Two other officials reportedly “removed,” including Robert Peck, head of Public Buildings Service. The head of the U.S. General Services Administration, Martha Johnson, resigned on April 2 and earlier removed the leader of GSA’s Public Buildings Service and another senior official from their jobs, an Obama administration official says. The shakeup was sparked by an inspector general’s report blasting GSA for “excessive and wasteful” spending and failing to follow federal contracting rules on a 2010 conference whose price tag exceeded $822,000. Related Links:Peck Returning as GSA Buildings Chief The Obama administration official said the two GSA executives removed were PBS
Image courtesy EMC The memorial is slated to be built on Independence Avenue, across from the National Air and Space Museum. Related Links:Gehry Chosen to Design Eisenhower Memorial How Architects Can Land a Government Contract Frank Gehry hopes to meet with members of the Eisenhower family and work with them to assuage their concerns about his proposed memorial design, says the Eisenhower Memorial Commission (EMC), which is spearheading the $112 million project in Washington, D.C. The family has not responded to the invitation, other than to say they will confer before considering their next move, according to a March 30
According to construction-economics data from McGraw-Hill Dodge, the housing market has started to turn the corner. Multifamily construction, in particular, is showing new signs of life. Source: McGraw-Hill Dodge Analytics Click the image above to view a full presentation of these stats [PDF].
Image courtesy Abruzzo Bodziak Architects Emily Abruzzo, of Brooklyn’s Abruzzo Bodziak Architects, worked with Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation (CHLDC) and New York Sun Works to design an educational greenhouse for an empty lot. Image courtesy Vamos Architects Evan Bennett, a principal at Vamos Architects, helped conceive Destination Nostrand, a proposal to transform an avenue in Brooklyn peppered with shuttered storefronts into an appealing destination through temporary street furniture, creative window displays, and porch-like spaces in front of vacant shops. Ask desigNYC executive director Laetitia Wolff about her organization’s mission, and she’ll give you a straightforward answer: “To improve the
HOK and the USGBC partner to build a new orphanage and children's center in a slowly recovering Haiti. Image courtesy HOK Click on the slide show button to view more images. Though Haiti has been out of the media spotlight in recent months, efforts to rebuild infrastructure and facilities in the struggling nation march on: More than two years after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the country in January 2010, organizations in both the nonprofit and for-profit sectors are ramping up their long-standing involvement in the country’s revitalization. Much of the new work by groups like Architecture for Humanity and Studio
Francis Kéré takes the top prize for a secondary school in his rural Burkina Faso village. The 2012 Global Holcim Award winners were announced today, with Berlin-based architect Diébédo Francis Kéré taking the Gold Award and $200,000 for a secondary school he designed for his native village of Gando, Burkina Faso. As Kéré’s practice has grown (with current projects in countries ranging from Switzerland to China) he has remained dedicated to improving conditions in his 6,000-person village. He has designed, raised funds to build, and coordinated the construction of public buildings from a primary school—for which he won the Aga
The March 27 event drew roughly 200 attendees, many of them Greenwich Village residents opposed to the plan. Image courtesy MAS NYU wants to add 2.5 million square feet to its Greenwich Village campus. The plan will likely reach the city council this summer. New York University has proposed reshaping its Greenwich Village neighborhood with 2.5 million square feet of new construction, dramatically increasing density on two “superblocks” devoted mainly to faculty housing. The plan, initially generated by a competition-winning team composed of SMWM (now part of Perkins+Will), Toshiko Mori, Grimshaw Architects, and Olin Partnership, would entail the demolition of
Princeton University’s School of Architecture, long known for a focus on architectural theory, has chosen a theorist and practitioner as its next dean.
Architect Sergio Palleroni, founder of BaSiC Initiative, has dedicated his career to helping communities in need. Image courtesy BaSiC Initiative Click on the slide show button to view images of BaSiC Initiative’s work in various communities. Related Links: Special Report: Building for Social Change Humanitarian Design: The New Frontier in Education To Sergio Palleroni, humanitarian architecture is nothing new. In the 1980s, long before public interest design became fashionable, Palleroni was working on sustainable architecture projects for the World Bank and the United Nations in Nicaragua, Mexico, and Africa. Then, in 1995, while teaching at University of Washington, he co-founded
Image ' Lebbeus Woods and Christoph a. Kumpusch A pavilion designed by Woods in collaboration with Christoph a. Kumpusch is under construction in Chengdu, China. Four stories high, it is a riot of angled steel beams housed in polycarbonate sleeves containing LEDs. Photo courtesy Christoph a. Kumpusch The pavilion is part of a giant mixed-use development by Steven Holl, a longtime friend of Woods. “I was never in love with drawing,” says Lebbeus Woods, sipping a cocktail in his apartment in Manhattan’s Financial District. “I drew because I wanted to express ideas.” Downstairs, construction work on Nassau Street has revealed
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