Design Alliance, an Iowa-based practice, is getting its pipig sued off by a former client, the Flagstaff Affordable Housing Limited Partnership of Arizona. Big honk? But listen: The lawsuit establishes a precedent which, though presently pertaining only in Arizona, could bode ill for architects everywhere. Seems a while back, Design Alliance built some low-cost housing for the client—only for the Federal Gummint to declare that the housing failed to meet fair housing design regulations, leading to hefty fines for the owner. The owner, in turn, sued Design Alliance, and Design Alliance fought back: the owner’s suit was dismissed under the “Economic Loss Doctrine”, which forbids lawsuits for product defects in the event that nobody’s hurt (and nobody had been). But now the Arizona Appeals Court is reversing that decision, saying that architects can be sued for defective designs regardless of personal injury, provided they cocked up seriously enough. Ruh-roh! In other news, when Architect ran the story online they got the firm’s name wrong. So sue ‘em!

Architects Can Be Sued for Negligence [Architect]

When last we met Obama housing czar appointee and former Bronx borough president Adolfo Carrión, he was in deep kimchi, having approved a major project for architect Hugo Subotovsky after Subotovsky had completed renovations on his City Island home. When asked, Carrión declined to say how much he had paid Subotovsky; now we know. He paid bupkis. He intends to, of course. Carrión says he’s just waiting for Subotovsky’s “final survey”. Now, listen: The financial machinations of bread-and-butter architecture firms remain a little obscure even to us. But whether this “final survey” thing checks out or not, it seems odd that Subotovsky, who specializes in large-scale renovations and multifamily projects, would do a home improvement job for $3,627.50 and then take two years to invoice the client. Thoughts? Commentatorize us.

Adolfo Carrión Is Totally Going to Pay for That [Intelligencer]

Oy, vey. Reports the Daily News:

President Obama’s new urban czar renovated his Bronx home with help from the architect on a major development that needed his approval, a Daily News investigation has found.

Adolfo Carrión [above], who last week left his job as Bronx borough president to be director of the White House Office on Urban Policy, hired the architect to design a renovation of his Victorian two-family on City Island.

Weeks after the architect’s work on Carrión’s house was complete, Carrión approved the architect’s project.

The architect in question is Hugo Subotovsky. (Don’t click that link, there’s easy listening.) Subsequent to his work for Carrión, Subotovsky’s Boricua Village project in the Melrose section of the Bronx got the go ahead for construction from the borough pres. Carrión won’t say how much he paid—or didn’t—for Subotovsky’s work on his home.

Not necessarily evidence of malfeasance, but it doesn’t look great in print. Architects! When will you stop getting overly cozy with influential persons? Oh, never mind…

Possible Conflict of Interest Surfaces for President Obama’s New Urban Czar Adolfo Carrion [Daily News]

Here’s some local color: Architect Julian Jenkins, principal of Alabama firm Jenkins Munroe Jenkins, is going to jail. Ol’ Julian got himself in a mess a’ trouble, all on account of he tried to bribe the chancellor of Alabama’s prestigious two-year college system. Jenkins did a couple favors for the es-teemed academician—in return for which he done received work from the aforementioned prestigious institution amounting to some $5 million. Yesterday, Jenkins went to the county seat, where the judge de-nied his re-quest to have the case dis-missed. Before that, Jenkins was questioned by fed’ral prosectuors, one of whom warned him in advance that it warn’t gonna be easy: “a quest for the truth ‘does not well lend itself, nor is it intended to be, a tea party or a leisurely garden stroll event.’” (Quote of the week!) Whoo-wee! This here trial is gettin’ hotter than two rats f*!kin’ in a wool sock! (Enter complaints below.)

Judge Rebuffs Attempt to Escape Indictment [Birmingham News]

A British design consultancy has been sued for the equivalent of $10,000 USD for having called themselves “architects” in promotional literature despite lacking certification from the UK’s Architect’s Registration Board. This is the heaviest fine the ARB has extracted to date for pretend architects, and they’re pretty jazzed about it; some observers, however, think it was a bit of a low ball figure. They’ve got a point: In many of the American States of America, unlicensed architects can be punished as felons. Then again, what about professional fake architects? The recent fad among certain ailing offices for studio stand-ins is ethically icky, but presumably it’s not tantamount to out-and-out fraud. Those ringers are only pretending to be pretending to build buildings. That means hiring ringers must be legal. Right?

Record Fine for Misuse of ‘Architect’ [BD]

The bloom is officially off the rose. The first LEED-related lawsuit was filed this summer, and subsequently settled out of court. It was the contractor, not the architect who was sued, and it was the result of construction delays, not failure to meet LEED criteria—and it was in Maryland, so who’s to say it really mattered? But now the lawyers smell blood, and they’re telling architects and builders to check the contractual fine print before flying off to save the world with automatic louvers and radiant heating floors. Shoot. Where’s their sense of adventure?

The Anatomy of America’s First Green Building Litigation [greenbuildingsNYC]
First LEED-Related Lawsuit in the U.S. Sounds Warning Bell [Daily Commercial News]

David D’Arcy is not really a critic who deserves to be criticized, because he’s not really a critic: he’s an arts beat reporter who makes periodic assays at writing architecture reviews (for Architect’s Newspaper and Metropolis, among others). But there’s something smelly in connection with his recent Wall Street Journal story on HLW Architects’ temporary building for the United Nations. And it smells like ridiculous.

D’Arcy was in the news a couple years back for a protracted spat with former employer NPR, for whom he had been a longtime freelance contributor. After remarks in a December 2004 piece implicating the Museum of Modern Art in barring a Jewish family’s claim to a looted Egon Schiele painting, MoMA honchos allegedly put the bite on NPR, claiming D’Arcy got his facts wrong; the station issued a correction in a subsequent segment. Things got nasty quickly: D’Arcy objected to the correction, NPR handed him his walking papers, and D’Arcy sued MoMA and NPR both for a cool 5 mil. The issue of that suit is in doubt at present writing—the Google trail runs cold—but one thing is certain. David D’Arcy don’t do corrections.

Until now. The WSJ article about the provisional home for the UN’s art collection calls it a “$300 million throwaway structure.” Which is true, in part: as soon as renovations on the UN’s primary buildings are complete, the box will be torn down and the lawn on which it sits reseeded. But, as the Journal’s editors were obliged to admit, it ain’t a $300 million box. The cost of HLW’s shed is less than half that, a comparatively thrifty $149.5 million.

Honestly, this is fairly weak sauce, and we shouldn’t see any sinister hand in D’Arcy’s error—but this is the Wall Street Journal, and D’Arcy’s inflated figure prompted the predictable responses, on the site’s comments page and elsewhere around the web, all ‘bout how the durned UN is a waste a’ money, et cetera ad nauseum. The whole tone of the piece, and the insinuating aside about the oil-for-food scandal, establishes an air of intrigue and malfeasance as misleading as it is silly.

Is it a pattern of abuse? Did D’Arcy have it wrong in the MoMA story, after all? We’re not asking, we’re just saying: From here on in, D’Arcy had better face the facts—or at least make sure he’s got them.

The UN’s Temporary Building [Wall Street Journal]

Ooh, lookie! Astute readers will recall Friday’s get-rich-quick scheme, hinging on recent developments in Korean copyright law that might entitle architects to hefty compensation if their buildings have appeared unacknowledged in advertisements, film or television. Good news: It might still be doable, if you can secure Korean counsel. Bad news: It looks like it’s a nonstarter in the US.

Somebody, however, is trying. The crafty ownership of Chicago’s iconic Marina City complex, among sundry weird legal maneuvers, is attempting to assert its “common law copyright” over any and all images of the towers. Tough rocks, sez United States Code, Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 120: There is no such thing as common law copyright as applies to architecture; you can’t prevent people from taking photographs of your precious buildings, or claim intellectual copyright infringement if they do. If such is the case for building owners, it seems reasonable to assume the same logic applies to architects.

Oh, boo and hoo. We’ll get the crack team at Above the Law on the problem stat and try to find a loophole before the week is out. Keep hope alive!

What’s Going On at the Corncob Towers? [Chicago Architecture Blog]

We’ve gotta run this one past the gang at Above the Law: A Korean court has ruled that a Seoul advertising agency violated the intellectual property rights of an unnamed architect when it featured his building in a television commercial without prior consent. What does that mean, exactly? How long does a building have to appear in shot for Korean architects to cash in? And what exactly is the corresponding law stateside? For now, let’s just assume that the advertising industry owes us all a lot of money. Q: How do you say “class action” in Korean? A: Cha-ching! (Is that racist?)

Court Rules in Architect’s Favor in Infringement Case [KBS World]

Has anybody been keeping up with the ongoing fracas on Dublin’s waterfront? The answer is no, nobody has—not the Dublin Dock Development Authority, which held an international design competition in 2002 for a 60-meter tall landmark tower and then misplaced the winning entry; not Irish architects BCDH, who won the competition by default, but then managed to get bumped from the project by the developer in favor of a proposal from Foster & Partners; not even Foster & Partners, whose revamped tower is indefinitely nixed owing to the recent death of the Irish Tiger economic phenom. Now BCDH is suing the DDDA and the DOE under the FOI and everything’s in a muddle. And it’s all Bono’s fault!

As the proposed anchor tenants, the tower was U2’s namesake, and the schlockstars were going to make the penthouse their acoustically-insulated recording studio. When BCDH got the boot in 2007, observers called foul: Apparently the development consortium put in charge of the project felt that the so-called “winners” were running up the tab. As it turned out, the so-called “developers” were U2 themselves, who secretly owned a hefty stake in the consortium. BCDH would like to know how and why they got axed by the Edge. The Irish press wants to know why the Irish government deleted BCDH emails regarding the dispute. All we wanna know is: Where were the parents?

U2 Tower Could Face Legal Challenge [Sunday Tribune]
Dublin Shelves Plans for U2 Tower [USA Today]

Grimshaw. Foster. Sued.

Sir Nicholas’ spa for the English resort city of Bath came on line five years late and three hundred percent over budget; the local council wants £21 million for their trouble. Sir Norman isn’t really sued, exactly: the contractors for his Wembley Stadium project have slapped Foster with a court order in connection with their godzillion pound claim against engineering firm Mott McDonald.

Don’t you know what happens when you go after knights? They cleave you from the nave to the chops! Peasant!