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This semester, a group of students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design is taking a survey of U.S. architecture graduate visa holders in the workplace for a research project that's part of their coursework for assistant professor Jacob Reidel's "Frameworks of Practice" seminar. They are... View full entry
Through my research on elevators, I got a glimpse into why so little new housing is built in America and why what is built is often of such low quality and at high cost. The problem with elevators is a microcosm of the challenges of the broader construction industry — from labor to building codes to a sheer lack of political will. [...]
It’s become hard to shake the feeling that America has simply lost the capacity to build things in the real world, outside of an app.
— The New York Times
Stephen Smith, through the New York nonprofit Center for Building in North America, has been exposing variables that undermine the housing market's intricate calculus in the form of building codes, cost of labor, zoning regulations, and the construction industry. He says: "Elevators in North... View full entry
Texas began rolling out what is set to become a new floating barrier on the Rio Grande on Friday in the latest escalation of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s multibillion-dollar effort to secure the U.S. border with Mexico, which already has included bussing migrants to liberal states and authorizing the National Guard to make arrests.
Setting up the barriers could take up to two weeks, according to Lt. Chris Olivarez, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety.
— The Paper
The barriers are being deployed along a strategic 1,000-foot-long point in the Rio Grande. CNN recently reported on one local business owner’s attempt to halt their placement via a lawsuit. Abbott, for his part, promised "mile after mile" more. The issue goes beyond affecting what an ACLU... View full entry
Gov. Greg Abbott announced in November that the state was moving large shipping containers to the banks of the Rio Grande near downtown El Paso — between official ports of entry — to keep out migrants [...] The Texas containers are on land managed by the International Boundary and Water Commission, the Journal noted. The binational agency enforces treaties between the nations, and evaluates various projects that could affect the Rio Grande. — HuffPost
Abbott’s double-down comes after an announcement from Arizona’s new Governor, Katie Hobbs, that they will dismantle their $80 million wall of shipping containers that were installed in the Colorado National Forest last year. The plan also encroaches on lands managed by the International... View full entry
I think of architecture as embodied art. It's about holistically experiencing our world through all of our senses, and so architecture is the perfect matrix for considering neuroaesthetics. The same parts of your brain that teach you to think about the future are the same ones that are manipulated by your experience of space. The better your space is, the better you are going to be. — STIRworld
The outsized impact architectural forms have on the human psyche is still a growing field of research and has been behind Suchi Reddy’s recent installations at the Salone del Mobile and Smithsonian Institution as well as her ethereal design for the first Google storefront in New... View full entry
The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have agreed to rescind a policy that would bar international students taking online-only courses from residing in the United States, federal judge Allison D. Burroughs announced at a hearing on Tuesday.
ICE will revert back to the guidance it issued in March that allows students taking online courses to reside in the United States on F-1 visas.
— The Harvard Crimson
The Harvard Crimson reports that Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California, and hundreds of other higher education institutions have successfully beaten back a draconian initiative proposed by the United States Department of Homeland Security that... View full entry
Following a surprise announcement that foreign students will not be allowed to remain in the United States if their colleges adopt all-online education for the coming semester, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have sued the federal government to stop the... View full entry
Last week Mr. Weizman confronted an unexpected mystery when he was denied a visa to enter the United States. An official at the U.S. Embassy in London told him, without elaboration, he said, that an algorithm had identified a security threat that was related to him. — The New York Times
According to a report by Colin Moynihan in The New York Times, Eyal Weizman, the director of research-focused investigative practice Forensic Architecture, was stopped on his way to attend the opening of the group's first American retrospective exhibition. The exhibition, Forensic... View full entry
President Trump is preparing to divert an additional $7.2 billion in Pentagon funding for border wall construction this year, five times what Congress authorized him to spend on the project in the 2020 budget. — The Washington Post
According to The Washington Post, the funding would give the government enough money to complete about 885 miles of new fencing by spring 2022, far more than the 509 miles the administration has slated for the U.S. border with Mexico. So far the Trump administration has completed... View full entry
In New York, hope sometimes comes at the price of the sun.
The city welcomes poor immigrants, but its housing does not. Most rents are far beyond the means of people like Amado, who arrive looking for a better life or to make money to send back home.
So they turn to the basements of Queens.
— The New York Times
The New York Times has produced an interactive photo essay profiling New York City residents in the borough of Queens who live in some of the city's windowless basement apartments. The arrangement, derived out of economic necessity and rooted in a desire to stay out of sight, provides newly... View full entry
The president and his administration said last week that they plan on building between 450 and 500 miles of fencing along the nearly 2,000-mile border by the end of 2020, an ambitious undertaking funded by billions of defense dollars that had been earmarked for things like military base schools, target ranges and maintenance facilities. — The Columbian
The construction has commenced in Yuma, Arizona, where the 30-foot-tall fencing will replace existing shorter barriers. "The Trump administration says the wall—along with more surveillance technology, agents and lighting—is key to keeping out people who cross illegally,"... View full entry
The Architecture Lobby and ADPSR call on all design professionals to refuse to participate in the design and construction of any immigration detention and deterrence infrastructure, including but not limited to walls, Border Patrol Stations, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offices, detention facilities, or juvenile holding centers. — The Architecture Lobby
The Architecture Lobby (TAL) and Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR) are calling on designers to boycott any efforts to design and construct infrastructure related to the immigration detention and deterrence. In a statement announcing their efforts, the two... View full entry
The Trump administration has not installed a single mile of new wall in a previously fenceless part of the U.S.-Mexico border in the 30 months since President Trump assumed office, despite his campaign promise to construct a “big beautiful wall.” — The Washington Examiner
According to The Washington Examiner, while the Trump administration has replaced over 51-miles of existing border wall fencing, the administration has not actually added any new lengths of wall along the US-Mexico border. In President Donald Trump's two years in office, the administration... View full entry
The American Institute of Architect (AIA) has issued a statement denouncing the inhumane conditions that have been discovered over recent weeks across the country at the detention centers where undocumented immigrants and asylum-seekers are being detained. The conditions as described by numerous... View full entry
Miami’s high-end real-estate market has drastically slowed in the past several years, as the Latin American buyers who led a frenzy of postrecession purchases have all but disappeared. South American economies that were roaring in the early years of the decade, including Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela, are now facing severe economic distress, which has devalued their currencies and left purchasers from those countries with far less buying power in the U.S. — wsj.com
Oversupply, the unknown threat of climate change, and shifting immigration patterns are pushing high-end condominium prices downward in Miami, where, The Wall Street Journal reports, sales have fallen off 24 percent from last year. “There’s just an abundance of inventory,” Alexandra... View full entry
