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Challenging conditions in the U.S. housing market, along with tighter currency controls by the Chinese government, caused a stunning drop in foreign demand for American homes.
The dollar volume of homes purchased by foreign buyers from April 2018 through March 2019 dropped 36% from the previous year, according to the National Association of Realtors.
— CNBC
NAR’s Profile of International Transactions in U.S. Residential Real Estate 2019 survey reports that "for the seventh consecutive year, China exceeded all other countries in terms of dollar volume of purchases, buying an estimated $13.4 billion worth of residential property, a 56% decline from... View full entry
Henning Larsen has completed work on a new 750,000-square-foot opera house and cultural center in Hangzhou, China. The opera-in-the-park-style complex is wrapped by a fractured metal panel and glass facade designed to reference the cracked ice that forms during the winter months along... View full entry
Trade often gets shorthanded to its most tangible form, the flow of goods from one country to another. But the exchange of services is also part of the equation, with building design offering a high-demand example in China amid an extended economic boom there. — Dallas News
Dallas News correspondent Tom Benning highlights the business setbacks two major U.S.-based architecture firms — HKS and CallisonRTKL — experienced while operating in China: from breach of contract, to intellectually property theft, all the way to corporate imposture, these... View full entry
The Yiwu Grand Theater's larger than life presence along the Dongyang River is not all for show. MAD Architects aims to create a structure that will be a "monument for the city." Envisioned as an immersive public space for inhabitants and visitors alike, the overall design for the... View full entry
Seven Chinese labourers who worked on the construction of a casino and resort in the US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) are suing the owner of the project and two of its contractors, alleging they were victims of a forced labour scheme and had suffered injuries on site.
The labourers were working on the Imperial Pacific casino and resort in Saipan, the largest island in the South Pacific commonwealth.
— Global Construction Review
GCR covers the lawsuit seven laborers from China have brought forward against the casino's developer Imperial Pacific International, contractor MCC International Saipan Ltd Co, and contractor Gold Mantis Construction Decoration in Saipan, a U.S. commonwealth island just 120 miles north of Guam... View full entry
Materials scientists in China have developed an insulator that reproduces the structure of individual polar bear hairs, while scaling toward a material made up of many hairs for real-world applications in architecture and aerospace. Polar bear hairs are hollow, and the shapes and spacing of their hollow centers is responsible for their distinctive white coats, as well as being a source of incredible heat-holding capacity, water resistance, and stretchiness. — earth.com
Shu-Hong Yu, professor of chemistry at the University of Science and Technology of China and co-author of the paper titled Biomimetic Carbon Tube Aerogel Enables Super-Elasticity and Thermal Insulation published in the journal Chem, writes, “Polar bear hair has been evolutionarily optimized... View full entry
Shangai-based architecture firm X+Living has just completed their most recent - and possibly most beguiling - bookstore in the city of Chongqing, China. Zhongshuge, a Chinese bookstore chain known for its bold interior design, commissioned X+Living to develop their newest shop with mesmerizing... View full entry
In China, a media company has been ordered by the court to cough up $30,000 to a real estate developer for accusing one of their buildings of having bad feng shui, CNN reports. In the post published by Zhuhai Shengun Internet Technology, a Chinese blogger warned of the building's inauspicious... View full entry
If there is any place in the world where the skyscraper reins supreme, it is Hong Kong. From a distance, these tall, towering structures fill Hong Kong's skyline with forms that touch the clouds. Hundreds of these towers reflect off of Victoria Harbor creating a sense of hyperrealism as people... View full entry
In an interview in his Berlin offices with The Art Newspaper, Chipperfield spoke about the frustratingly free brief for the West Bund Art Museum, China’s unstoppable urban development and the ethical questions that arise for architects working in countries with authoritarian regimes. — The Art Newspaper
When asked about China's slowing economic growth and increasing authoritarianism, Chipperfield answers: "I would say the narrative about the diminishing expansion of the economy is offset by the slightly more sophisticated environment that is evolving. The Chinese are getting better at building... View full entry
Groundbreaking has taken place for OMA's Xinhu Hangzhou Prism, a 50,000m2 mixed-use building in Hangzhou, which is quickly developing into one of China's major tech hubs. With OMA's Chris van Duijn and Michalis Hadjistyllis as project leads, The Prism will be located in Hangzhou’s Future Tech... View full entry
It has been exactly one year since the enormous eight-tower Raffles City Chongqing development announced that it set the world record for the highest sky bridge linking the most number of towers when it successfully hoisted the three middle segments of the ensemble's signature '9th horizontal... View full entry
China's bustling city of Shanghai and its sprawling capital of Beijing are filled with historical structures and a dense population. Home to many architectural wonders, like the Great Wall, the National Stadium, and Shanghai Tower, China is booming with captivating structures. With a population... View full entry
The 250-year-old retirement digs of an 18th-century Chinese emperor are getting a face-lift.
The World Monuments Fund announced Monday that the New York-based architect Annabelle Selldorf and her firm, Selldorf Architects, will design an interpretation center at the Qianlong Garden in the Forbidden City in Beijing.
— The New York Times
According to the World Monuments Fund, "the interpretation center will be located in an existing, restored structure within the second courtyard of the Qianlong Garden." Juanqinzhai theater room after conservation. Image courtesy World Monuments Fund."Selldorf and her NYC-based firm, Selldorf... View full entry
Award-winning Swiss-French architect Bernard Tschumi has completed the Tianjin Binhai Exploratorium, a massive new museum that will be joining MVRDV's futuristic library as one of five main attractions in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin's growing recreational district. Photo by Kris... View full entry
