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Santiago Calatrava’s marvelous yet befuddling pedestrian bridge at the Ponte della Costituzione in Venice is now in the process of reconstruction in the wake of the city government issuing fines in response to slip and fall injuries that followed its opening in September 2008. All 284 glass... View full entry
The long road back for residents of the western North Carolina counties that were heavily impacted due to flooding from Hurricane Helene is still being mapped out, but now the New York Times and other local outlets are reporting on critics who say reforms to the state’s building codes could have... View full entry
CBS News is reporting on the re-opening of The Vessel at Hudson Yards after closing abruptly in January of 2021 in response to a rash of suicides. The Vessel now includes expanded safety measures, with steel mesh barriers installed on four stairwells and adjoining platforms. These barriers are... View full entry
Moriyama Teshima Architects has provided a statement in rebuke of the sudden closure of its late founder Raymond Moriyama’s beloved Ontario Science Centre in Toronto. The closure was announced Friday by the provincial government, citing the need for repairs in many of its RAAC roof... View full entry
A team of researchers from Japan’s Tohoku University has developed a new mechanoluminescent construction material they say can be used in infrastructure to monitor daily use stress information in real-time in order to avert potential future catastrophes that may result from its aging stock of... View full entry
The Vessel has announced it will again be open to visitors in New York City later this year after upgraded anti-suicide safety measures are installed in response to a spate of tragedies that have befallen its existence since being inaugurated in March of 2019. The attraction has been closed since... View full entry
Another round of funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies' Asphalt Art Initiative has been announced in an effort to improve the pedestrian safety of 25 different cities in North America. Grants of up to $25,000 were awarded also in Mexico and Canada for the first time in the program’s history... View full entry
Construction of the lingering suicide prevention upgrades is wrapping up on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The project's long road to culmination was covered by the New York Times recently as contractors work to finish installing the netting system, which was more than 80% in place as of... View full entry
After an extensive renovation, the art nouveau market anchoring the neighborhood returned to its original 19th-century splendor last year. In the area around it, parking was moved underground, newly planted trees and shrubs dot the streets and public plazas, children romp in new play areas, and bicyclists and pedestrians now have ample space to move around freely. In short, public space has increased by thousands of square meters — all because car traffic was deprioritized. — Capitol Hill Seattle
In an effort to improve safety conditions for the city's pedestrians and cyclists, Seattle in considering implementing a series of traffic calming measures along a six-block section its Capitol Hill neighborhood that would create the city's first "superblock" configuration. The move comes as the... View full entry
A growing number of building facade inspectors, increasingly women, are rappelling into New York City’s glass and terra-cotta canyons. — The New York Times
Stefanos Chen introduces us to New York City's growing community of "industrial rope access" facade inspectors. "The city requires that of the approximately 1 million buildings in New York City, those taller than six stories — more than 14,500 structures — have their facades inspected every... View full entry
Last week, street planners Victor Dover and Kenneth García of the Miami firm Dover, Kohl & Partners published a proposal for redesigning the area. The pair criticized not only the “accelerated bridge construction” technique used in the FIU-Sweetwater UniversityCity Bridge, but the fundamental design of the street it once spanned. — citylab.com
Following the Miami FIU bridge collapse three weeks ago, investigations have been conducted on what went wrong. Looking ahead to reconstruction, the Miami based design firm Dover, Kohl & Partners proposes a new pedestrian friendly design for Eighth Street. Focusing on greater harmony between... View full entry
Photographer Benny Lam has documented the suffocating living conditions in Hong Kong’s subdivided flats, recording the lives of these hidden communities. — The Guardian
From a stove-adjacent toilet to walls crammed with knives, scissors, and precariously stacked storage cases, Benny Lam's photographs of illegally subdivided apartments in Hong Kong are like a gorgeously illustrated case study in how major disease epidemics get started. This Guardian article is a... View full entry
Sentinel Peak Resources, which took over the roughly 1.1-acre site in December, now believes that affordable housing is the “best beneficial use” for the land [...] Neighborhood leaders said they were interested in closing and re-purposing the site, but are awaiting more details. They stressed that regardless of any plans, they still want the city to pursue their concerns about violations at the site, which Sentinel Peak Resources has so far brushed off. — Los Angeles Times
According to the L.A. Times, “No official plan has been drafted and details are scant, but [L.A. City Council President Herb] Wesson said he was ‘unbelievably excited’ about the idea, arguing it could pave the way to convert other local drilling sites.”But converting the site — which is... View full entry
In a major reversal, Gov. Jerry Brown is seeking state funds for a fledgling earthquake early warning system for California, which would allow for a limited rollout of alerts by 2018...Though the governor’s proposed funding is a big step for the system, it does not come with ongoing funds to operate it. An earthquake early warning system for California alone will cost about $23 million to build and $12 million annually to operate[.] — Los Angeles Times
More on Archinect:Checking in on Nepal, one year laterDeath toll climbs to 350 after powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake hits EcuadorIn Los Angeles, landlords and tenants will share seismic retrofit costsShigeru Ban builds earthquake-proof homes in Nepal: "I'm encouraging people to copy my ideas. No... View full entry
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said Tuesday he seriously considered ordering a shutdown of the entire Washington Metro subway system last week and may still do that if local officials don't follow Transportation Department safety directives.
"We have the ability to withhold (federal) funds from Metro. We have the ability to shut Metro down, and we're not afraid to use the authority we have," Foxx said told reporters. "This is serious business."
— AP
"Local officials have yet to identify the root cause of incidents involving electrical arcing, smoke and fire, and so have no plan for how to fix the problem, he said."For more on the dilapidated state of American infrastructure:U.S. Transportation Secretary Foxx on the troubled... View full entry
