These have been boom times for companies that rip out lawns and replace them with drought-tolerant landscaping, but now their business might be drying up.

The Metropolitan Water District said Thursday it would no longer offer rebates to entice homeowners to get rid of their lawns because the agency ran out of money much sooner than it expected.

That is bad news for [...] landscape contractor in Los Angeles. Grass removal has become about 40 percent of his business, driven by the rebates. — scpr.org

...Napping, and the need to nap, are universal. Abundant research – at the universities of Loughborough, Pennsylvania, California and many others – shows the immediate and pronounced benefits of even just 10 or 20 minutes sleep on a tired mind... In short it is rather odd that almost the whole world, and especially the cities where so many people spend their days, have not yet found a way to incorporate napping into the culture. — The Guardian

The boom in China stock prices that has created more than 100 new billionaires and billionaire families in the past month is continuing this week. [...]

Tu Shanzhong, chairman of Pubang Landscape Architecture, became China’s newest landscape architecture billionaire after shares in his 31%-owned Pubang Landscape Artchitecture closed at a record high of 38.53 yuan [...]. Our estimate of his fortune, at $1 billion on Wednesday, includes discounts for collateralized shares and includes dividends. — forbes.com

For a fledgling startup, finding an office in San Francisco can be a real nightmare. Rents are now climbing past $60 a square foot, second only to Manhattan in the US [...].

This means young startups have to get creative if they insist on staying within the city. And Westfield, one of the world’s largest mall operators, has a solution for them: Bespoke, a 37,000-square-foot coworking and event space within its shopping center in downtown San Francisco. — qz.com

Here is a constant refrain: Why is so much new building junk? [...]

The truth is that architects don’t have that much power. Architects don’t design most buildings; they are designed by developers or contractors working from cookie-cutter plans. Perhaps an architect signs off. [...] In any number of ways—our building codes, our housing policies, our preservation statutes—we systemically encourage bad building. — artsblog.dallasnews.com

Can a high-profile company led by a celebrity CEO come within two weeks of bankruptcy without anyone noticing? In early 2013, ...Tesla Motors came so close to running out of cash that its brash leader, Elon Musk, approached Google about buying the company, according to a new Musk biography. A surge in sales of the company’s pricey Model S sedan staved off disaster. Musk broke off the Google talks, no longer needing a white knight. And no one outside the two companies knew about it. — SF Gate

The Carson City Council unanimously approved a privately financed stadium for the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders on Tuesday night, barely two months after the public announcement of the $1.7-billion project.

"There are two things we need in California: rain … and football," Carson Mayor Albert Robles said after the 3-0 vote. "And football is coming to Carson!" — latimes.com

[JetBlue Airways] reportedly wants to get into the hotel business by partnering with New York-based hotel developer MCR Development to turn the landmarked terminal into a 500-room hotel. The deal isn't final—the parties are in 'advanced negotiations'—so things could still fall apart...The Port Authority previously chose hotelier Andre Balazs as the developer, but Balazs backed out after realizing how long the project would take. He told the [WSJ] his company had 'more interesting opportunities.' — ny.curbed.com

If a student's parents make less than $125,000 per year, and if they have assets of less than $300,000, excluding retirement accounts, the parents won't be expected to pay anything toward their children's Stanford tuition. Families with incomes lower than $65,000 won't have to contribute to room and board, either.

[...] there's something that every college could emulate about Stanford's policy: it's incredibly simple and straightforward. — vox.com

After investing five years and $50 million in an attempt to bring an NFL team back to Los Angeles, AEG is abandoning plans for its Farmers Field football stadium downtown.

The sports and entertainment conglomerate is no longer in discussions with the NFL or any teams about the project, company officials said Monday. [...]

In recent weeks, competing stadium proposals in Inglewood and Carson, backed by NFL team owners, have overshadowed the AEG plan. — latimes.com

In the last 20 years, just one NFL stadium has been built solely through private funding. [...]

Still, when it comes to getting the best deal out of an arena, leaving taxpayer money off the tab is only a good start.

Studies have repeatedly shown that sports teams don’t have the far-reaching economic impacts that one might assume, and experts have noted that stadiums aren’t as catalytic as some franchise owners might tout. — nextcity.org

Although money is often seen as a taboo topic in art schools, a group of Yale alumni is urging professional architects to place more value on the relationship between money and architecture.

The Yale Architectural Journal’s latest edition, titled “Money,” discusses the controversial role of money in the field of architecture. [...] ranging from Frank Gehry to Yale School of Architecture Professor Keller Easterling, the issue urges architects to reconsider the financial side of their work. — yaledailynews.com

HOK celebrated its return to Kansas City Tuesday, revealing new signage at what has been the offices of 360 Architecture at 300 W. 22nd St.

The event marked completion of 360 Architecture’s acquisition by HOK, a global architecture, engineering and design company with 1,800 employees. The purchase, announced in August, made Kansas City HOK’s 24th office globally.

The practice is marketed as HOK Sports + Recreation + Entertainment. — kansascity.com

A New York architecture and interior-design firm with roots dating back more than a century has filed for Chapter 11 protection, citing its inability to collect more than $2 million from an assignment in Russia. [...]

Over the years, Swanke Hayden has worked on a number of well-known projects in New York and elsewhere, including the Trump Tower, a 1980s facelift of the Statue of Liberty, and the recent rehabilitation of Central Park restaurant Tavern on the Green. — blogs.wsj.com