5 must reads for the AEC industry today: June 8, 2020

1. Two Frank Lloyd Wright sites set to reopen for tours with enhanced health and safety protocols (BD+C)
"Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home and Studio and the Frederick C. Robie House are set to reopen for tours in accordance with Phase 3 of Governor Pritzker’s “Restore Illinois” plan. Both sites will reopen on Thursday, June 11."

2. Spacesmith will design sustainable production facilities for Upriver Studios in New York (BD+C)
"Spacesmith will reimagine an industrial-era building into a large-scale production facility for film and TV. The 104,000-sf space will feature sound stages, post-production spaces, and support spaces in an adapted manufacturing building."

3. Reopened offices raise liability risk for businesses and owners (BD+C)
"If an employee or guest contracts the disease, the prospect of a lawsuit puts companies and property owners at risk."

4. Construction jobs rise by 464,000 jobs but remain 596,000 below recent peak (AGC)
"Gains in may reflect temporary support from paycheck protection program loans and easing of construction restrictions, but hobbled economy and tight state and local budgets risk future job losses."

5. These Companies Are Redesigning Hospitals to Fight Covid (Inc.)
"The future of health care may be flexible interiors--quick-to-construct rooms that contain contagion. Businesses are pivoting to seize that market."

New York City has two very large buildings dedicated to answering the 911 calls of its five boroughs. With more than 11 million emergency calls annually, it makes perfect sense. The second of these buildings, the Public Safety Answering Center II (PSAC II) is located on a nine-acre parcel of land in the Bronx. It’s an imposing 450,000 square-foot structure—a 240-foot-wide by 240-foot-tall cube. The gleaming aluminum cube risesthe equivalent of 24 stories from behind a grassy berm, projecting the unlikely impression that it might actually be floating. Like most visually striking structures, the building has drawn as much scorn as it has admiration.