Crews in the Bay Area began the careful process of demolishing the old eastern span of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge Tuesday “in roughly the reverse order of how it was assembled in the mid-1930s,” following the opening of the new span in September. Taking down the old span is slated to cost roughly $281 million and be completed by 2016, according to the San Francisco Chronicle—a laborious process that makes complete sense when you read through the gritty details. Scott Lucas compares the bridge to a grandmother in San Francisco.
Struggling cities and former manufacturing centers experiencing “ungrowth” or “right sizing” with dwindling populations favor demolishing vacant buildings for alternative uses of the land. [The New York Times]
Modernist architect Edward Durell Stone’s formerly-controversial townhouse could be yours for $10 million. Stone—known for MoMA, the Kennedy Center, and Radio City Music Hall, to name a few—restored the 1878 townhouse in 1956. The renovation was considered controversial in the 1950s, however the house was recognized as a landmark in 1981. The house’s current owners put the house on the market after additional renovations. [NY Curbed]
Jeanne Gang, FAIA, of local firm Studio Gang Architects designed three new University of Chicago dormitory buildings to replace Pierce Tower. [Chicago Maroon]
Nearly a decade after declaring he wanted to “kill the skyscraper,” architect Rem Koolhaas wins “best tall building” for CCTV headquarters in China. When accepting the award, Koolhaas joked, “[t]he fact that I am standing on this stage now, in this position, meant that my declaration of war went completely unnoted, and that my campaign was completely unsuccessful.” [The Verge]
Is your state prepared for climate change? Check out this map to find out. [The Atlantic Cities]
The Board of Directors for the National Association of Realtors approved a redevelopment project for their Chicago headquarters, involving demolishing the current building and constructing a new one modeled after New York’s Rockefeller Center. [Inman News]
Houston-based Ziegler Cooper Architects won the design competition for the extensive renovation of the Humble Oil Headquarters Building, the current ExxonMobil tower in downtown Houston. Ziegler Cooper has posted several renderings of its design. Renovations will begin when ExxonMobil vacates the building in 2015. [Houston Business Journal]
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