Researchers find room design can enhance patient care
Healthcare Design
The design of a consultation room can improve the quality of an outpatient visit. A collaborative research study, developed by Nurture by Steelcase and Mayo Clinic, was conducted to understand the extent to which a consultation room designed to support present-day clinical encounters could affect the consultation between patients and clinicians. The results of this randomized trial, the first of its kind, will appear in the Fall issue of Health Environments Research and Design Journal (HERD).More

Pending home sales rise for record eight straight months
Realtor.com
Pending home sales rose again, marking eight consecutive monthly gains—the longest streak since measurement began in 2001, according to the National Association of Realtors. NAR estimates approximately 3 million renters are now financially well-qualified to buy a median-priced home. NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun cautioned that although the first-time home buyer federal tax credit is greatly reviving the existing home market, new-home sales may continue to struggle as home builders hold back production to drive down inventory.More

Happy waiting
Hospitality Design
Designed by some of the industry's top firms, complete with fine dining restaurants, hip lounge areas, and innovative technology, JetBlue's new Terminal 5 (T5) at JFK Airport in New York is reducing travel anxiety and even giving travelers a reason to be a few hours early for their flights. "We took the approach forget we are in an airport and what has been done before," says Rick Blatstein, CEO of OTG Management, which handled the terminal's F&B. "Let's create something they have never seen." And the innovation paid off: it has the highest F&B revenue per enplaning passenger among U.S. airport terminals. More

Design Research is back, as an installation
The New York Times
Architect Ben Thompson's groundbreaking retail space—considered America's first "lifestyle" store—is back in its original location at 48 Brattle Street in Boston. But this time the "store" is an installation, "Design Research: A Retrospective," which recreates the store front as passersby would have seen it in the 60s and 70s. The showing runs through April 10, 2010.More

Incredible LEGO kitchen renovation
Inhabitat
A lot of us can recall spending hours upon hours of stacking colorful Legos into shapes and sizes that tickled our imagination as children. While some of us outgrew that phase, thankfully some of us didn’t forget the charm of the little Lego man’s smile or the amazingness contained within every little block. As Parisian designers Simon Pillard and Philippe Rosetti have proved with their chromatic Munchausen Lego Kitchen: you’re never to old to play with Legos!More

What GenY buyers want in a home
Cyber Homes
High style on a budget is one of four essential criteria for appealing to GenY home buyers, according to architect and developer Raffi Arslanian. Along with retiring baby boomers, GenY is likely to be the engine that drives the recovering housing market and consumer spending in the years ahead.More

Elwood Green: 6 star sustainably built apartment complex
Inhabitat
High Density green living is on the rise in Elwood, Australia with Crosby Architect’s new Elwood Green project. Living up to its name, the high-density apartment building will house 25 units that are expected to receive an average 6-star rating—the highest honor currently available from the Green Building Council of Australia. What comes as a bit of surprise is the lack of active systems assisting in the green rating, which just goes to show that old ingenuity and smart design can create buildings every bit as sustainable as the most high-tech structures.More

Right-sizing healthcare
Building Design & Construction
Over the past 30 years or so, the healthcare industry has quietly super-sized its healthcare facilities. Since 1980, ORs have bulked up in size by 53 percent, acute-care patient rooms by 77 percent. H. Scot Latimer, AIA, ACHA, a senior partner and managing director in the Denver office of Atlanta-based Kurt Salmon Associates and a past president of the AIA Academy of Architecture for Health, has made it his mission to raise awareness within the architecture community and among healthcare administrators of the need to right-size, not super-size, the nation's hospitals.More

U.S. lodging industry sees rise in sales, international visitors, AH&LA study finds
Hospitality Design
In 2008, the U.S. lodging industry posted pre-tax profits of $25.8 billion and $140.6 billion in sales, according to the American Hotel & Lodging Association's (AH&LA) annual Lodging Industry Profile, which also reported a record 58 million international travelers to the United States.More

Building and greening key to jumpstarting the economy
Reuters
As the global financial crisis continues to threaten the livelihood of American businesses and workers - and halts both the momentum and quality of new, sustainable infrastructure - the nation confronts a double challenge: not only are building projects at a standstill, but we risk losing to other careers many of the professionals needed to design and construct the next generation of green buildings. More