Berlin's new airport? Planned for 5 years, finished in 14. Stuttgart's central station? Still under construction after 16 years. Hamburg's concert hall, the Elbphilharmonie? Nine years instead of three. And the costs? Sometimes 10 times higher than promised. Or take Cologne's opera house. Built in the 1950s as a symbol of modern democracy, it was a cultural jewel.
A 450 million development at London's Barbican Estate faces being derailed after two nesting peregrine falcons were discovered at the location. The birds of prey have been spotted using towers near the 1 Silk Street site as a breeding ground, with authorities warning developers the discovery could jeopardise the entire project. Under British wildlife protection laws, peregrine falcons receive the maximum level of safeguarding, making it a criminal offence to disturb them while breeding.
The build up to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina have been far from ideal. The ice rink has been delayed and riddled with issues. The bobsleigh track has been controversial from the start. History shows that many Winter Olympic hosts have also been plagued by late construction completions and rising costs, but perhaps 2026 represents a tipping point.
The USS John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier is setting sail for a new test at sea, specifically its shipbuilder sea trials. It marks a major milestone for the US Navy's next supercarrier. The trials will be overseen by top shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries, allowing for evaluations of the vessel before it's delivered to the Navy. Though the ship has gone through river-based propulsion testing, these trials are when the new warship leaves the yard and proves that it actually works at sea.
As we learned with the Central Subway project and the Van Ness Bus Lane Rapid transit project, San Francisco have nice things as long as we accept that fact that these nice things will take five or six years longer to complete than they were supposed to, and their costs will explode to two or three times their original budget.
When the new Sydney Fish Market flung open its doors for the first time on Monday morning, one regular clientele was notably absent. There were no seagulls. And, by extension, no poo. I've been waiting 50 years for this, one man carrying several shopping bags told me as he exited the shiny new building. I couldn't bring friends here from Europe to sit out there [at the old market] with the birds and the shit.
Work to fix hospitals built using unsafe concrete will not be completed in time to meet the government's target, a new report has warned. Seven hospitals built using Raac, or reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, were prioritised for remedial work last year, with the government setting a deadline of 2030. The new buildings are now expected to open in 2032 and 2033 - but some are already facing pressure to meet the revised timetable, the National Audit Office (NAO) said.
At the corner of High Park Avenue and Annette Street in Toronto, a church slated to be transformed into condominiums has been sitting partially complete for several years. Construction on the 70-unit condo project began in 2019, but there has been no progress since 2023. "We all knew that something was wrong because you'd just drive by and no one's working, right? Nothing's happening," said Phil Earnshaw, who paid a $280,000 deposit in 2018 for a two-bedroom unit.
