Archinect - Features

The University of Texas at Austin's Green Core Studio Explores Sustainable Energy Production in Residential Building Design

2022-09-29T12:35:00-04:00

Design studios are one of the core components of an architectural education. Through the guidance and expertise of dedicated faculty members, students are taught the skills and design perspectives needed to navigate architecture studios.

Studios encourage students to explore new ways to design, prototype, think, and build. To bring closer attention to architecture studios, their committed instructors, and the exciting work being developed, we present Archinect Studio Pin-Ups, a new series highlighting architecture studios focusing on new and thought-provoking topics.

To kick off the series, we dive into the University of Texas at Austin's Advanced Spring 2022 Studio - Green Core, led by Jing Liu (Visiting Professor and co-founder of SO–IL) and Claire Townley (UT Austin Alumn '19 and Associate Architect at Pollen Architecture & Design).

The Yves Béhar-Designed ADU and the Complicated Altruism of the “Fully-Customizable Prefab”

2018-11-13T12:00:00-05:00

My invitation to interview industrial designer Yves Béhar about his first step into architecture, an immaculately designed Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU), brought me to a design festival of unprecedented scale and wealth.

Held in the historic core of Downtown Los Angeles - a neighborhood physically and economically between the Financial District and Skid Row - Summit LA18 was a three day festival that hosted, according to its promotional material, “a wide array of talks, performances, wellness classes, art installations, gourmet food, and experiences designed to foster relationships and inspire new perspectives.”

A cursory glance at the titles of highlighted events, including “Al Gore and Jaden Smith on New Hope for Solving the Climate Crisis” and “Manufactured Organs and The Radical Quest to Cure Aging” was my first clue of what relationships might be fostered and what new perspectives might be prioritized at this event; my second clue was the intensive application for entry (follo...

Michael Maltzan Envisions the Future of LA's Infrastructure

2016-10-18T12:18:00-04:00

Los Angeles is defined by its freeways: everyone from Joan Didion to Ice Cube to "Saturday Night Live" has conceptualized the city through them. So why is such an integral part of the city’s urban fabric left largely to stagnate in the collective architectural imagination?

CONTOURS: New, Energy-Efficient Technologies, Part II

2012-01-23T18:01:00-05:00

Continued from CONTOURS: New, Energy-Efficient Technologies, Part 1:

This week, we examine some very advanced technological developments on the active technology front that may potentially lead to more efficient and cheaper photovoltaic panels.

CONTOURS: New, Energy-Efficient Technologies, Part 1

2012-01-09T14:11:00-05:00

Smart and energy efficient is the new-ish approach for many architecture and design firms these days. The problem for the last decade has been that trying to persuade clients to incorporate some of these strategies into their needs has been difficult. Why? The prohibitive costs of implementing advanced technology-based elements into building design. PV panels are the first to come to mind. And when the cost is perceived as prohibitive by the client, firms balk at pushing them.