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The companies that made and installed the exterior panels on The Address Downtown Dubai hotel say that most of the towers built in the city prior to 2012 used non-fire-rated exterior cladding.
The disclosure comes as investigators probe the causes of the spectacular blaze [...] on New Year’s Eve.
An investigation by The National into the origins and specification of the exterior panels used on the building raises serious questions over the fire safety of hundreds of buildings.
— thenational.ae
Related stories in the Archinect news:Flying firefighters: the jetpack is quickly becoming a realityThe troubles of evacuating one of the world's tallest residential buildings during a fireFire fears for Gulf's high-rise blocks View full entry
Developers have released design plans for the housing element of the Moscow ZiL industrial zone redevelopment.
According to RBK Realty magazine, nine architecture firms from Russia, the USA and the Netherlands will be working on housing in the redevelopment of the former automobile factory, located in the south of Moscow. [...]
The building presented by Dutch agency Neutelings Riedijk Architecten consists of 10 towers, each with a golden glass and steel facade.
— calvertjournal.com
While the grand ZiL redevelopment scheme includes various buildings assigned to architectural firms including Asymptote Architecture, bureau Speech and Sergey Skuratov Architects, it's Dutch studio Neutelings Riedijk Architecten's exuberant, soviet-chic, and certified blingy towers that caught... View full entry
The scaffolding is off the Petersen Automotive Museum on Mid-Wilshire, and even though the building isn't yet open to the public, the reactions have been passionate.
"The New Look of the Petersen Automotive Museum is Really Really Bad," trumpeted a headline in Curbed. (The story, by Marissa Gluck, went on to describe the building as "the Guy Fieri of buildings: obnoxious, loud, and, ultimately, sure to be inexplicably embraced by the public.")
— latimes.com
Los Angeles is enjoying its fair share of museum-related news these days:The Broad Museum opens its doors for a look beyond the veilArchinect's critical round-up of LACMA's Frank Gehry exhibitionArchinect's critical round-up of Los Angeles' Broad Museum 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
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.(Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect... View full entry
Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated cities on the planet. To accommodate a rapidly growing number of inhabitants in a limited area of land, the emphasis is on space efficiency – which often translates into extremes of verticality and compact living.
Alex Nimmo grew up in the English countryside but moved to Hong Kong three years ago. The contrast, as you might imagine, was sharp.
— theguardian.com
↑ Bel Air↑ Sheung Wan↑ Quarry BayAll images by @alexnimmo on Instagram.Related:Hong Kong tops Bloomberg's list of "Most Crowded Cities" by 2025Asia’s richest man is building Hong Kong apartments barely bigger than a prison cellVertical Horizon 2nd Edition: Romain Jacquet-Lagreze's... View full entry
Miami is hot right now—and not just because it's midsummer. The city, which is in the midst of a building boom, is of necessity a model of sustainable building practices and extreme-weather preparedness.Thanks to local AEC professionals' experience grappling with high winds, hot and humid... View full entry
What rights does a muralist have to the wall she painted on?
That's a question that echoes throughout the country right now, as muralists try to lay claim to their artwork under the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990. [...]
California muralist Kent Twitchell was in a hotel room in Sausalito, Calif., when he got the call — his six-story mural of Ed Ruscha in Los Angeles had been painted over.
— npr.org
Murals — and the accompanying questions of ownership, copyright, vandalism — are an ongoing sujet in the Archinect news:Detroit issues arrest for "vandal" Shepard FaireyMuralist Kent Twitchell on LA's new mural-friendly ordinanceDetroit's struggle to distinguish between graffiti (boo!) and... View full entry
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.(Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect... View full entry
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.(Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect... View full entry
You might be unsure of exactly what you’re looking at when you first see the images in Roland Fischer’s series “Facades.” [...]
“I noticed all these new buildings mushrooming everywhere, giving the impression that they could as well be from any other major town in the world,” Fischer wrote via email. “I thought that this was a new urban visual experience, a consequence naturally of the then still new process of globalization.”
— slate.com
Cicil Street, Singapore, 2002, 180 x 125 cm (71 x 49 1/4 inches)Highschool, Utrecht, 2013, 180 x 125 cm (71 x 49 1/4 inches)Suntory Tokyo, 2014, 180 x 125cm (71 x 49 1/4 inches)Bank of America, Atlanta, 2005, 180 x 125 cm (71 x 49 1/4 inches)WTC, NY, 1999, 180 x 125 cm (71 x... View full entry
There are ways to bring elegance to 5 over 1 structures, but it requires a high degree of skill and commitment. Only a very talented designer can take such a limited palette of materials and make the resulting building interesting, if not elegant. But developers must be willing to hire those skilled designers. Many are simply not interested. [...] Hence, the wildly uneven — and often uninspiring — architecture in Seattle today. — crosscut.com
Similar tenor in other booming parts of the nation:Blair Kamin not impressed by Chicago's latest housing developmentsJeff Sheppard calls downtown Denver's new housing developments "meaningless, uninspiring" View full entry
The 40-storey building at 888 Collins Street, in Victoria Harbour, will interpret real-time weather data from the Bureau of Meteorology and will transmit the next day's forecast every half-hour. However, rather than showing the weather report in numbers and with a temperature display [lighting designer] Canadian-born Bruce Ramus said it would be more of an abstract representation and reflection of the environment of Docklands. — Domain
Checking the weather forecast on your smartphone is so passé. The Woods Bagot-designed apartment tower will show off a flashy accessory that gives real-time weather data, conceived by lighting designer Bruce Ramus. Completion of the 40-story building is scheduled for 2017.Related:KKT architects... View full entry
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.(Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect... View full entry
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.(Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect... View full entry
