ArchWeek Residential 2009.0826

Wed Aug 26 12:09:48 PDT 2009

Dear Designers, Builders, and Dwellers,

ArchWeek Residential brings you housing news and analysis weekly 
from the editors of ArchitectureWeek.

Today headlines are dominated by the sad news of the death of an 
American statesman.  Ted Kennedy was my first senator, as I came
of age in Massachusetts and visited the U.S. Capitol through the 
Close-Up program.  He's been one of our nation's spotlight senators 
through all the decades since.

The liberal reforms he championed for 46 years have certainly made 
it more complex to run a construction industry business.  From OSHA 
to the ADA, those complicating reforms have also helped make our 
industry safer, more fair to the construction workers who put facts 
on the ground, and more inclusive.  Griping aside, it's hard to say 
we are not building better as a result.

Other news today is reinforcing the sense that the U.S. economy is 
bottoming out:

	Sales of new homes surged nearly 10 percent in July from a month
	earlier, another indicator that the country's long-suffering
	housing market was starting to turn around.

	The Commerce Department reported that new-home sales rose 9.6
	percent to a seasonally adjusted rate of 433,000 last month. The
	numbers came on the heels of other reports that have showed
	housing prices rising in many big cities and sales of previously
	owned homes picking up. Sales, however, were still down 13.4
	percent from a year ago.

	As new-home sales surged in the Northeast and the South, the
	glut of unsold, newly built homes diminished somewhat.

	The inventory of homes for sale fell to a seasonally adjusted
	271,000, which would take seven and a half months to sell at the
	current pace. That is a higher supply of homes than normal, but
	it is down sharply from a 12 months' supply earlier this year.

	And inventories are falling in part because construction
	companies are simply not building houses like they were during
	real estate's boom years. Credit for builders is still tight,
	and builders are being undercut in many markets by distressed
	properties like foreclosures and short sales by homeowners who
	need to sell.

A Strong Gain in New-Home Sales in July, New York Times, 2009.0826
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/business/economy/27econ.html

Discuss online:
http://www.designcommunity.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=30795

Residential Design and Building News
------------------------------------
In Athens, Loft-Style Living - New York Times, 2009.0826
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/greathomesanddestinations/26gh-greece.html

CRH 1H Net Profit -83%, Pace of Decline Seen Slowing - Wall Street Journal, 2009.0825
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090825-703533.html

Homebuilders Up as Index Shows Higher Home Prices - Forbes, 2009.0825
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/08/25/business-general-industrials-us-homebuilders-sector-snap_6813538.html

Construction Commodity Prices Fall, but Don't Expect a Surge in Projects - Modern Health Care, 2009.0824
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20090824/SUB/908219982

China Renovates Former Palace Home of Dalai Lamas - Associated Press, 2009.0824
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gl3WQNxexH2BilP7xlgfbo2kNzsgD9A954GO0

Lenders Warned of Home Loan Fraud Losses - Financial Times, 2009.0824
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/22fb7858-90e1-11de-bc99-00144feabdc0.html

Prefabricated Home Building Begins in Taiwan - CCTV, 2009.0824
http://english.cctv.com/program/cctvnews/20090824/100784.shtml
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Homebuilders Reconstruct Their Appeal - Asbury Park Press, 2009.0823
http://www.app.com/article/20090823/BUSINESS/908230332/1003/JOHN+DORFMAN++Homebuilders+reconstruct+their+appeal

An Uptick for Real Estate Ads Online - New York Times, 2009.0823
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/business/media/24drill.html

A Cul-de-Sac of List Dreams, and New Ones - New York Times, 2009.0823
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/us/23bethone.html

NVR Upgraded by Moody's; First Builder Since 2006 - Bloomberg, 2009.0821
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a3dGtFsbMTng

Faded Glory: Polishing Flint's Jewels - New York Times, 2009.0820
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/garden/20flint.html

Worker Falls Four Stories to His Death When a Scaffold Collapses in Brooklyn - New York Times, 2009.0819
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/nyregion/19scaffold.html

Grand Teton Visitor Center - ArchitectureWeek, 2009.0819
http://www.ArchWeek.com/2009/0819/tools_1-1.html
	Not housing, but really a spectacular building.

Toward a BIM Paradigm - ArchitectureWeek, 2009.0819
http://www.ArchWeek.com/2009/0819/tools_1-1.html
	A systems approach to building information modeling
	should not be confused with the notion of a single
	building information model. Implementing BIM does not
	mean that all of the information about a building must
	be compiled into a single data file, reside in a single
	physical location, or be maintained by a single business
	entity throughout the life cycle of the building.

In Japan, a House of Steel - New York Times, 2009.0819
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/greathomesanddestinations/19gh-japan.html

Without Housing Relief, Forget about Economic Recovery - Kansas City Star, 2009.0819
http://www.kansascity.com/business/story/1393724.html

After Merger, Firm Becomes 'Homebuilding's 800-Pound Gorilla' - Detroit Free Press, 2009.0819
http://www.freep.com/article/20090819/BUSINESS04/908190332/1322/Firm-now--homebuilding-s-800-pound-gorilla-

Single-Family Home Building Rises for 5th Month - Associated Press, 2009.0818
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gqgh84xd8SadET8bbMATJ_cGAdoAD9A5C5U00

Comstock Homebuilding Eliminates Debt with Foreclosure Deal - Washington Business Journal, 2009.0817
http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2009/08/17/daily89.html

People and Places by Nancy Novitski
    http://www.ArchitectureWeek.com/2009/0819/news_1-1.html
	RDG Planning & Design in Ames, Iowa - Venturi, Scott
	Brown and Associates in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania -
	Morris Architects in Houston, Texas - Foster +
	Partners, Ferrovial Agrom.n, and Laing O'Rourke in
	London, England, United Kingdom - Bergman Walls &
	Associates in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...
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Product News - Low-E Windows from Simonton
	 http://www.archweek.com/2009/0819/products_update.html

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Stimulus Funds for Building Energy Monitoring
	A new white paper is available from Onset: "Measurement &
	Verification: Tapping into ARRA Stimulus Funds." It details new
	programs from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
	(ARRA), identifies potential sources of ARRA funding for energy
	performance monitoring projects, and discusses how energy
	services companies can apply portable data logging technology to
	document building energy savings. Available as a free download:
		http://www.archweek.com/ad.cgi?090819a_downloads.html

Computer Design of Beams, Joists, and Rafters
	ConstructionCalc(TM) offers a free white paper, "Computer Design
	of Beams, Joists, and Rafters," about how to design simply
	supported wood beams, joists, and rafters with
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	software. ConstructionCalc software requires a PC and
	Microsoft(R) Excel 2003 or later. Download free white paper:
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Who's Driving Twitter's Popularity? Not Teens - New York Times, 2009.0826
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/technology/internet/26twitter.html

A Better Way to Manage Receipts for Business Travel - New York Times, 2009.0820
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/technology/personaltech/20pogue-email.html

Mastering ArchiCAD's Curtain Wall Accessory and Junction Placement Tools - Cadalyst, 2009.0817
http://www.cadalyst.com/cad/building-design/mastering-archicad039s-curtain-wall-accessory-and-junction-placement-tools-12873

In the New Data Center, It's Roofs Off and Taxes Down - New York Times, 2009.0817
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/in-the-new-data-center-its-roofs-off-and-taxes-down/

Bricscad V8 Updated to 8.3.11 - Bricsys press release, 2009.0817
http://www.bricsys.com/readme/en_US/Bcad/Readme.htm

Autodesk AutoCAD LT Crossgrade to Revit Promo - BIM Boom, 2009.0817
http://bimboom.blogspot.com/2009/08/autodesk-autocad-lt-crossgrade-to-revit.html
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This Week's Quiz -	
	What is a simple formula for determining the number of
	board feet in a log?
     http://www.ArchitectureWeek.com/2009/0819/quiz.html

Architecture Answer - for last issue's quiz...
	What are the three main causes of poor concrete curing?
     http://www.ArchitectureWeek.com/2009/0819/answer.html

Classic Home 057 - William Beard house, by Richard Neutra
     http://www.ArchitectureWeek.com/2009/0819/classic_home.html

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Contents, RSS, and Surface of the Week - 
     Slate roof and gabled dormer with bay window (CR-126)
     http://www.ArchitectureWeek.com/2009/0819/contents.html

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