This week, the AIA announced the nine recipients of the 2010 AIA Young Architects Award. The prize recognizes individuals who have demonstrated exceptional leadership and made significant contributions to the profession early in their careers.

The New York Times is reporting that Testwell Laboratories owner and CEO V. Reddy Kancharla tried to commit suicide last week, two days after being convicted of falsifying concrete mix reports and filing them with the city.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom this week laid out a local stimulus plan that, if approved by the always unstable board of supervisors, would speed up four pending residential construction projects that have been held up due to the economy and city regulations.

The value of new construction starts slipped 1% in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $419.3 billion, according to McGraw-Hill Construction, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies.

At a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $405.0 billion, new construction starts in November dropped 9% from the previous month, according to McGraw-Hill Construction, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies.

New York, N.Y. ? November 20, 2009 ? The value of new construction starts climbed 12% in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $447.6 billion, it was reported by McGraw-Hill Construction, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies. The upward push came from double-digit gains for nonresidential building and nonbuilding construction (public works and electric utilities). At the same time, residential building in October was unchanged from its September pace. Through the first ten months of 2009, total construction on an unadjusted basis came in at $350.1 billion, down 29% from the same period a year ago.

Total construction spending dropped 0.6% in January. This is the net of the still slowly declining trend in overall construction spending, a second month of unseasonably bad construction weather and the usual monthly flip-flop in residential remodeling spending, this time a large increase. Currently the underlying declining trend is likely less than 0.6%/month, probably 0.3-0.5%/month. Later data revisions may restore this trend to the reported data for the last few months, says Reed Construction Data chief economist Jim Haughey.

The 0.5% January partially reverses a small gain in December. Heavy construction spending is now 3.2% below the stimulus boosted September level. As expected, the stimulus plan is not enough to offset the growing weakness in state and local government financial positions and the refusal of Congress to find a permanent source of funds for the federal highway program, says Reed Construction Data chief economist Jim Haughey.

The monthly drop in January from December was 2.1%. Spending for every type of project declined except for a marginal increase for amusement and recreation. The largest declines were 11% for hotels and 5% for manufacturing. This pattern is consistent with a negative weather impact which is also seen in the 75,000 construction layoffs in January, says Reed Construction Data chief economist Jim Haughey.