Archinect - News

150 stories - but no sewer connection

2012-12-30T11:09:00-05:00

'[R]emember that a place like Dubai really emerged in the last 50 years. It was a sleepy, you know, Bedouin town half a century ago. And what you do is when you bring in the world’s, you know, most sophisticated architects and engineers, you can literally build anything, including a building of 140 or 150 stories. But designing a municipal network of sewage treatment is in some ways more complex. - KATE ASCHER

Terry Gross recently interviewed Kate Ascher about her skyscraper book, and ended up discussing the common lack of sewage connections in Dubai - including the Burj Khalifa. So they end up using trucks to cart the sewage to the central treatment plant, where they often end up queuing for 24-hours or more before they can be emptied.

Gizmodo calculated:

'The Burj Khalifa has 163 habitable floors. It's designed to hold 35,000 people at any given time. Now, humans produce 100 to 250 grams (3 to 8 ounces) of feces per day. Let's say 200 in this case, since these people are well fed. That's 7,000,000 grams per day. Seven tonnes of poop per day. Now, add human-produced liquids (pee, bathing, cleaning their teeth...) and the water to push the poop down its miles of sewage pipes. I think a very conservative total would be 15 tonnes of sewage per day.

That's a lot of poop.'

Transforming Freshkills Park from Landfill to Landscape

2012-10-17T12:50:00-04:00

Corner’s plan identifies five main areas in Freshkills, each with distinct offerings, designed and programmed to maximize specific site opportunities and constraints. Planned features include nature preserves, animal habitats, a seed plot, walking and bike paths, picnic areas, comfort stations, event staging areas, and every other amenity you could possibly ask for in a public park.

Plan to build UK's first building entirely out of waste

2012-10-04T19:04:00-04:00

Designed by Brighton-based architect Duncan Baker-Brown, it will be built on the University of Brighton's campus in the city centre from waste and surplus material from local building sites and other local industries. The walls will be made of waste timber products. Ply "cassettes" containing waste material will be slotted in between the timber structure. These cassettes will be removable so that new building technologies can be added easily.

The Trash Heap of History

2012-05-01T19:35:00-04:00

As contemporary governments and citizens increasingly demand that reclaimed landfills be many things to many people — energy producers, social nodes, memorials — and also that they interface with local infrastructure, we would do well to study the historical precedent of Monte Testaccio... [whose] longevity and vitality make it an ideal model of what a landfill can become: an agent of civic engagement and an urban catalyst. This is the promise of landfill reclamation.

The reuse of waste and remediation of landfills have inspired some of the most innovative contemporary landscape and urban design projects. On Places, Michael Ezban looks back two millennia and explores Monte Testaccio, the great garbage dump of imperial Rome. In this enduring landform — "a mountain of detritus in a city of storied hills" — he finds a dynamic precedent for landfill reclamation.

NYIT Students Bring Waste Removal Solutions to Costa Rica

2011-12-19T18:50:02-05:00

Nine New York Institute of Technology architecture students, three of them from Long Island, will bring their creative designs and skills to Costa Rica to develop a recycling and education center

Urban mining-the future

2011-06-15T20:32:23-04:00

The demand for special metals used in the manufacture of electronics is booming, but a few countries control much of the world's supply. Germany is looking to reduce its reliance on imports by exploiting the metal that is thrown away in trash. Urban mining could become big business.