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The White House, one of the most historically significant and secure buildings in the United States, is being torn apart. Demolition crews were on the White House grounds this week to begin demolition of the front facade of the East Wing in order to make way for the construction of a new 90,000-square-foot ballroom that President Trump announced in July. “I am pleased to announce that ground has been broken on the White House grounds to build the new, big, beautiful White House Ballroom,” Trump wrote on social media the day the work began. When the ballroom was first announced this summer, Trump said the project “won’t interfere with the current building.” During a press briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt went even further, saying “nothing will be torn down.” Those statements turned out to be false. Photos and videos taken at the site on October 20 show the walls of the building being chewed to bits by heavy construction equipment outfitted with a jaw-shaped demolition tool that looks like the head of a tyrannosaurus rex. “This is one of the most important buildings in the nation. This is one of the symbols of who we are as a people,” says Bryan Green, a former commissioner on the National Capital Planning Commission, a government agency that oversees and advises on planning in the Washington, D.C. area. “It’s hard to look and see a wrecking ball hitting it.” An exemption leaves little protection for the People’s House Despite the White House’s historic and symbolic significance, there was little to protect it from the demolition work now underway. The White House, along with the Supreme Court building, the Capitol building, and several other properties, is exempted from historic preservation rules that would otherwise stand in the way of such a building being torn down. Under section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, a strict review process is required for federal projects that may affect historic buildings, leading to both public scrutiny and legal obligations surrounding any proposed changes to existing historic resources. When it comes to the White House, various other entities have some level of oversight, including the National Park Service, the Commission of Fine Arts, and the National Capitol Planning Commission, but none can fully override a project like the demolition and ballroom addition due to the building’s Section 106 exemption. During his time on the National Capital Planning Commission, Green says he participated in the Section 106 review process and found it beneficial to the outcome of the projects in question. “Projects generally improve as a part of that process,” he says. “You’re having lots of eyes on them, having lots of different people with different interests look at these things and comment on them. They get better.” The White House ballroom project and its related East Wing demolition had very little, if any, public involvement. Though Trump initially said that several concepts were being considered for the project, the administration did not release any designs or name any architects ahead of July 31, when Trump announced that the White House had chosen Washington, D.C.-based McCrery Architects as the lead architect of the project. Trump has said the project, with an estimated cost of $200 million, would be funded by donors, himself included, “with zero cost to the American Taxpayer!” The White House did not respond to a request for comment. McCrery Architects referred Fast Company’s questions to the White House. “A reminder of how far that exemption can be taken” The White House’s exemption from the Section 106 review process is “unfortunate,” says Priya Jain, an associate professor of architecture at Texas A&M University. “This project and what is happening serves as a reminder of how far that exemption can be taken,” Jain says. The exemption for the White House, along with the Supreme Court and the Capitol, is not explicitly explained by the policy, but Jain says it likely has to do with evolving security and operational needs that officials don’t want bogged down with an official review or approval process. “Security and safety concerns are paramount,” she says. Jain is also chair of the Heritage Conservation Committee of the Society of Architectural Historians, which recently issued a statement expressing concern over the lack of oversight on this project, calling for “a rigorous and deliberate design and review process.” The organization notes that the White House has undergone numerous exterior and interior modifications since construction began in 1792, including a major reconstruction after the British set fire to the building during the War of 1812, the construction and expansion of the West Wing in the first decade of the 1900s, and the construction of the two-story East Wing building in 1942. This was the last major addition to the White House. The White House has evolved, but so has the preservation field In a recent post on LinkedIn, White House Historical Association president Stewart McLaurin ran through the changes the White House has seen over the centuries, and the criticism they caused. For example, the now-iconic colonnades added to the building by Thomas Jefferson in 1801 were seen at the time as extravagant and reflecting “aristocratic tendencies,” according to McLaurin. The East Wing, as it was until a few days ago, was built in the midst of World War Two, sparking criticism about the misappropriation of funding during an international crisis. Even the Rose Garden, which has since been paved over by Trump, was criticized for its elitism. “Media and Congressional criticisms have often focused on costs, historical integrity, and timing, yet many of these alterations have become integral to the identity of the White House,” McLaurin writes. “It is difficult for us to imagine The White House today without these evolutions and additions.” Notably, all these changes happened before the creation of the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act, which is why the Society of Architectural Historians is so concerned about the Section 106 exemption being exploited for such a large demolition and construction project. “The preservation field has come a long way,” says Jain. She notes that though the section had exempted the buildings at the time of writing, their status as prominent public buildings sets a precedent for other preservation projects and “they should follow some of these best practices that have been established.” The Trump administration has emphasized the importance of having the ballroom completed “long before” the end of Trump’s term, which may have played a role in the fast pace of design selection and starting construction. “Designing in public takes time. It takes time to work towards a consensus,” Green says. “I would assume that the goal was just go fast, no revisions. I don’t know that for sure, but it sure looks like that.”
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In 2022, Elisha Zepeda had given up on becoming a designer and was working as a barista at an Oregon bookstore. Today, hes a salaried book cover designer at Penguin Random House and an in-demand freelance designerand its all thanks to one TikTok video. Zepeda spent four years at California State University working for his schools marketing department. After he graduated in 2018, though, he faced a problem thats become commonplace for job seekers today: No one in the design industry seemed to be hiring. So he started working as a barista at a local bookstore with a coffee shop. While organizing the shops books into categories by color palette and typography, he became fascinated with book cover design. This interest led him to curate a portfolio of faux book covers for about a year before a book cover design studio in the area hired him. On a whim, Zepeda decided to share his design process on social media. The first video he ever posted to TikToka relaxed breakdown of how he builds out cover options for publishershit more than a million views overnight. Since then, Zepeda has honed his editing technique to create a video style that feels entirely his own, centered on calming music, simple text, and engaging visuals. Today, he has almost a million total followers across TikTok and Instagram. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Elisha Zepeda (@ez.bookdesign) This visibility earned Zepeda his job as a designer at Penguin Random Houses nonfiction Penguin Press vertical, where he produces about 20 covers per year. Outside of that position, he also takes freelance work from clients who primarily discover him through TikTok. The lesson, he says, is clear: Designers across categories need to start viewing social media as their primary portfolio. Fast Company sat down with Zepeda to chat about breaking into book cover design, how to start using social media like a portfolio, and which book cover tropes he tries to avoid. The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Why did you start sharing your work on social media? I was with that local studio for about a year, and I knew that no one I worked with was on TikTok. There was a book I was working on called Infinite Life, and one night, without telling anyone I worked with, I made that video and posted it. Overnight, it had a million views. I ended up talking to my boss, and they were really stoked about it, but they were like, Lets just check with publishers from here on out before you post anything. From then on, I just consistently kept doing it. What kinds of ripple effects has this had on your career? It truly changed my career path. I saw that Penguin was hiring, and I reached out to the art director, and he was like, I know your work from social media, and I was pretty much hired. Suddenly, all of these art directors and publishers knew who I was, and then I got to work with Penguin. It’s the perfect fit for my style. I just really lucked out, and it all happened so fastfrom when I started posting, it was maybe three to six months later that I was getting work from big art directors, hired by Penguin, switched my job, and moved cities. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Elisha Zepeda (@ez.bookdesign) What does your brainstorming process look like when you first get an assignment? I love Pinterest. The first thing I do is make a mood board. I’ll get a brief from clients that has maybe a couple of paragraphs. Lately, it seems like the bigger the client, the less restriction they have on the cover. Theyre like, Youre the person were paying to be creativejust make a bunch of options and well see where it lands. Which is why I think these huge publishers have all these bestsellersbecause they trust creatives. During my brainstorming process, I think of every project like, How can I make something that I personally would want to buy, and I personally think looks good? Every bestseller becomes a bestseller because it’s fresh and looks new. You can’t copy something else and expect it to have the same reaction from an audience. All you can really do is make a mood board and trust your instincts with what you think looks good. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Elisha Zepeda (@ez.bookdesign) How important has creator-led marketing become for designers? I think people should be viewing their social media as their portfolio. I know we have portfolio websites, and you can make it clean and crisp and how you want it to be, but realistically, art directors check social media like anyone else. Are there any book cover design tropes that you tend to steer clear from? Now that Im working with these art directors that I admire, I have to be very aware of what is out there already in a certain genre, because you never know who you’re going to work with. I just don’t ever want to rub someone the wrong way if it looks like I totally ripped off something they did that succeeded. As far as trends go, I wouldn’t say there’s necessarily a no-no. A lot of times, if something follows a trend, it was very specifically asked for by the publisher. The first thing that comes to mind is that thrillers are teal and yellow. We really try to push back on that, but our directors will be like, No, it has to be teal and yellow so people know it’s a thriller. And it’s like, okay, well, that’s why there’s this trend, because they’re specifically asking for it.
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The best thing I can say about Google’s Pixel Watch 4 is that I don’t think about it all that much. Whenever I wear my Apple Watch, it’s kind of a nuisance. Stand up. Breathe. How are you feeling right now? Looks like you’re on a walk. Was that an exercise you just started? Even just regular notifications for emails and text messages can get overwhelming. The Pixel Watch 4 is unintrusive by comparison. While it’s full of fitness tracking features and can put notifications on your wrist, it doesn’t ask for much of your attention in return. In a way, that’s pretty refreshing. Fitness optional My big disclaimer with this review is that I’m not big into quantified health. Filling an activity ring never clicked for me as extrinsic motivation (I blame decades of video games for numbing me to such things), and I don’t need a fitness band to remember whether I went for a swim or walked more than usual. So while the Apple Watch has leaned ever further into fitness features, I’ve felt increasingly alienated from it. Yes, you can turn off the various notifications to get out of your chair, consider some exercise, or focus on mindfulness, but figuring out how to do that is a hassle. It also comes with a pang of guilt: Am I neglecting my health by telling my watch to shut up? [Photo: Jared Newman] The Pixel Watch 4’s fitness features aren’t as aggressive. While it performs all the requisite activity trackingcounting steps, checking heart rate, measuring sleepand can log an array of specific exercises, it never interrupts you to start doing those things. There’s a “Reminders to Move” setting deep within Google’s Fitbit app, but it’s off by default. Google won’t even bother you to start logging an exercise in progress, and will instead wait until afterward to ask whether you want to confirm it or look at a recap. The Pixel Watch 4’s biggest out-of-the-box nag involves stress levels. The watch uses a continuous electrodermal activity sensor to understand when theres sweat on your skin, and combines that with changes in heart rate and skin temperature to pick up on potential stress events. You then get a notification encouraging you to reflect and optionally log how youre feeling. [Photo: Jared Newman] I’m not entirely bothered by this, because the point is to be mindful of something that’s actually happening. Itd be nice if these reminders arrived sooner, though. Too often I get pinged about some anxiety from 10 or 15 minutes earlier and can no longer remember what triggered it. Google still hasn’t shipped the Personal AI Coach that demoed a couple of months ago, so we’ll see if that feature introduces more nuisances. For now, I’m thankful for a watch with fitness features that arise only when you actually want them. Charging is easy and fast Charging is another common annoyance for smartwatches, especially as they push into sleep tracking and discourage overnight charging. Google has solved this problem by making the charging mechanism on the Pixel Watch 4 faster and more convenient. [Photo: Jared Newman] In my testing, a complete charge from dead to 100% took 42 minutes, but it needed only about 15 minutes to get from 25% to 80%. If you use the watch for sleep tracking, you can recharge while getting ready in the morning and still have enough power to get through the day. You’ll also get a helpful notification when the watch is fully charged, though I wish you could tweak the threshold to get an alert at, say, 80%, in case your morning routine doesn’t allow enough time for a full charge. Google also redesigned the Pixel Watch 4 charger so that the watch sits upright in a little groove, with the screen facing out and the crown facing up. If the chargers on your desk or nightstand, this allows the watch to face outward so you can tap the screen to glance at the time. It also allows the charger to rest flat on a table even with a continuous, loop-style watchband. It’s just a smarter design that Apple and every other smartwatch maker ought to copy. Fewer nagging notifications The Pixel Watch 4 has a smart way of handling notifications as well, particularly around sleep. Like most smartwatches, the Pixel Watch 4 lets you set up a sleep schedule that’s synced to your phone, so your wrist doesn’t buzz during bedtime, but it can also use sleep detection to toggle Bedtime mode automatically. This can prevent you from being jolted awake y late-night notifications if you fall asleep early, and can resume notifications if you’re awake earlier than usual. This can backfire if, like me, you sometimes wake up too early and struggle to fall back to sleep, as the watch might disable Bedtime mode during those times of restlessness. Fortunately, you can disable turning Bedtime mode off automatically in the morning and still have it turn on by itself at night (or vice versa). What’s still annoying Most of my Pixel Watch 4 usage is passive. I’ll glance at the time, look at a notification, or get a sense of how I slept, but otherwise will leave the watch mostly alone. Some small annoyances arise, though, when I’m actively trying to use it. For one thing, Google’s Wear OS platform needs better app support. While watch apps tend to be less useful than just taking out your phone, I’ve missed having an MLB app to check scores, along with the “Live Activities” that appear on the Apple Watch for things like fantasy football scores or Uber ride status. (The latter aren’t full-blown apps, but are mirrors of the same feature on the iPhone.) I’ve also struggled with the raise-to-talk feature for Gemini, which is one of the Pixel Watch 4’s hallmark features. While this ought to be the best way to have quick exchanges with Google’s AI, the response to raising your wrist just doesn’t feel snappy enough. Too often it failed to respond at all. Out of the way The Pixel Watch 4 doesn’t fundamentally change what smartwatches can do. It’s obviously nicer than its predecessors, with a higher screen-to-body ratio and brighter display. I appreciate that it’s a genuine breakthrough in smartwatch repairability. But it’s not a huge leap from earlier Pixel Watches or a major departure from what competitors offer. Instead, the Pixel Watch 4 takes the existing smartwatch formula and makes it a little less intrusive. Rather than being another device I have to constantly babysit, it’s mostly just a watch. That’s alright with me.
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