Welcome back to another week of news from around the world that you need to know, from London to New York and everywhere in between.

London wants to convert its empty offices into housing

Stricken by a pandemic-driven global economic recession and professionals deciding to work remotely, the City of London (yes, for non-Brits, the City of London is a separate area within thecityof London, complete with its own Lord Mayor) announced that it would be converting vacant office space units into at least 1,500 homes by 2030. The City of London Corporation announced the move on April 27 as part of itsfive-yearThe Square Mile: Future Cityplan.

The plan will focus onLondon’scentral business district, the City of London, aka the Square Mile. Apart from the office conversions, the City of London Corporation will attempt to lure technology companies to the area, and bolster the creative community by granting low-cost, long-term leases in under-utilized buildings.

H/t to theNew York Times

罗马选择一个公司build the Colosseum’s new retractable floor

Rome kicked off the search for an architect and engineer to add a new retractable (but still historically accurate)floor to the Colosseum last December, and now the city has found its team. Yesterday, May 2, Italy’s Minister of Cultural Heritage and Activities Dario Franceschini announced that the Milan-based Milan Ingegneria had been selected to design, build, and install the new floor.

The new addition to the UNESCO World Heritage Site will contain historically appropriate traps and pitfalls, but be capable of rapid deployment to either protect the archeological site below in the case of rain, or opening if the area needs to be aired out.

H/t toThe Guardian

Paris’s Bourse de Commerce will finally open this month

Tadao Ando’s long-awaited transformation of the historic Bourse de Commercestock exchange into an art museum finally has an opening date. Although the original 2020 opening had been stymied by COVID, François Pinaul, the building’s owner and art collector whose work will be on display in the new Bourse de Commerce-Pinault Collection, announced that the institution would finally open on May 22.

That date comes after France is expected to allow theaters, museums, and other cultural institutions to reopen on May 19, part of the country’s tiered reopening plan. Capacity will be limited until June 9, when those venues will see the occupancy cap lifted to 5,000… assuming visitors possess a health pass showing that they’re vaccinated. And yes, that’s the same daythe Venice Architecture Biennale kicks off, so plan your Euro trip accordingly.

H/t toThe Art Newspaper

Development and climate change are stripping the sand from California’s beaches

Decades of unfettered development along the Californian coastline have restricted the flow of new sand to the beaches there, which are now threatened by rising sea levels. The regularly scheduled sand deposit from the federal government has been delayed since 2018 over budget issues, and now homeowners are increasingly at risk from flooding. Ironically, the breakwaters, jetties, and river redirections built throughout the 20th century to protect the coast have only exacerbated beach erosion.

H/t toThe Mercury News

Strike MoMA protestors and security guards reportedly clashed at the end of a walking tour

Last week, the International Imagination of Anti-National Anti-Imperialist Feelings (IIAAF) announced that it would be marching through Manhattan and into theMuseum of Modern Artto protest Leon Black’s continued involvement with the museum, unfair working conditions for employees, the museum’s restriction of the its lobby and garden to ticketholders, and the elimination of free visit Fridays.

The “Ruins of Modernity Tour” arrived at MoMA as planned on April 30, but according toHyperallergic适当的,被拒绝进入博物馆。相反d, as protestors attempted to enter the building through a staff entrance, one of them was reportedly beaten by a security guard.

The museum responded by confirming that the protestors had attempted to unlawfully enter the building, that they were disregarding COVID distancing protocols, and claimed that two of their security guards had been “seriously injured” during the event.

H/t toHyperallergic

Republicans introduce a bill to restart border wall construction

Although President Biden has pledged to halt allU.S.-Mexico border wallconstruction,and on Friday canceled all related construction contracts, Republicans aren’t standing for it. U.S. Representative Clay Higgins (R-LA) has introduced theFinish the Wall Actin the House, which, aptly, would force the Biden administration to resume border wall construction. However, as the President did not request any money for a border wall in hisfiscal year 2022 discretionary funding request last month, it seems unlikely that work will begin any time soon, even if the House and Senate can force the administration’s hand.

H/t toConstruction Dive