Archinect - News

R&D facilities for electric vehicle production are now the manufacturing sector's hottest commodity

2023-05-01T13:16:00-04:00

Last year, skyrocketing demand sent a record $128 billion into investments for E.V. manufacturing and battery plants, which require a large footprint. A battery plant can cover 4.5 million square feet, roughly the size of 25 Walmart Supercenters. Projections suggest the country may need 120 or more additional such plants. Before those batteries and the cars that use them can be made, they must be conceptualized. So automakers are pouring money into research and development facilities.

The Times speculates that the money being dumped into facilities that support E.V. development could lead to a golden era of highly technical corporate design for car manufacturers. Projects such as El Dorado’s 300 Kansas in San Francisco and the Snøhetta-led Research & Engineering Campus for Ford in Dearborn, Michigan are the leading examples. The city of Detroit is also working on a transportation innovation zone in conjunction with Ford’s new 30-acre Michigan Central mobility tech district from PAU to go along with another $130 million center for the University of Michigan that was announced recently for Ann Arbor.

University of Seville architecture professor develops new mathematical concept that can impact 'engineering and construction of buildings'

2023-03-20T09:10:00-04:00

During the construction of the university’s new engineering building, Cabeza-Lainez found that calculating the area of a roof with straight lines resting on a semicircle was impossible just by using pi. After 30 years of research, [he] published a paper about his discovery in ScienceDirect [...] Both articles present his proposal of a number psi (Ψ), with a value of 3.140923, close to pi but which can be applied to a versatile geometric form that he calls an antisphere.

According to El Pais, mathematician and architect Dr. Cabeza-Lainez had to develop his own proprietary calculation software in order to prove the equation. He has also published a book on solar light transfer and says the application of psi in various forms can lower costs associated with energy consumption by 50%.

Graphical Abstract of research from "New Simulation Tool for Architectural Design in the Realm of Solar Radiative Transfer" paper by Joseph Cabeza-Lainez, Jose-Manuel Almodóvar-Melendo, Paula Revenga-Dominguez, Inmaculada Rodríguez-Cunill, and Yingying Xu. Published research can be found in MDPI Journal's Special Issue "Sustainable Design in Building and Urban Environment."

He shares with Raúl Limón of El Pais that the new equation can be applied to “a downspout, to a network of pipes, to an earthquake-resistant tower, to 150-foot [50-meter] ships without using columns, even to biotechnological devices” that he's tested through models made with 3D printers. Rail network t...

Inside Yale's new Center for Architecture and Ecosystems

2023-02-06T14:04:00-05:00

The center’s main objectives are to research, develop and test novel building-integrated systems for on-site energy generation, air cleaning, water purification and food growing [...] the CEA is a 'consortium that unites researchers in the R&D of novel building research,' bringing together the resources of multiple departments on campus.

The four-year-old Center for Architecture and Ecosystems (CEA) was founded as a collaboration between Yale School of Architecture, the School of Environment, and four other colleges. The Center has thus far conducted prototyping projects in Guatemala and South Africa and will, in the future, leverage collaborations with Rice, Cornell, the University of Arizona, and other institutions in further pursuit of its ambitious research and development aims.

“A major goal of CEA is to develop new systems to reach net zero,” the Center's founding director Anna Dyson said to the Yale Daily News. “We want to build environmental systems that are not going to stress the planet’s ecosystems.”

The CEA is in the process of moving into its own space on Howe Street in New Haven and is currently undergoing renovation.

An industry expert discusses what’s holding back the use of 3D printing in commercial construction

2023-02-06T08:45:00-05:00

While the government has doled out grant money to research 3D printing capabilities in space, and several proof-of-concept projects from bridges to Army barracks have garnered headlines, the applied use of 3D printing in commercial construction remains nascent. Patti Harburg-Petrich, principal in the Los Angeles office of U.K.-based engineering firm Buro Happold, says the real culprit is likely one that all new building innovations are forced to navigate: the building code itself.

Harburg-Petrich pointed to the limitations of rebar on a recent design-build she advised at Woodbury University as evidence of the negative influence of building code restrictions, even in research and development. She also predicted airport design to be a potential growth sector and said the technology could perhaps be better applied to individual project components like (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing) MEPs as it currently stands.

“If you can take advantage of industrialized construction and still be able to produce something that is bespoke, that leads toward a much faster pace of adoption,” she told Construction Dive. “If you can do something with less material, or put the pieces together faster, there are all kinds of cost savings right there, and all sorts of non-monetary benefits as well. “

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MIT Media Lab designs and tests modular tiles for self-assembling space architecture

2022-05-16T11:50:00-04:00

The MIT Media Lab has shared insights into their pioneering project to build habitats in outer space. Named TESSERAE, the project seeks to create a highly-engineered tile which can be used as a building block for self-assembling, adaptive, reconfigurable structures.

Artist's render of TESSERAE spaceship. Credit: MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative (Artist's Render courtesy of Igor Neminov)

Rather than the traditional method of transporting fixed, rigid habitation modules into outer space, creating structures such as the International Space Station, the team behind TESSERAE believes that their modular, self-assembly method can lower payload weight and reduce construction complexity, while also broadening the possibilities of what future space architecture may look like.

TESSERAE assembly concept: Flat-packed for launch, tiles released to swirl and quasi-stochastically self assemble, target geometry, constellation of multiple docked TESSERAE modules. Credit: Ariel Ekblaw

Each TE...

NASA awards grants to three U.S. universities to develop lunar infrastructure

2022-03-01T14:58:00-05:00

Three U.S. university-led proposals have been selected by NASA to develop technologies for living and working on the Moon.

This push for technological development comes as NASA prepares to send astronauts back to the Moon through its Artemis missions, the agency’s plan to send the first woman and first person of color to the Moon for long-term exploration using innovative technologies. The advancements are key to meeting the challenges of inhabiting the Moon. These efforts were selected under the second Lunar Surface Technology Research (LuSTR) solicitation, which is part of NASA’s Space Technology Research Grants program. Here, the agency supports groundbreaking research in advanced space technology by academic researchers.

Previously on Archinect: RISD students are helping NASA develop its Artemis mission uniforms for 20

The selected projects cover three topics laid out in the solicitation: “Autonomous Construction,” in which The Colorado School of Mines will develop tools and me...

RISD students are helping NASA develop its Artemis mission uniforms for 2025

2022-02-04T10:44:00-05:00

A perfect fusion between fine artists, fashion designers, and rocket scientists is taking flight in New England thanks to the ambitious efforts of some of The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) nerdier undergraduates. NASA and the prestigious design school are now teaming up to outfit astronauts on the agency’s upcoming Artemis I lunar expedition.

Artnet News is reporting that students in a course offered by the school’s apparel design department are now responsible for workshopping prototypes for the high-tech gear that the 18-member crew will incorporate into their uniforms during the 30-day mission.

Designs by undergraduate senior Avantika Velho focused on utility in zero gravity. Image courtesy RISD.

The mission will place an American on the moon for the first time since the Apollo program was deactivated in 1972. Importantly, the mission will see the first time that an American woman and person of color walk on the moon in what has also been thought of by some as a potential ...