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The cases against concrete and its environmental impacts are prevalent in the AEC community. As a result, numerous attempts and research initiatives have been made to help mitigate the material's environmental impact. Research from firms like Snøhetta and their net-zero concrete to companies like... View full entry
A UCLA research team led by Gaurav Sant, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and of material science and engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, has received a two-year, $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. The award supports the development of a... View full entry
Although concrete is common building material that's readily available and easy to use, the environmental impact it generates is a costly one, specifically with regards to how it is manufactured. Estimates indicate that every pound of cement produces one pound of CO2 emissions, for example, a fact... View full entry
Cement is everywhere, but few notice the impact it has on the environment. A standard building material used everywhere, it is often confused with concrete. Cement is a key component in making concrete. By burning limestone at extremely high temperatures, this process turns the stone into a... View full entry
Scientists from round the world are meeting in Germany to improve ways of making money from carbon dioxide.
They want to transform some of the CO2 that’s overheating the planet into products to benefit humanity.
They don’t claim the technology will solve climate change, but they say it will help.
Carbon dioxide is already being used in novel ways to create fuels, polymers, fertilisers, proteins, foams and building blocks.
— BBC
BBC environmental analyst, Roger Harrabin, details three novel ways to turn excess carbon dioxide into potentially profitable carbon-negative products: high-grade fertilizer from agricultural waste products; food-grade beverage carbonation and biogas from horse manure; and most interesting for the... View full entry
The London-based architectural practice ecoLogicStudio, which specializes in bio-digital design, has developed a large-scale installation which stores and filters CO2 to help fight global climate change. Their 'urban curtain'—dubbed Photo.Synth.Etica—was unveiled this week in Dublin during... View full entry
Changing the mindset behind short-term wooden constructions is MIT. A group of researchers at the university are leading an initiative to investigate new mass timber designs- wood-based buildings designed to be more efficient and cheaper than, yet just as durable as, concrete and steel buildings. The team proposes building mass timber longhouses - large wooden engineered houses built from massive pieces of timber. — interestingengineering.com
Mass Timber Design, MIT's architecture workshop exploring sustainable building design at the intersection of architecture and technology, has developed a Longhouse prototype. Mass timber, a wood-based building design and construction technology, has continued to be explored for its... View full entry
According to the CDP report, the cement industry is the second-largest industrial emitter of carbon after the steel industry. And when accounting for its use in human-made structures, it is responsible for more than a third of the world’s carbon emissions. But unlike the transportation sector, in which a new type of fuel can dramatically decrease the sector’s pollutants, cement’s problem is, well, cemented in its formulation [...] — The Outline
In his longform piece for The Outline, Mike Disabato explains why the cement industry shows little interest in earnestly reducing the tremendous environmental impact of its (nearly) indispensable product. "No one in the cement industry has seriously engaged in the herculean task of enhancing the... View full entry
Arup announced on July 25 that they would partner with TEAM V Architecture, Lingotto, Nicole Maarsen, and Nederlandse Energie Maatschappij in the construction of a 73-meter-high residential tower. With 14,500 square meters of floor space in total, the tower, named HAUT, will house 55 apartments... View full entry
Scientists think they have found a smart way to constrain carbon dioxide emissions - just turn them to stone.
The researchers report an experiment in Iceland where they have pumped CO2 and water underground into volcanic rock.
Reactions with the minerals in the deep basalts convert the carbon dioxide to a stable, immobile chalky solid.
Even more encouraging, the team writes in Science magazine, is the speed at which this process occurs: on the order of months.
— BBC
It feels rare to hear good news from the climate front these days. Here's some more:Copenhagen divests from fossil fuelsArchitect turned sea-flooding specialist keeps Panama City afloatSan Francisco to mandate solar panels for new constructionsThe scientists trying to harness the power of waves View full entry
[UCLA's team of interdisciplinary researchers'] plan would be to create a closed-loop process: capturing carbon from power plant smokestacks and using it to create a new building material — CO2NCRETE — that would be fabricated using 3D printers. [...]
“We can demonstrate a process where we take lime and combine it with carbon dioxide to produce a cement-like material ... We’re trying to develop a process solution, an integrated technology which goes right from CO2 to a finished product."
— luskin.ucla.edu
Related on Archinect:Could this revolutionary new material replace concrete?Bacteria-laden concrete helps cracks fix themselvesGetty awards over $1.75 million to fix crappy concrete in "Important Modern Buildings"Ten Top Images on Archinect's "Concrete" Pinterest BoardChina used more cement in... View full entry
Perhaps the most important and widely-used building material, concrete also has an enormous environmental impact. This is largely because in order to produce one ton of cement – the material that binds together rock aggregate in concrete – about 900 kg of C02 are emitted. In fact, the concrete... View full entry
Scientists have recently discovered deep deposits of a powerful warming gas leaking into the ocean from previously hidden vents just off North America's East Coast, kicking up underwater carbon dioxide levels [...] Most of the vents are located about 1,600 feet down, the perfect spot for the ocean's temperature and water pressure to combine and create an oozing mix of ice and methane gas, a powerful substance with an impact on global warming that's 20 times more damaging than that of [CO2]. — News.Mic
Soundscrapers could soon turn urban noise pollution into usable energy to power cities.
An honourable mention-winning entry in the 2013 eVolo Skyscraper Competition, dubbed Soundscraper, looked into ways to convert the ambient noise in urban centres into a renewable energy form.
Noise pollution is currently a negative element of urban life but it could soon be valued and put to good use.
— DesignBuild Source