Chong Partners Architecture, a San Francisco-based firm with 2006 revenue of $42.4 million and nearly 200 employees, is the latest North American acquisition by Stantec, the publicly-traded Edmonton, Alberta–based engineer-architect. Terms of the transaction, completed yesterday, were not disclosed. “The addition of Chong Partners is a significant step towards building a national architecture presence in the United States similar to what we have been able to achieve in Canada,” Tony Franceschini, Stantec president and CEO, said in a statement. He added that Chong offers significant hospital and health care facility design to Stantec’s capabilities. It also expands the size of

Following his successful sale of Case Study House #21, Chicago’s Modernist-design auctioneer Richard Wright is putting another mid-century residence on the block. But instead of a Pierre Koenig icon, the lot up for grabs on October 7 is an arguably kitschy work by Marcel Breuer. Photos Courtesy Wright and Brian Franczyk Photography) A porch spans the south elevation of the Wolfson house; its design features Marcel Breuer’s trademark cable material. At the request of his client, Breuer incorporated a Spartan Trailer into the house. The trailer’s interior includes a kitchen. The idiosyncratic house, located in Dutchess County, New York, is

Polshek Partnership Architects is spreading the news—literally. The Manhattan-based firm has designed three journalism-related projects featuring design elements that explicitly express the building’s program. Photos: ' Jeff Goldberg/Esto (top); Courtesy Polshek Partnership (above) Designed by Polshek Partnership, the new headquarters for public broadcaster WGBH opens today in Brighton, Massachusetts. An oversized LED screen displays images from the station’s programs; slivers of LED screens punctuate the glazed facade of a long, rectangular volume that connects two other buildings in the three-building complex (top). Newhouse III, a new building for the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, will be

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 “From pariah state to Côte d’Azur,” is how The Times of London, in a September 11 article, described Libya’s newly unveiled $3 billion plan to develop 180 miles of its northeast coastline into an ecologically sensitive tourist hotspot. The Guardian, preferring on September 12 to employ the correct color rather than metaphor, noted that “green is big in Libya.” The massive scheme will

The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) marks a milestone today with the opening of its first new structure in 80 years. Designed by Gluckman Mayner Architects, the new 184,000-square-foot Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building allows the encyclopedic institution to display 130,000 objects—more than half its total collection of paintings, sculpture, and photography—that had previously sat in storage. Photos: Courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art Gluckman Mayner Architects transformed the 80-year-old Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company Building into the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s new Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building, which opens today (top). The designers added a rectangular volume composed

With summer break finished, high school students in Los Angeles began classes again last week. But at least one facility wasn’t ready to accommodate them: the new High School #9 building, also known as the School for the Visual and Performing Arts, designed by Coop Himmelb(l)au. The eagerly anticipated project was originally scheduled to open this month but its completion has been delayed by nearly a year. Image: Courtesy Coop Himmelb(l)au (top); Photo Courtesy Los Angeles Unified School District (above) Los Angeles’s High School #9, also known as the School for the Visual and Performing Arts, was designed by Coop

Stephen Kanner, a principal of Kanner Architects in Los Angeles, and his friend Joe Gaddo, an architect based in Ghana, are helping to develop a cement additive that could decrease construction costs there by a one third—no small accomplishment in a country where concrete is the preferred building material and yet few people are able to afford it. Image: Courtesy Kanner Architects Kanner Architects, based in Los Angeles, designed Augustino Neto Condominiums, a residential complex in Accra, Ghana. The building will be constructed using PozzoGhana, a new form of low-cost cement. The new additive is called PozzoGhana, a wordplay on

Skyscraper enthusiasts who thought that the Japanese are beginning construction on “X-Seed 4000,” an 800-story building envisioned by Taisei Construction Corporation, will be disappointed to learn that the project is nowhere near execution—despite recent reports that suggested otherwise. Image: ' Taisei Corporation Contrary to recent rumors, Taisei has no plans to begin construction on the 4,000-meter-tall “X-Seed 4000” building. “It was never meant to be built,” says Georges Binder, managing director of Buildings & Data, which compiles data on buildings worldwide. “The purpose of the plan was to earn some recognition for the firm, and it worked.” Taisei conceived X-Seed