Polar Park construction manager to pay $1.9M for false claims allegations

The companies, part of the joint venture (JV) in charge of constructing Worcester’s Polar Park baseball stadium in Massachusetts, have agreed to pay $1.9 million in response to allegations made by the Attorney General’s office that the JV misrepresented claims to include women and minority-owned businesses as subcontractors.

Architecture firm receives AIA’s highest honor

The board of directors and the strategic council of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) have bestowed Mithun with the 2023 AIA Architecture Firm Award, the highest honor from the institute recognizing a firm that has consistently produced distinguished architecture for at least a decade.

Portland housing project opts for sustainability-first design strategies

Aimed at receiving Earth Advantage Platinum certification—based on energy efficiency, optimal land use, sensible water technology, and sustainable materials benchmarks—a housing project in Portland has incorporated cost-saving and cost-efficient methods into its design.

San Francisco senior building inspector pleads guilty to accepting illegal gratuities

In December 2022, a former senior official at the San Francisco's Department of Building Inspection (DBI) pleaded guilty to accepting gratuity payments as rewards for approving building permits.

Concrete’s cobra effect: unintended results of embodied carbon reduction

Recent efforts in North America to reduce embodied carbon in concrete are similar to British solutions to eradicate cobras in colonial India. Simple solutions often create bigger problems than the complex ones they were trying to solve.

Understanding flooring moisture mitigation

While floor preparation and moisture testing (including ASTM F1869-16a, ASTM F2170-19a, and ASTM F710-19e1) have become standard practice, these critical steps can be overlooked due to tight timelines, limited budgets, inexperienced contractors, uninformed architects, designers, specifiers, or installation subcontractors who lack adequate knowledge or training.