Welcome back to another Friday. Roll into the weekend with these news stories on going-ons in the arts, architecture, urbanism, and more:

RIBA showcases its collection online with the help of Google Arts & Culture

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) announced a new collaboration with Google Arts & Culture today, one that will put the institution’s nearly 200-year-old collection of architectural ephemera online. Viewable here, the collection includes photographs, models, drawings, renderings, archives, audiovisual materials, and more, as well as 15 case studies of major projects from around the world, such as a tour of Venice (to mark this year’s Biennale) and an examination of 20th-century playground design.

EFFEKT planted 1,200 pine seedlings at the Venice Architecture Biennale

If you’ve ever built a landscape model, you’ll know how finicky nailing the trees can be. At the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale, Danish architecture studio EFFEKT cleverly worked around that in its Eco to Ego exhibition, installing 1,200 live pine seedlings across seven architectural models. Each represents a built project or research initiative from the studio that they felt responded to the How Will We Live Together? theme, including the spiraling Forest Tower in Camp Adventure Park. Each tree is fed by an automated hydroponic system loaded with sensors at the base of the model that recycles water as needed. After the Biennale is finished, the seedlings will be delivered back to Denmark and planted.

H/t to Dezeen

Amazon shuts down Connecticut jobsite after another noose is discovered

After a noose and five other similarly tied ropes were discovered at an Amazon distribution center jobsite on April 27, contractor RC Andersen put out a $5,000 reward for information leading to catching the culprit. Today, a seventh noose was discovered at the site, shutting down work until at least Monday so security measures can be installed. The reward for information has also been upped to $100,000.

H/t to Construction Dive

New York City unveils its first memorial to COVID-19 victims

Although the COVID-19 pandemic is finally waning in New York City as vaccinations are rolled out (though infection risk remains high if you’re unvaccinated), New Yorkers are still grappling with the enormous death toll from last year. Now, the Department of Sanitation has revealed the first freestanding COVID memorial in the city in front of the Spring Street Salt Shed in a ceremony yesterday. The statue depicts a reflective urn covered in a shroud being lifted by a bird and pays respects to the nine sanitation workers who lost their lives to COVID. The memorial will tour different Sanitation Department garages before finally being installed permanently at a garage on Spring Street.

H/t to the New York Times

The Bronx’s long-awaited Hip Hop Museum finally breaks ground

Five years after the renderings for the Universal Hip Hop Museum in the Bronx first appeared, the project has finally broken ground. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was on hand yesterday, May 20, alongside hip-hop legends like Lil Kim, Nas, Fat Joe, and more, to ceremonially shovel the first scoops of dirt. The $349-million, S9 Architecture-designed project will also hold 542 units of permanently affordable housing and is on track to open to the public in 2024.

H/t to Gothamist

The Dodger Stadium gondola finalizes its route

The gondola system linking Los Angeles’s Dodger Stadium with Union Station appears to be flying forward. The Los Angeles Aerial Rapid Transit (LA ART), the group behind the project, has reportedly settled on a final route for the one-mile-long system, which they claim can ferry up to 5,500 passengers each way per hour. Click through to check out which stops made the cut, and renderings of the proposed stations.

H/t to Urbanize Los Angeles