers in the U.S. construction industry, leading to a total loss of half a million laborers since 2007. According to a Pew Research Study in "Hispanic Trends" from March of 2015, citing the most recent data... View full entry
A persistent water leak is among the problems that have delayed the opening of the mall, which was supposed to be operating by now, to the first half of 2016. It is the latest setback to bedevil the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, the $3.7 billion rail terminal that will also house Westfield’s $1.4 billion shopping center. [...]
The latest twist involves water penetration around the construction site of 3 World Trade Center, an office tower abutting the hub, which began in late summer.
— nytimes.com
Related on Archinect:Massive 'spine' skylight in Calatrava's WTC Oculus nears completionThere's a chance the Hudson is leaking into the WTC siteNYMag talks to Santiago Calatrava about his WTC Station, budget, reputation View full entry
Zurich-based architects and roboticists have created the In-situ Fabricator, an autonomous construction robot capable of laying bricks into pre-programmed structures. Designers at the Swiss National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) Digital Fabrication laboratory believe a future generation of the robot could be used widely on building sites. — Reuters
According to Mathias Kohler of ETH Zurich, "The benefit from an architectural point of view is that you can really design the construction directly, so you can plan for how it is built instead of designing your plan and then that plan afterwards being converted on the construction site. So it... View full entry
Construction safety netting may not sound like the stuff which picturesque cityscapes are made of, and yet: Vancouver, B.C. was host to an art installation known as "City Fabric" this past August and September which produced more gorgeous visuals (and sly references to real estate speculation)... View full entry
A shortage of US curtain walling makers caused by the 2008 crash is so severe that it is halting projects and has even forced one developer to open its own factory. [...]
As a result the price for curtain walling systems has risen between 35% and 45% in the past 18 months, and lead times have increased dramatically [...]
In New York, the availability of cladding systems has become the single main determinant of programme and schedule.
— globalconstructionreview.com
Apple's "spaceship" campus continues to be a hotspot for drones to film the project gradually coming to life. One of those drones belongs to Silicon Valley-based photographer/videographer Duncan Sinfield, who posted a new video today showing the latest additions to the campus. As Sinfield pilots... View full entry
After a boom in construction and investment in real estate projects in recent years, work is drying up amid a slowdown in the world’s second largest economy. Property developers are cutting back on new projects, and with construction starts down 16% in the first half this year from a year ago, many firms are cutting salaries or letting staff go. [...]
“We are adjusting to a slower pace of urbanization in China with a recovery of the American and Middle East markets”
— blogs.wsj.com
More from the architecture market in China:How the "Chinese Steve Jobs" is trying to build the ideal cityConstruction stalled on 'world's tallest building', so locals made its foundation into a fish farmA landscape architect just joined China's roster of billionairesChinese prefab company builds a... View full entry
ThyssenKrupp's MULTI elevator test tower is happening, indeed — and at a seemingly impressive rate. Less than 10 months after starting construction, the currently 232-meter structure in the German city of Rottweil recently celebrated its topping out. ThyssenKrupp is aiming to have the tower... View full entry
Santiago Calatrava said the roof would open.
And evidently it will.
On Friday morning, a 5,700-pound glass panel was hoisted into place as a 355-foot-long operable skylight took final form in the Oculus pavilion of the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, designed by Mr. Calatrava. Another panel went up in the afternoon.
Those are among the last of 996 pieces of blast-resistant glass to have been installed at the Oculus since March 15. The glazing should be finished on Monday [...].
— nytimes.com
Here are some more photos of the skylight's construction progress in the past few weeks (courtesy of WTC Progress).More about the WTC Transportation Hub in the Archinect news:NYMag talks to Santiago Calatrava about his WTC Station, budget, reputationHow Cost of Train Station at World Trade Center... View full entry
work stalled after concerns from regulators over the safety of the skyscraper and its environmental impact and funding.
With no progress on the project in sight, villagers nearby have started to raise fish in its 2.6-hectare water-filled foundations [...]
One villager started to raise fish in March and has invested over 20,000 yuan in his business. “I raise fish on the construction site. It is not in secret, neither have I ever been stopped”
— scmp.com
Construction on the would-be world's tallest building, known as Sky City in Changsha, China, began in 2013, under leadership of Broad Sustainable Building. Sky City made headlines not only for its proposed record-breaking height, but for the speed at which it was to be completed – Broad... View full entry
"There were many meetings when the Apple representative would pick up your [iPhone] and say: 'That's what we're building.' What that means is — if you look at the phone, there's the sheen on the phone, there's the bevel on the phone, there's how much shine they have ... every piece of that phone is engineered, and the building is the same way." [...]
The project is so extensive — and Apple is so demanding — that Apple Campus 2 has effectively "raised the bar for construction standards"
— businessinsider.com
For more news on Apple's under-construction second campus in Cupertino:Apple under fire for not hiring construction workers with past felonies for their new campusDrone footage shows the latest construction status of the Foster-designed Apple campusApple CEO Tim Cook says new spaceship campus will... View full entry
City of St. Petersburg officials formally approved a $5.2 million contract that will ultimately lead to the construction of the new St. Petersburg Pier. The team consisting of Rogers Partners, ASD, and WORKSHOP: Ken Smith Landscape Architect had the winning proposal for the second run of the St... View full entry
Builders pulled back from Mauna Kea as hundreds of protesters set up roadblocks to oppose construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on top of Hawaii’s sacred mountain. State and local police arrested a dozen demonstrators. — RT
"Protesters say they are taking a stand to defend Mauna Kea, sacred to native Hawaiians, from the international conglomerate attempting to build the mega-telescope, also known as the TMT. They say the 18-story building represents an unacceptable desecration of the mountain."The Thirty Meter... View full entry
This relatively low-tech method is among a battery of tests that materials scientists are using to determine why several anchor rods securing the newest portion of the San Francisco Bay Bridge, the region’s busiest, failed their earthquake inspections. The first alarms sounded in 2013, when seismic tests found 32 faulty rods. They’d been sitting in a large pool of water, corroding. — wired.com
Previously:Bolts along Bay Bridge bike path failAfter $6.4 Billion, San Francisco Bridge Remains a MessTime-Lapse of San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Construction View full entry