Rotterdam Blitz Survivor to Be Reborn With Tower

The former Rotterdam post office in the Coolsingel District of Rotterdam, Netherlands, is set to be reborn as a mixed-use development incorporating a 150-m-tall, 43-story hotel tower, dezeen reported. Built in 1916, the post office boasts a 22.5-m-high Great Hall and is one of the only structures to survive the Rotterdam Blitz in 1940. New York City-based ODA Architecture is collaborating with Dutch practice Braaksma & Roos Architenbureau on the design, which will preserve and transform the 58,000- m2 historic structure and have the tower rise from a vaulted plinth in an existing courtyard. Accessed by two street- level entrances lined with cafés and shops, Rotterdam Post will also have residential and retail components.

Yerevan to Form Plan of Action for Elevator Problem

City leaders and representatives of public organizations in Yerevan, Armenia, are working on a game plan to address the modernization of old elevators in high-rise residential buildings throughout the city, an effort estimated to cost approximately US$51 million, Arka News Agency reported. The capital city does not currently have the funds, but plans to ask the government and the private sector to provide them. Yerevan officials are working with the Asian Development Bank to conduct a feasibility study on the reforms needed to improve elevators in apartment buildings, many of which are mid-rise structures built in the 1960s and 1970s.