Archinect - News

The sideways elevator that will revolutionize building has arrived

2017-07-11T13:06:00-04:00

Until now, architects have had to design around the elevator shafts, which can comprise 40 percent of a building's core. Multi could allow them to install elevators almost anywhere, including the perimeter. Strong magnets on every Multi car work with a magnetized coil running along the elevator hoistway’s guide rails to make the cars float. Turning these coils on and off creates magnetic fields strong enough to pull the car in various directions.

After three years of work, ThyssenKrupp, a company synonymous with elevators, is testing the Multi in a German tower and finalizing the safety certification. Zooming up, down, left, right, and diagonally the new elevator was just sold to a residential building under construction in Berlin, and is expected to be sold to other developers soon.

"Multi moves to-and-fro through exchangers, which you can think of as sophisticated railway switches that guide the cars. Bearings called "slings" mounted to every elevator car allow it to change direction—say, move to the left, or even go diagonally—while keeping the car level with the ground. “The cabin never moves during an exchange,” company CEO Patrick Bass says.

Image courtesy of ThyssenKrupp

Designed to move 1,000 to 1,400 feet per minute, far slower than the 1,968 fpm experienced in Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the new elevator prioritizes volume over speed. (Speeds over 2,000 feet per minute lead to ear problems and nausea.) Free of the cable...

Grafton Architects' UTEC “vertical campus” wins inaugural RIBA International Prize

2016-11-23T19:02:00-05:00

RIBA awarded their inaugural International Prize today to The Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología (UTEC) in Lima by Grafton Architects and Shell Arquitectos. Open to architects worldwide, the Prize is RIBA's very own recognition award for “civil architecture that empowers people and societies to innovate and progress”, RIBA President Jane Duncan said. The grand jury, led by architect Richard Rogers, traveled to visit all six finalist buildings before making their final decision.

Irish practice Grafton Architects and Shell Arquitectos from Lima designed the brutalist vertical campus for UTEC, a 50-year-old engineering university that enables young Peruvians to gain engineering qualifications, and therefore encourage social mobility. The jury praised the UTEC building as a bold, masterful project that depicts Grafton Architects' years of experimenting with space and form.

“The vertical structure provides open circulation and meeting spaces in a succession of platforms that compose th...

2016 eVolo Skyscraper Competition winners revealed

2016-03-25T13:53:00-04:00

Designers worldwide get to explore their own interpretations of what a skyscraper is in the annual eVolo Skyscraper Competition. The sky is indeed the limit for the competition, which gives participants complete freedom with their skyscraper designs. At the same time, entrants are challenged to re-examine the skyscraper's definition, purpose, and the potential for vertical living in the 21st century.

Here's a glimpse of the prize winners.

1st Place: "New York Horizon" by Yitan Sun and Jianshi Wu | United States

2nd place: "The Hive" by Hadeel Ayed Mohammad, Yifeng Zhao, and Chengda Zhu | United States

3rd place: "Data Tower" by Valeria Mercuri and Marco Merletti | Italy

Head over to Bustler to find out more about the 2016 winners.

FARM-X shares its modular vertical farming approach, pilot project nears completion

2015-03-18T19:44:00-04:00

The vertical-farming movement continues to grow with the recent unveiling of FARM-X's modular vertical-farming concept, which the Oakland, CA-based organization developed with Zurich-based Conceptual Devices founder Antonio Scarponi and an agronomy team led by University of Bologna Professor Giorgio GianquintoI. In the most idealistic sense, the FARM-X model would maximize production of fresh food up to 5 tons per day, can be applied anywhere as one means to sustainably revive unused urban spaces, and would create more jobs to develop a "green collar workforce" of urban agricultural farmers.

FARM-X aims to construct 10,000 sq.m. (approx.110,000 sq.ft.) of total vertical farm space throughout Oakland over the next decade. For starters, a pilot run of the project is near completion nearby in Richmond, CA.

Read on for more project details that we received:

"Food has historically been grown in areas of low real-estate interest, far from densely populated settlements normally described as '...

Up and Down, Side to Side; ThyssenKrupp's cable-free MULTI elevator to begin testing in 2016

2014-12-01T17:37:00-05:00

Many of us who have ridden inside an elevator since its invention 160 years ago are accustomed to hearing its ominous hums and creaks, as well as stories of malfunctioning elevators that cause people to be stuck inside for hours. So, the idea of hopping into a cable-free elevator in a mid to high-rise building can sound both thrilling and nerve-wracking. That idea is soon to become a reality for global transportation manufacturer ThyssenKrupp, who is set out to test the first units of their cable-free MULTI elevator system once the testing tower in Rottweil, Germany is complete by the end of 2016.

MULTI's design is derived from the company's TWIN control system and safety features. Deemed as the world's first cable-free elevator, MULTI includes a multi-level brake system and multiple self-propelled cabins that can be incorporated within the same elevator shaft.

Operating on a circular system, the elevators will be able to move vertically and horizontally in a loop at a speed of 5 m...

Wall Mart by Adrienne Lau

2012-10-25T11:59:00-04:00

... with New York as her project's chosen location, Lau explored the spatial possibilities offered by informal street vending, eventually inverting, in her words, the concept of the floating market. Boat-like structures are, instead, routed through the sky via rails, lifts, and crossings bolted onto or otherwise suspended from the fronts of buildings.