CAW Architects recently completed a facility for the Oakland, Calif., school district that feeds students and teaches them how to grow, harvest, and cook produce grown onsite. The production kitchen at the Unified School District Central Kitchen, Instructional Farm, and Education Center, (“The Center”) prepares and distributes about 30,000 meals a day for district schools lacking their own kitchens.

Global real estate companies Lendlease and Ivanhoé Cambridge recently announced the topping-out of FORUM, a nine-story, 350,000-sf life science building in Boston. Located in Boston Landing, a 15-acre mixed-use community, the $545 million project will achieve operational net zero carbon upon completion in 2024.

Retailer survival continues to hinge on retail design trends like blending online and in-person shopping and mixing retail with other building types, such as offices and residential. 

The University of Chicago Medicine (UChicago Medicine) is building Chicago’s first freestanding cancer center with inpatient and outpatient services. Aiming to bridge longstanding health disparities on Chicago’s South Side, the $815 million project will consolidate care and about 200 team members currently spread across at least five buildings. The new facility, which broke ground in September, is expected to open to patients in spring 2027.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a system that uses a camera to detect air leakage from buildings in real time.

The Biden Administration recently announced plans to encourage more office buildings to be converted to residential use. The plan includes using federal money to lend to developers for conversion projects and selling government property that is suitable for conversions. 

Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) has released a tool to identify financial incentives to help developers, industrial companies, and investors find financial incentives for heavy industry and transport projects.

National nonresidential construction spending increased 0.3% in September, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of data published today by the U.S. Census Bureau. On a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, nonresidential spending totaled $1.1 trillion.