The Architectural Billings Index (ABI) rose to 36.4 in December—up nearly two points from November’s score of 34.7, a record low in the ABI’s 13-year history.

Today, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) announced the eight recipients of the 2009 AIA Young Architects Award.   This prize recognizes individuals who have demonstrated exceptional leadership and made significant contributions to the profession early in their careers. Architects who have been licensed 10 years or fewer, regardless of their age, are eligible. The winners will be recognized at a ceremony in San Francisco during the 2009 AIA national convention, scheduled for April 30 to May 2. AIA Names Winners of 2009 Young Architects Award Matthew Bremer, AIA Nominated by the AIA New York Chapter, Matthew Bremer is a

Graphs courtesy AIA The Architectural Billings Index (ABI) sunk to 34.7 in November, the lowest score in its 13-year history. In comparison, the score was 54.8 just one year prior. The inquiries score also hit a record low in November: 38.3, down from 51 in September. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) compiles the index based on surveys sent to mostly commercial architects. The index has fallen below 50 for 10 straight months (a number below 50 indicates a decrease in billings). The commercial sector has taken a steep dive, hitting 26.7 in November. Multi-family residential was also down, from

On Thursday, The New Haven Advocate published a scathing critique of a new addition to Paul Rudolph’s Art and Architecture Building (1963) at Yale. The addition was designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects, whose principal, Charles Gwathmey, FAIA, received his M.Arch from Yale in 1962. “Not since the house fell on the Wicked Witch of the East has a work of architecture proven so damaging as the new art history center at Yale,” writes columnist Stephen Vincent Kobasa. The 87,000-square-foot addition, which contains the university’s art history department, is officially called the Jeffrey Loria Center for the History of

The owner of an abandoned—and reportedly haunted—sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky, wants to turn the five-story building into a boutique hotel. Charlie Mattingly and architect Kevin Milburn, of a firm called Urban Designz, hope to raise $18 million to transform the Waverly Hills Sanatorium into a 78-room hotel with a spa, fitness center, and meeting area, according to the Courier-Journal. “My intent is for this to be first class all the way,” Mattingly told the newspaper. A “mecca for ghost hunters,” the old tuberculosis hospital regularly appears on lists of America’s most haunted places. Last fall, it was featured in a

Zaha Hadid has teamed up with a Brazilian footwear company, Melissa, to design a limited-edition shoe. The plastic shoe with a wedge-like heel “takes on features of one of Hadid’s grand-scale designs, with cut-out holes for the toes and diagonally sloping straps,” describes The Times, a UK-based newspaper. The shoe will be launched in September at London Fashion Week, and will be sold at the city’s Dover Street Market. The cost: 200 pounds, or about $400. Hadid is quoted as saying that despite having 30 years of design experience, “this was a very challenging project, not only in design but

The Architectural Billings Index rose to 46.1 in June, nearly three points higher than May’s 43.4 score. The inquiries score also rose, to 51.8, after dropping to 46.5 in May – the lowest inquiries score in the ABI’s 13-year history. A number above 50 indicates an increase, and below 50, a decrease. Despite the slight uptick, the future doesn’t look bright. This is the fifth straight month that the billings score has dipped below 50. In March, billings plummeted to an all-time low score of 39.7 (RECORD, May 2008). The American Institute of Architects (AIA), which compiles the index based

Designs for a new skyscraper to be built atop a midtown Manhattan transit center were unveiled on Thursday, reports The New York Times. Three competing firms have submitted schemes for the 1.3 million-square-foot office tower, which would rise above the north wing of the Port Authority Bus Terminal on 8th Avenue, across the street from Renzo Piano’s New York Times Building (RECORD, February 2008). For the Port Authority project, Kohn Pedersen Fox Architects has designed a 48-story glass tower “whose surface has an almost icy gleam,” while Pelli Clarke Pelli envisions a 47-story monolithic structure with a curtain wall that

In London, the Aquatic Centre designed by Zaha Hadid for the 2012 Olympics is making headlines. Apparently, the jury that selected the project (RECORD, February 2005) was concerned from the very beginning about construction costs and future use, yet still awarded the commission to Hadid, a Pritzker Prize winner, reports The Guardian. The jury—which was jointly chaired by architect Richard Rogers and Patrick Carter, former chairman of the English Sports Council—thought Hadid’s design faced “clear and technical organizational issues” and was not as well developed as five competing proposals, according to reports that the UK-based newspaper received via the Freedom