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The five boroughs are home to more than 200,000 multifamily buildings made with un-reinforced brick and built from the mid-1800s to the 1930s, according to a city hazard plan. Many rowhouses across the city neighborhoods fall into this category.
Such masonry cannot bend or flex during an earthquake and would instead break or crumble. A strong earthquake could cause some buildings of this type to collapse.
— The New York Times
Last week’s 4.8 magnitude tri-state quake wasn’t nearly as strong as the (estimated) 5.5 magnitude incident that occurred on August 10, 1884, and would have caused $4.7 billion worth of damage to the modern city, according to the New York Times. Experts have warned that the risk posed to... View full entry
Frida Escobedo’s first American residential commission has been revealed as a block-scale condominium project in the Boerum Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. The designer of the new Modern and Contemporary Art Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (in which she has set up a working studio) will... View full entry
LCOR, along with energy solutions company Ecosave USA, has topped out the first geothermal apartment complex in New York City. Located at 1515 Surf Ave. in Coney Island, this project stands as the city's largest district geothermal ground-source heat pump project to date. The system aims to... View full entry
A proposed new residential project in Zanzibar, Tanzania, could challenge Milwaukee's Ascent tower for the title of world’s tallest mass timber structure after being unveiled to the public on October 1. Rising 28 stories to a height of approximately 315 feet, the Burj Zanzibar is designed by the... View full entry
A single house under construction in America today faces all kinds of problems, starting with a run on lumber, then bricklayers in demand, subcontractors with Covid, appliances on back order and plumbing fixtures out at sea. [...]
The home-building industry is having the most difficult time in decades meeting demand, the sum of many pandemic complications. But this moment reaches peak absurdity with garage doors.
— The New York Times
Architects have been active in calling to attention some of the extreme challenges put to them by the pandemic economy. Particularly, construction of new buildings has been affected by the cost and availability of lumber and other important building materials, which have risen by about 20% for... View full entry
A new honor has its inaugural winner after the international Créateurs Design Awards (CDA) announced Sir David Adjaye as the recipient of the first-ever Charlotte Perriand Award. The award goes in recognition of a living architect whose career achievements thus far have paralleled that of its... View full entry
Construction will be an engine of global economic growth in the decade to 2030, with output expected to be 35% higher than in the ten years to 2020, according to a new global forecast. — Global Construction Review
The report, titled Future of Construction, by Oxford Economics and Marsh McLennan subsidiaries March and Guy Carpenter projects that growth in construction output will average 3.6% per year from now until 2030, outpacing that of the manufacturing and services sectors. According to the study, this... View full entry
Along the banks of the Rhône and Saône rivers in Lyon stands an unmissable new tower designed by the famed architect Jean Nouvel. The 16-story building's pastel-colored facades and angular parapet present a stark contrast to the tower's more traditional industrial and residential apartment... View full entry
O’Herlihy’s “same old stuff” is, in actuality, bringing plenty of fresh thinking to the issue of density at a time in which Los Angeles is building up instead of out — a time when changes in zoning, especially along transit lines, is adding more condos and apartments to the skyline, transforming the landscape of single family homes for which the city is known.
Over the last 15 years, LOHA has made a name for itself by working on projects that make innovative use of tight urban spaces.
— latimes.com
Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects (LOHA) has been designing spaces for 24 years with an array of projects ranging from residential complexes to bus stations. Rather than creating luxury living, the firm has chosen to focus on affordable housing, dormitory, and non profit projects. Dormitory building... View full entry
With a floor plan designed around the concept of petals furling outward from a flower's stem the anodized bronze-toned aluminum and glass tower known as Bryggeblomstem ("the Brygge Flower"), has been granted the "Best Residential Building" award by the Copenhagen Municipality. The... View full entry
The sentiment is warm and fuzzy. The design, however, is radical: BIG has imagined a complex that would be unlike any other building in the city – or, indeed, North America. The scheme blends an unusual stack-of-blocks form, and adds a complex weave of public and private spaces underneath and within the heart of the building itself...the effect [Bjarke Ingels] is going for is akin to 'a Mediterranean mountain town.' — The Globe and Mail
More recent BIG projects: BIG to design 2016 Serpentine Pavilion, alongside smaller "Summer Houses" by Kunlé Adeyemi, Barkow Leibinger, Yona Friedman and Asif Kahn BIG in Paris: Bjarke Ingels to design for Galeries Lafayette on Champs-Élysées BIG's concept for a spiraling-landscape tower in... View full entry
China is reportedly planning to demolish three new high-rise [residential] buildings [in Tianjin, which] are up to 30 floors taller than originally planned...It’s the latest blow to the [city], which saw a devastating explosion at a warehouse in its port in August...state media pointed out that...the scale of illegal construction meant the building was unsafe, [deeming] the 'completely corrupt project' [as] unusable, and to be demolished was 'its destiny.' — International Business Times
More on Archinect:China’s replica of Wall Street is full of half-built, deserted skyscrapers and floods regularlyBrazilian engineering companies building Olympic venues "very probably" broke laws, accepted bribesLabor violations affirmed in latest report of NYU Abu Dhabi construction View full entry
No, these images aren't for an upcoming Lego kit design or a fantasy-genre video game, although they might as well be. They're Mark Foster Gage's concept for a 102-story ornamental skyscraper nicknamed "The Khaleesi", proposed for 41 West 57th Street in NYC's Billionaire's Row.Interestingly... View full entry
[The tower proposed for 340 Flatbush Ave Ext.] will rise 1,000 feet tall, claiming the title of New York City’s tallest building outside of Manhattan, and giving Brooklyn its first legitimate supertall skyscraper...The residential component will span 466,000 square feet, and be divided amongst 550 units, with approximately 90 floors in total. There will also be 140,000 square feet of commercial development... — New York Yimby
According to New York Yimby, "SHoP’s tower will be a dramatic improvement for both the cityscape and the skyline. With slender proportions capped in pointed, Deco-tinged accents, the building will have a notable presence without overwhelming its surrounds..."Thoughts?More about towers on... View full entry
OMA recently revealed new details on the Norra Tornen twin towers -- formerly titled Tors Torn -- since they won the competition in 2013. The distinguishly faceted 100-meter towers, which are named Helix and Innovation, are being designed to be the third tallest twin skyscrapers in the Hagastaden neighborhood of Stockholm. The mixed-use buildings will consist of private residential apartments, a bar and exhibition space, and public amenities...The project is scheduled to break ground in 2015. — bustler.net