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Gensler and Amazon are among the donors who have gifted $4.7 million to the California College of the Arts (CCA). The funds will be used to support diversity, equity, and innovation in the arts and design field. CCA received a $1 million gift from the Gensler family and an additional $1 million... View full entry
Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects (EYRC) has completed their adaptive re-use of an abandoned Los Angeles Times print facility in Costa Mesa, Orange County. The 430,000-square-foot scheme titled ‘The Press’ saw the three-story complex converted into flexible office spaces. Photo credit... View full entry
California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed into law a major reform to homebuilding in the state. The Affordable Housing and High Road Jobs Act, signed on September 28th, will override local zoning codes to allow for more affordable housing units to be built on land previously zoned for commercial... View full entry
Houses of worship in California are now in the position to take on the state’s largest social problem with the adaptation of new legislation that allows for housing development on plots that are, in almost every case, zoned exclusively for commercial use. In July, Governor Gavin... View full entry
California’s state legislature has passed a bill sponsored by the American Institute of Architects California (AIACA) that will limit public access to copyrighted architectural drawings for the first time. The recently-signed SB 1214 concerns drawings that were submitted to local and state... View full entry
I’ve seen miracles happen. I’ve seen ordinary people do the most heroic things. When you’ve had the privilege of knowing so many great fighters and resisters, you can’t lay down the sword, even if things seem objectively hopeless. — The Guardian
The terminally-ill City of Quartz author sat down recently with The Guardian to discuss his waning health and look back at prescient early warnings of the state’s slow-motion social and ecological demise that has taken three decades to manifest. True to form, Davis was critical of... View full entry
Following last week’s visit to California-based SmithGroup, we are keeping our Meet Your Next Employer series partly on the west coast this week to meet residential specialists DAHLIN. The 180-strong firm, whose nine offices span California, Washington, Utah, Montana, and Texas, and... View full entry
Legislators in California have passed a bill strengthening the state’s pay transparency requirements. Elements contained in the bill, SB 1162, include a requirement for many employers to include salary ranges in job postings, disclose salary scales to employees for their current positions, and... View full entry
Following last week’s visit to New York City-based Rice+Lipka, we are moving our Meet Your Next Employer series west to California, where we find the nationwide powerhouse SmithGroup. The firm, whose history traces back to 1818, has since expanded to encompass 19 offices across the United... View full entry
California Governor Gavin Newsom has unveiled a new plan to enable the state to secure its water supply in the face of a hotter, drier climate. The strategy is in response to a prediction that California’s existing water supply could diminish by up to 10% by 2040, the equivalent of losing more... View full entry
California building codes were updated in July to allow for the construction of mass timber buildings up to 18 stories tall. [...]
"There's been extensive testing for this application and taking mass timber into taller wood buildings [...] The building codes are very conservative in the U.S. Even though Europe has been using mass timber for many years it's still relatively new in the U.S."
— CBS Sacramento
The new California building codes come as mass timber applications in buildings gain momentum across North America. Most notable is the recently-opened Ascent Tower by Korb + Associates Architects in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which was crowned the world’s tallest timber-concrete hybrid... View full entry
Work has been completed on the Vertical Panorama Pavilion in Sonoma, California. Designed by Studio Other Spaces, a Berlin studio founded by artist Olafur Eliasson and architect Sebastian Behmann, the pavilion will be used as a space for wine tasting by The Donum Estate, one of California’s... View full entry
New photos of the recently-opened Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture in Riverside, California, have just been published, showcasing the Page & Turnbull-led transformation from an outdated New Formalist public library building into an important home for Chicano art. Named for actor... View full entry
As Spain, France, Greece, and Germany grapple with a spate of historic wildfires that have gripped the region in recent weeks, a group of researchers in the American West is now advocating for fairly extreme shifts in development trends there which would buck others currently favored by the... View full entry
Following last week’s visit to Brooklyn-based StudioTEKA, we are moving our Meet Your Next Employer series west to Los Angeles, where we find the socially-conscious Stayner Architects. The young, LGBTQ-led practice operates from its studio in LA’s Echo Park neighborhood, engaging exclusively... View full entry