Archinect - News

Peter Zumthor completes his first permanent building in the UK: the brutalist Secular Retreat

2018-10-29T15:38:00-04:00

The Swiss architect Peter Zumthor has built ‘a gliding swan’ of a house in Devon that strikes a perfect balance between inside and out, whichever way you look

Peter Zumthor recently completed a meticulously crafted concrete house in the gently sloping English countryside of Devon—the Swiss architect's first permanent building in the UK after designing the Serpentine Gallery's 2011 summer pavilion in London.

Photo: Jack Hobhouse/Living Architecture

Titled Secular Retreat, the five-bedroom brutalist abode is part of the growing Living Architecture vacation home portfolio which also includes MVRDV's Balancing Barn and Jarmund/Vigsnæs Architects's Dune House (both in collaboration with Mole Architects) as well as a quirky cottage in Essex by FAT Architecture and Grayson Perry.

Photo: Jack Hobhouse/Living Architecture

"Simply a miraculous piece of architecture" is The Observer critic Rowan Moore's impression after visiting the building for his latest review. "The sublimity of the architecture comes by way of a certain roughness," Moore writes. "Its character is set by pillars and walls of thick concrete mixed from local materials, shovelled and...

Watch the progress of ODA's "Living Facade" in Park Slope

2017-07-18T16:47:00-04:00

Construction of ODA's 251 1st Street residential complex in Park Slope is now reaching completion, demonstrating fragmented massing which the firm believes imbues the structure with a "living facade."

As the architects explain, "ODA’s inflected the building’s upper massing with a cascade of setbacks and terraces, yielding substantial outdoor space, as well as multiple exposures for units." Here's a gif demonstrating the concept from a different perspective:

Photo: Miguel de Guzman

Scientists are developing a 'digestive' building material that cleans wastewater and produces electricity

2016-08-08T13:28:00-04:00

“The best way to describe what we’re trying to create is a ‘biomechanical cow’s stomach’,” said Rachel Armstrong, coordinator of the Living Architecture (LIAR) research project. LIAR's aim is to develop a building block material that uses living microorganisms to clean wastewater, glean useful resources from sunlight, and even generate electricity.

To do this, the researchers are programming synthetic microorganisms, and inserting them into a microbial fuel cell (MFC), which is then placed inside ceramic blocks. The MFCs are effectively alive, and produce positive and negative charges, which allows them to be programmed in such a way to emulate the different metabolic stages of a cow's stomach.

In combination, the blocks could be used to form 'bioreactor walls', which could then help offset a structure's carbon footprint by keeping waste processing and power generation in-house: "like a digestive system for your home or office," according to Armstrong. In one successful test case, res...

Doris Sung's Living Architecture Morphs To Protect From The Elements

2013-10-10T14:30:00-04:00

When Doris Sung was growing up she had several ideas about how architecture was supposed to be. From what she knew it was static, immovable, and didn't allow much room for experimentation and creativity. Fast-forward several years later, and Sung is now wildly experimenting with building mediums and metals, computer software, and nature itself to create interactive designs that respond to environmental stimuli, essentially coming to life.

From microchips to algae: Finding ways to make buildings that live, breathe and think

2013-05-23T13:33:00-04:00

The BioIntelligent Quotient House, which opened in March, is the first to use external tubes of algae to help heat, shade and generate power for the building. But Khoury Levit Fong (KLF), the Toronto firm in which el-Khoury is a partner, came up with the idea six years ago, and incorporated it into a design that won – then lost – an international competition for a huge new museum in Shenzhen, a major Chinese city near Hong Kong.

Arup Proposes Radical Building of the Near Future

2013-02-12T11:36:00-05:00

The global engineering firm envisions a "smart" building that will plug into "smart" urban infrastructure and cater to an increasingly dense and technology-savvy urban population.

Download Arup's January 2013 issue of Foresight [PDF]

Wild Potter Grayson Perry & FAT Design Shrine-like Cottage in Essex

2012-10-03T11:32:00-04:00

The new cottage will be decorated with sculptures, furniture, ceramics, and tapestries, all narrating her story: "a difficult childhood, young love, a truncated education, children, divorce and finally fulfilment in her career and love life," explained Perry. "The idea behind the project relates to buildings put up as memorials to loved ones, to follies, to eccentric home-built structures, to shrines, lighthouses and fairytales," the artist explained.