Good afternoon and welcome back to yet another midweek news aggregation.

There’s quite a bit to get to, so here’s what’s going on today:

Pratt Institute reveals plans for a research and learning facility in the Brooklyn Navy Yard

Pratt Institute is expanding its Brooklyn reach even further. The university has announced plans to build the Research Yard of Pratt Institute, City Tech, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard (AKA the Research Yard) in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The Research Yard will be housed in the 27,000-square-foot Building 3 after a renovation by Smith-Miller + Hawkinson, LLP, with work slated to finish early next year.

The Research Yard is, as the full name suggests, a collaboration between Pratt, the New York City College of Technology (City Tech), and the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation (BNYDC). A total of $6 million has been allocated to the tech research facility, which will focus on digital design and fabrication, remote sensing, and artificial intelligence and automation.

The world’s largest Ferris wheel opens in Dubai

Good news, thrill-seekers; the Ain Dubai, an 820-foot-tall Ferris wheel on Dubai’s Bluewaters Island, is now open for business. The wheel stands nearly twice as tall as the 440-foot London Eye and can hold a whopping 1,750 passengers at once. The structure is so large that a single rotation takes 38 minutes.

H/t to NPR

How will New York’s outdoor eateries cope with another brutal winter?

Temperatures are dropping across the United States, and outdoor eateries are facing the same existential crisis they stared down a year ago. Nowhere is the pain more acute than in New York City, where despite the ongoing pandemic, emergency measures have already been rolled back to get diners back indoors (whether or not they feel comfortable doing so). That means restaurants will no longer be allowed to heat their outdoor dining sheds with propane, despite the prevalence of indoor-outdoor dining well into October. How will these businesses cope?

H/t to Grubstreet

After a $5 million gift, Gensler’s restoration of the Plaza Theatre in Palm Springs is a go

After a $5 million gift from producer, director, and writer (and Palms Springs resident) David Lee, renovations can begin at the fabled California desert city’s historic Plaza Theatre. A Palm Springs landmark since its opening in 1936, the theater has fallen into disrepair over the decades. Now, Gensler and historic preservation consultants Chattel will both restore the theater and add another 670 seats as well as accessibility upgrades to bring the building in line with Americans with Disabilities Act standards.

Ahead of COP26, an artist installs a sinking house in Bath’s River Avon

Man the lifeboats; ahead of the October 31 start of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, the Bath, England office of architecture firm, Stride Treglown has installed a sinking house in the River Avon to highlight the urgency of the climate crisis. The house, built from wood and tethered to the Pulteney Bridge, won’t actually sink but is suggestive of the historic flooding that slammed Europe earlier this year, killing and displacing residents across the continent.

H/t to The Architects’ Journal

Sydney’s mayor floats installing a swimming pool in the harbor

Speaking of living with water, the mayor of Sydney is taking cues from New York City’s own + POOL with a propsed swimming pool for iconic Sydney Harbor. In an October 18 speech, Lord Mayor Clover Moore pitched the concept for the pool, which would filter water from the surrounding harbor, as a way to both clean the waterway and let city residents cool off as temperatures climb due to climate change.

H/t to CNN