Archinect - News

The Eiffel Tower is getting a new 60 million euro paint job in lieu of some much-needed repairs

2022-07-12T12:01:00-04:00

According to CNN, the unnamed need for maintenance was first uncovered in confidential reports obtained by the French periodical Marianne. Rust damage to the structure has accumulated over the years, a product of the lead contained within the paint which was originally meant to protect its steel from oxidizing but is now slowly making its condition worse in the opinion of at least one structural engineer with knowledge of the situation.

As Marianne noted, this represents the 20th time the tower, which Gustave Eiffel originally conceived of as a 20-year temporary installation, has been repainted since its debut as the centerpiece of the 1889 Exposition Universelle. The latest round will reportedly cover a mere 5% of the entire 1,063-foot structure. An unnamed expert told the magazine: "At best, it will be mostly useless, but at the very worst, it will make the defects in the existing layer of paint worse and result in corrosion."

Related on Archinect: Paris mayor announces €300M Eif...

Researchers create ultra-white paint that could cool buildings

2021-04-16T17:54:00-04:00

Scientists in the US have developed a paint significantly "whiter than the whitest paint currently available". Tests carried out by researchers at Purdue University on their "ultra-white" paint showed it reflected more than 98% of sunlight. That suggests, the scientists say, that it could help save energy and fight climate change.

The paint's whiteness opens up a range of cooling features that, applied at an industrial scale, could limit the built environment's contributing effect to global warming and its dependency on traditional air conditioning.

"If you were to use this paint to cover a roof area of about 1,000 square feet, we estimate that you could get a cooling power of 10 kilowatts. That’s more powerful than the central air conditioners used by most houses," predicts Xiulin Ruan, the Purdue professor of mechanical engineering, who led the research.

An infrared camera shows how a sample of the whitest white paint (the dark purple square in the middle) actually cools the board below ambient temperature. Credit: Purdue University/Joseph Peoples.

"Using high-accuracy temperature reading equipment called thermocouples, the researchers demonstrated outdoors that the paint can keep surfaces 19 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than their ambient surroundings at night," claims the study. "It can also cool surfaces 8 d...

How cool can paint really be? UNStudio collaborates with Monopol Colors to develop a paint that helps buildings fight solar radiation and elemental weathering

2019-02-27T20:16:00-05:00

UNStudio is known for their groundbreaking work in solution driven designs relating to the ever-changing urban environment. Climate is changing, which leaves architects and designers taking steps towards designing buildings and structures that can accommodate to the overheated urban environment. Intense heating and other weather conditions like rain and dust generate a lot of stress and strain on the exteriors of many buildings. Thirty to forty years ago, these types of conditions were not necessarily a priority. However, with the environmental conditions of today firms like UNStudio are taking a different approach to future building design. According to the studio's principal and founder Ben van Berkel, "designing with the future in mind also means buildings last longer in the face of environmental change. That they are more resilient to change and they endure environmental strain."

Theatre de Stoep in Spijkenisse, Image courtesy of UNStudio

Beyond the design process, materials play...

Prepare to soon spot the blackest of black materials in architecture

2016-03-08T13:56:00-05:00

The British company developing the uses of a super black, light absorbent material called Vantablack S-VIS is working with leading architects as well as the British artist Anish Kapoor. The founder and chief technology officer of Surrey NanoSystems, Ben Jensen, says that the company is working with “some large and well respected global architects,” and that the coating is already available for “suitable applications”. He declined to name the architects involved “due to prior agreements”.

Architectural historian discovers Chartres Cathedral has started faking it

2014-12-15T12:05:00-05:00

The first portion she pointed out was a pale ochre wall patterned with thin, perpendicular white lines mimicking mortar between masonry blocks. Looking upward we then saw panels of blue faux marbre, high above them gilded column capitals and bosses (the ornamental knobs where vault ribs intersect), and, nearby, floor-to-ceiling piers covered in glossy yellow trompe l’oeil marbling, like some funeral parlor in Little Italy.

Explore Paint Color Options On Your iPad With New Sherwin-Williams ColorSnap Studio App

2012-10-25T14:17:00-04:00

As a designer, you never know when you’re going to get your next spark of inspiration. These days many of us keep track of notes, ideas, photos, audio clips with our iPads. When it comes to color, Sherwin-Williams has an app for that.

This story is brought to you by Sherwin-Williams

The new ColorSnap Studio iPad app brings the best of Sherwin-Williams color inspiration tools — the ColorSnap® smartphone app, the online Color Visualizer, plus the Explore Color functionality — into one app, so you’re always ready for that next big design idea. Making the most of iPad technologies, the ColorSnap Studio app offers high definition resolution and easy to use features such as pinch, zoom and swipe.

Design your space anytime and anywhere with the ColorSnap Studio iPad app. Upload your own image or use one of the preloaded room scenes, and paint different colors from the Sherwin-Williams palette on the walls with just the scribble of a finger. It is easy to match paint colors to exis...