Link to Part 1, Link to Part 2, Link to Part 3

“In a case that is being closely watched in the multi-family housing industry, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday released its opinion affirming the lower court’s holding that the 2-year statute of limitations for a private civil action alleging violation of the Fair Housing Act’s accessibility requirements for design and construction is triggered, i.e., the violation is complete, at the conclusion of the design and construction phase, which occurs on the date the last certificate of occupancy is issued.”

It seems that for the foreseeable future, accessibility claims under Fair Housing Act will be subject to a two year statute of limitations after all. This means that plaintiffs only have two years from the occupancy date to file a claim for such violations. This is quite favorable for developers, contractors and designers but may go against the intent of the Fair Housing Act, as illustrated by dissenting Circuit Court Judge, Hon. Judge Fisher:

“The majority erroneously treats a building’s improper design and construction as the event that triggers the Fair Housing Act’s (FHA) two-year statute of limitations. It does so by finding an ambiguity in the statute and then resolving that ambiguity contrary to the overall purpose and structure of the FHA and its legislative and judicial history.

“I believe instead that the most plausible reading of the statute is that the limitations period begins (at the earliest) when a disabled person actually experiences discrimination — either in attempting to buy or rent a noncompliant housing unit, in “testing” such a unit or upon moving in as a tenant.

In other words, Fisher feels that the two year statute should begin following discovery of such a violation. However the majority opinion from the Ninth Circuit felt that this two year statute should begin once the work is done. So what happens if a property is completed, but nobody moves in for two years? According to this decision, if there is a violation of the Fair Housing Act that creates a situation that is discriminatory, nothing happens at all.

Link to Article, Link to Post from Ninth Circuit Opinions Blog, Link to Opinion (PDF)

“After crossing the short hallway to the master suite, she shows off her bedroom, the beautiful master bathroom, the seethrough gas fireplace and connected patio space. Then she leads her guest up a short flight of stairs to the exercise room, with gorgeous views of the Red Mountains. Coming back down the stairs she pulls from her pocket what looks like a car door remote. She stands back, presses one of the buttons and says, ‘And this is the secret room.’

“The stair case begins to raise and below it is a another set of stairs, this one leading down to a small dark room the same size and shape as the exercise room above it.

“‘Watch your head,’ says Kircher as she crouchees slightly and makes her way down the stairs.”

Link to Creative Home Engineering website, Link to Creative Home Engineering Gallery, East Valley Tribune article, Link to CNBC video, from Gizmodo

Renowned French designer Philippe Starck says he is fed up with his job and plans to retire in two years, in an interview published in a German weekly on Thursday.

“I was a producer of materiality and I am ashamed of this fact,” Starck told Die Zeit weekly newspaper.

“Everything I designed was unnecessary.

“I will definitely give up in two years’ time. I want to do something else, but I don’t know what yet. I want to find a new way of expressing myself …design is a dreadful form of expression.”

Starck, who is known for his interior design of hotels and Eurostar trains and mass consumption objects ranging from chairs to tooth brushes and lemon juice squeezers, went on to say that he believed that design on the whole was dead.

“In future there will be no more designers. The designers of the future will be the personal coach, the gym trainer, the diet consultant,” he said.

Starck said the only objects that he still felt attached to were “a pillow perhaps and a good mattress.” But the thing one needs most, he added, was the “ability to love”.

Link to Article, from kottke.org

Undersize gusset plates in the Interstate 35-W bridge in Minneapolis were “the critical factor” in the bridge collapse last year that killed 13 people and injured 100, the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday.

Chairman Mark Rosenker said the plates, which connected steel beams, were roughly half the thickness they should have been because of a design error. Investigators found 16 fractured gusset plates from the bridge’s center span, he said.

“It is the undersizing of the design which we believe is the critical factor here. It is the critical factor that began the process of this collapse. That’s what failed,” Rosenker said.

Interestingly, the bridge was found to be deficient structurally according to the federal government for nearly 2 decades, calling in to question the state’s maintenance. The legal outcome of this should prove interesting.

Link to Article, from Drudge Report

“TranslucentConcrete is a combination of optical fibres and fine concrete. Thousands of fibres run side by side transmitting light between the two surfaces of each element. Because of their small size the fibres blend into concrete becoming a component of the material like small pieces of ballast. In this manner, the result is not only having the two materials mixed – glass in concrete – but a third, new material, which is homogeneous in its inner structure and on its main surfaces as well.”

Link to Article, from Gizmodo

• $50 Million for Drywall? Serious Materials is a company that is best known for sound attenuation construction products. Recently they announced development of a new type of drywall that will take 90% less energy to produce resulting in a 98% reduction in greenhouse gases. EcoRock, as it is called, has impressed investors, raising $50M thus far.
• Nine Creative Staircases This article features some really inspiring staircase designs for what is normally a fairly boring subject.
• New Spin on Low E Glazing Glass isn’t the best product for energy efficiency by itself – something called emissivity. To increase the efficiency, which means decreasing emissivity (hence “Low-E”), special materials are applied to glass. Some glazing products are better for keeping heat inside the building in colder climates while other products reflect sunlight keeping the inside cooler in warmer climates. But what about temperate climates with both hot summers and cold winters? Dr. Heinz Kunert of KSD Fenster in Germany created a pivoting glazing panel with one type of each coating on either side. So during the winter, rotate the window with the more insulating side on the interior, and during the summer, rotate the window to face the reflective coating to the outside.
• The Big Dig House We covered the topic of The Big Dig before – a Boston area public works project that has ended in disaster. We re-visit the subject to highlight what some enterprising folks at Single Speed Design have done with some of the leftovers. They removed some 300 tons of material from the project and recycled it to make a very nice and modern home.