Editor’s note: You may read the news digest below or listen to it, plus other news headlines from ArchitecturalRecord.com, as a podcast by clicking this link. Click the play button to begin | Click here to download Frank Gehry’s so-called “Ohr pods,” 40-foot-tall cylindrical structures whose warped metal forms resemble the eccentric pottery of the 19th century Mississippi artist George Ohr, have been fabricated and construction bids are set to go out by the end of the month, the Mississippi Sun Herald reported on October 21. The four pods will contain galleries at the Ohr O’Keefe Museum of Art, which

Worries over how long the credit crunch will continue to impact residential construction are having a spillover affect on lending in other construction markets. The Architectural Billings Index (ABI) reflected these jitters in September, falling 2.8 points for a score of 51.1. It was the index’s second down month in a row. The number of inquiries for new projects in September, meanwhile, rose slightly for a score of 61.4. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) compiles these indices based on surveys sent to 300 mainly commercial firms; any value over 50 indicates growth. Studies have shown a correlation between the

Editor’s note: You may read the news digest below or listen to it, plus other news headlines from ArchitecturalRecord.com, as a podcast by clicking this link. Click the play button to begin | Click here to download Polshek Partnership’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center received conditional approval from the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts yesterday. But as The Washington Post reported on October 19, some commissioners expressed concern that the proposed underground visitors and education center on the Mall “might dilute the emotional impact” of Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial nearby. Polshek’s design, the paper wrote, “calls for a 34,100-square-foot structure

Editor’s note: You may read the news digest below or listen to it, plus other news headlines from ArchitecturalRecord.com, as a podcast by clicking this link. Click the play button to begin | Click here to download U2 sang “take me higher” in its 1991 song “Even Better Than the Real Thing,” and now life is imitating art—a 591-foot-tall skyscraper designed by Foster & Partners was selected for the U2 Tower at Britain Quay in Dublin. The Foster plan beat out a proposal by Zaha Hadid, but both schemes were sought as alternatives to an original tower, designed by Burdon

Editor’s note: You may read the news digest below or listen to it, plus other news headlines from ArchitecturalRecord.com, as a podcast by clicking this link. Click the play button to begin | Click here to download Herbert Muschamp, architecture critic for The New York Times from 1992 to 2004, died of lung cancer this week at the age of 59. Love or hate his writing, and plenty of people did both, the controversial Muschamp still has people talking. Elaine Woo, writing for the Los Angeles Times on October 4, noted that Muschamp’s exuberant 1997 review of Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim

Barry LePatner, a Manhattan-based attorney who counts Frank Gehry and other big-name architects among his clients, sees a problem with the construction industry in the United States—clearly indicated by the title of his book Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets, published today by the University of Chicago Press. “This is the industry that time has forgotten,” he says. “Mom-and-pop shops, composed of 20 people or less, make up 92 percent of the industry. They are hugely inefficient, and they have no money to spend on improving performance and technology.” The result, LePatner continues, is tremendous waste in a $1.2-trillion-a-year business—nearly half of

Editor’s note: You may read the news digest below or listen to it, plus other news headlines from ArchitecturalRecord.com, as a podcast by clicking this link. Click the play button to begin | Click here to download Cesar Pelli and his firm will design what could become the tallest tower in San Francisco. As RECORD reported this week, Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, teamed with developer Hines, were awarded exclusive negotiating rights for a prime downtown site owned by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority. The authority seeks to rebuild the aging Transbay Terminal facility next door. Pelli’s design is for a

Summertime turmoil in credit markets finally caught up with billings at architecture firms. The American Institute of Architects’ Architectural Billings Index (ABI) fell 6.1 points from its near-record high in July for a score of 53.9 in August; the volume of inquiries also tumbled by a similar amount for a score of 60.5. Although these numbers marked the biggest drop since September 2006, when the ABI lost 7.3 points, billings remain healthy since any score over 50 points represents growth. Kermit Baker, the AIA’s chief economist, explained in a press release that while the ABI is compiled using data mainly

Editor’s note: You may read the news digest below or listen to it, plus other news headlines from ArchitecturalRecord.com, as a podcast by clicking this link. Click the play button to begin | Click here to download Daniel Libeskind is designing an addition to New York City’s One Madison Avenue, also known as the old Met Life Building, that, at 900 feet, would make it the city’s tallest residential structure, according to a September 20 article in the Israeli publication Globes. The existing complex includes a 700-foot tower designed by Napoleon LeBrun & Sons; completed in 1909, t is modeled