Vietnam
A leading Vietnamese architect is giving up his day job to become a rock star. Nguyen Son was the runner-up in the Golden Ha Noi Architect Contest, which was co-organised by the Viet Nam Architects Association and Ha Noi’s Chief Architect Office in 2002. Having become the director of his own architecture firm, Son is turning away from building design to pursue a music career.
United Kingdom
Zaha Hadid Architects has become the latest big firm to announce redundancies. While the practice said it had never had more projects on site around the world and had other projects due to begin in the near future, it did concede to be reducing staff numbers by a “small amount”. “To rebalance the composition of its staff, we anticipate that the practice may need to reduce the number of architectural assistant positions by a small amount,” a spokesperson told Building Design.
United States
The 71-storey tower at the World Trade Centre site in New York has stalled, after the firm in charge, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, announced plans for 35 redundancies. A Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners spokesman said: “The reason this has been delayed is for similar reasons as to why many office projects in London have been postponed, i.e. the general world downturn in the economy and the impact of this on demand for new buildings — particularly acute in a place like New York where so many large financial institutions are headquartered.”
France
The number of delegates heading to Mipim, the world’s largest property fair, this year has plummeted by more than a third. This week, the organisers revealed that just 18,000 people had registered for the fair in Cannes next week, down by 11,000 on the 29,000 that attended last year, with the number of architectural and design practices heading to France dropping by 37 per cent in a year, from 765 to just 484.
United Kingdom
Five financially threatened housing schemes in London will receive a £93 ($205) million lifeline from the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) it was revealed this week. Under the rescue package, 1,500 affordable homes will be built at the five sites, which include the Heart of East Greenwich scheme by Make and St Andrew’s Hospital in Tower Hamlets by Allies and Morrison
