Archinect - News

In many ways, the climate future is already here

2020-11-02T11:20:00-05:00

Kunkel thinks a hybrid between Indigenous and Western architecture styles could lead to more sustainable designs, ones that incorporate modern technology to achieve the same qualities found in the place-based architecture perfected by Indigenous people over thousands of years.

Spaces of Opportunity: Phase 1 (under construction)

Jessica Kutz on how Phoenix and other communities across America, are already having to adapt to extreme heat plus other impacts of climate change. At the same time these communities are already developing solutions; from "smarter" cities utilizing more accurate measuring and modeling, to planting more trees and re-purposing vacant lots for farming and open space. Or re-discovering, while also re-inventing, indigenous and vernacular architecture.

An Archinect op-ed by Joseph Kunkel, This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land—COVID-19’s Impact on Indian Country

Is it time to ban all-glass skyscrapers?

2019-07-31T19:02:00-04:00

“If you’re building a greenhouse in a climate emergency, it’s a pretty odd thing to do to say the least,” said Simon Sturgis, an adviser to the government and the Greater London Authority, as well as chairman of the Royal Institute of British Architects sustainability group. “If you’re using standard glass facades you need a lot of energy to cool them down, and using a lot of energy equates to a lot of carbon emissions.”

As the global community continues to mobilize against the rising threat of climate collapse, cities and other entities are moving toward banning or limiting the future development of all-glass skyscrapers due to the buildings' high energy demands, according to a report in The Guardian.

For decades, designers have relied on technological approaches like double- and triple-glazing facade units to maximize the energy performance of these designs, but as the limited lifespan of these systems comes under question, it has become clear that more drastic efforts are needed.

Simon Sturgis, chairman of the Royal Institute of British Architects sustainability group, told The Guardian, “To mitigate the amount of energy used to cool these buildings, you have to produce a really complicated façade, which is usually triple glazed.”

Sturgis added, “But double glazed units and laminated glass don’t last very long – 40 years or so. So you have to replace your facade every 40 years, that’s also not...

Paris to reformat its Boulevard Périphérique

2019-05-28T21:06:00-04:00

Cars and trucks on one of Europe’s most notoriously congested and polluted urban highways would not only be obliged to drive more slowly, they’d have less room to do it: The number of beltway lanes open to all traffic would also be slashed from eight to six. One lane will be reserved for public, emergency, and zero-emissions vehicles. The other one is to be devoted to trees.

Paris officials are making plans to redesign the traffic lanes for the city's 22-mile-long ring road, Boulevard Périphérique.

A recent report calls for retrofitting the eight-lane highway as part of a wider effort to crack down on car usage across the city. Since taking office in 2014, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has successfully pushed the city to lessen its autocentric configuration by pedestrianizing the streets surrounding the Seine, among other efforts.

A relic of post-World War II urban planning logic, Boulevard Périphérique was built between 1958 and 1973 on the former site of the Thiers Wall, the final remaining set of fortifications surrounding Paris. Today, the concrete highway is a source of toxic air pollution and noise, qualities the coming retrofits are aimed at addressing.

ICYMI: A guide to gutting your storm-damaged house

2018-09-23T14:18:00-04:00

Gutting a badly inundated, 1,500-square-foot house packed with stuff is likely to take 12 workers about three days, said Kevin Fitzpatrick, who managed the clearing-out and internal demolition of dozens of homes after Hurricane Katrina for Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New Orleans...Before they start, they all need tetanus shots, goggles, hats, boots, gloves and masks certified to block mold spores

Following Hurricane Florence, Michelle Krupa republished, a 5 step guide to recovery (from 2017) for those affected by flooding or storm-damage.

MVRDV makes 5 proposals for resiliency in San Francisco Bay Area

2018-09-13T19:00:00-04:00

At San Francisco's Global Climate Action Summit yesterday, MVRDV presented a report offering 5 recommendations to Bay Area officials on the region’s plans for a resilient future. Their report, titled Too Much + Too Little, was created as part of the NL Resilience Collective. Below are the firm's 5 proposals for the city:

1. Update long-term plans to include water management and climate adaptation
2. Install a Bay Area Resiliency Commissioner
3. Understand your system
4. Develop a set of design principles for local communities across the bay
5. Start both big and small

Read the full descriptions for each recommendation here.

Taking up the challenge of the back loop

2017-07-01T19:40:00-04:00

Like a Shell futurologist, one can imagine multiple disastrous futures for Miami. Will it become a southern Super Venice, a la Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York of 2140...Perhaps the hard realism of Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife is more apt...Or imagine a super Katrina resulting in something a little more Odds Against Tomorrow:

from Key Largo John Pennekamp nature center, by author, February 12, 2017

Stephanie Wakefield penned some Field Notes from the Anthropocene, inspired by a recent honeymoon in Miami Beach. In which she explores 'experimentation' as a mode of dwelling in the Anthropocene and the emancipatory possibilities offered by the concept of the 'back loop.'

Megacities and the Future of Warfare

2017-05-15T00:14:00-04:00

The conclusions of the SSG research are clear: megacities are unavoidable, they are potentially the most challenging environment the Army has ever faced, and the Army is unprepared to operate in them...by 2030 there will be 662 cities around the world with at least one million inhabitants (compared to 512 today) and 60 percent of the world’s population will live in cities. The potential for operations in dense urban areas will rise correspondingly, presenting a challenge the Army cannot ignore.

Back in February, Maj. John Spencer made the case for why It's Time to Create a Megacities Combat Unit. A few days ago, he fleshed out the concept, by detailing "What would such a unit look like?"

Interesting to note, that rather than the more au courant image of a generic middle eastern/Arab city, the Major used a photo of Ho Chi Minh/Saigon for the essay published in Feb. Though the more recent essay, did use a photo of the rooftops in Cairo. Future mil-tech referenced includes; hover bikes, enhanced counter–unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS) and soldiers skilled at Cyber Electromagnetic Activities (CEMA).

If you are interested in further U.S. Army Futures Ideation, check out SciTech Futures, where past exercises have explored everything from; Defending – and hacking – “Intelligent” buildings and Autonomous Infrastructure Destruction/Maintenance bots, to the simpler Crowd sourcing (of) innovation.

aka *Old people afraid of the sky in big cities, featuring white streets and roofs and fast cheap trees

2016-09-22T14:20:00-04:00

How many lives could be spared, the researchers then asked, if the city planted more trees and grass, replaced dark asphalt and concrete with light-colored and reflective roofs and pavement, and cut back on the excess heat seeping out of buildings and the tailpipes of cars and buses?

Madeline Ostrander visited Louisville Kentucky, to learn how one city is trying to cool it. With an increase in urban deforestation, extreme heat waves and global climate change, the urban heat-island effect is now a concern for politicians and non-profits. Not just researchers and scientists.

* h/t @Bruce Sterling

Imagine New York City becoming something like a 22nd-century Venice

2016-09-08T11:58:00-04:00

The deluge will begin slowly, and irregularly, and so it will confound human perceptions of change. Areas that never had flash floods will start to experience them, in part because global warming will also increase precipitation. High tides will spill over old bulkheads when there is a full moon. People will start carrying galoshes to work. All the commercial skyscrapers, housing, cultural institutions that currently sit near the waterline will be forced to contend with routine inundation

Andrew Rice on why even locals who believe climate change is real, have a hard time grasping that their city will almost certainly be flooded beyond recognition.

The city must become adaptable

2016-05-30T06:39:00-04:00

For the moment, we remain largely wedded to superficial visual futures. The likelihood is that the prevailing chrome and chlorophyll vision of architects and urbanists will become as much an enticing, but outdated, fashion as the Raygun Gothic of The Jetsons or the cyberpunk of Blade Runner

Darran Anderson peers into the near future, at the intersection of climate change, technology, megacities and "survivability".

Bruce Sterling remarked "It's pretty good" and #ArchitectureFiction #BigCities #AfraidofSky #OldPeople

Architect turned sea-flooding specialist keeps Panama City afloat

2016-04-21T18:33:00-04:00

Banfield’s dedication to environmental issues was born by chance in 2000, when she moved with her husband and three children to Clayton...Together with Carlos Varela, her legal-minded neighbor, Banfield created a community association to defend the rainforest. She remained on the front lines for years, sacrificed her architectural career and eventually began public campaigns for a variety of environmental causes.

Although the Harvard GSD formed the Office for Urbanization recently to study the effects of sea rise and climate change, Vice Mayor of Panama City Raisa Banfield has taken a more direct approach, physically halting flood-prone projects during construction and connecting with like-minded colleagues around the globe to find solutions.

As the article notes, "As glaciers melt and oceans flow higher, 'sea-level rise is an issue on almost every coast,' says Rosetta Elkin, landscape architect and professor at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. It’s particularly tough in Panama City, because the entire town was built too far to the east, 'where sea levels are precipitously low' — thanks in part to American bases — says Arosemena. As Banfield goes through the rigmarole of finding a solution and calling together a global group of problem-solvers like the Dutch, she may stand a chance at creating some scaffolding for the many other cities that will have to look this same issue in th...

Stay comfortable during climate change in a rowhouse

2015-03-20T12:43:00-04:00

In both cold and hot conditions, the study found, a rowhouse would be the best place to be. Being attached to other houses limits its exposure and keeps it better insulated

Ginia Bellafante reported on the release of a report by the New York City Panel on Climate Change. Titled 'Building the Knowledge Base for Climate Resiliency' it assesses impact of climate trends and advises resiliency and monitoring. Another group, the Urban Green Council also found the rowhouse (compared to a single-family detached house or glass towers) to be particularly energy resilient in times of disaster or extreme weather events.

Estimating resilience and vulnerability of major world cities

2014-05-12T00:47:00-04:00

As a profit making company, albeit with a sense of stewardship, our research on resilience is commercially motivated. Our approach helps us to create portfolios of real estate assets which are resilient and operate in emerging markets fully cognisant of the risks.

To quote Bruce Sterling "*British real estate firm tries to figure out where the investors’ money will be safe. Results are not encouraging".

A barometer of risk

2014-04-28T01:04:00-04:00

“At the end of the day, we’re going to be in a better spot...You just stepped the entire gentrification of Ortley Beach forward five years because everything had to be rebuilt" - Eric J. Birchler, the owner of Birchler Realtors

Ronda Kaysen examines how Hurricane Sandy hit the reset button on the Jersey Shore. Post - Sandy redevelopment is booming. Though some worry about loosing the "blue-collar flavor in the area" and others caution that buyers "are taking some real risk" by not worrying about long-term effects of global climate change and rising sea-levels.

The future will not be dry

2014-04-03T15:54:00-04:00

Rather than cooking up designs in their Manhattan studios and then peddling them with PowerPoint presentations, the teams attended meetings by the score...The result is a series of designs by committee — not a single camel, but a whole herd of options.

Justin Davidson reviews the proposals from the ten finalists for Rebuild by Design, a competition for coastal resilience projects that offers its winners a slice of the federal government’s $4 billion disaster-recovery pie.

Eko Atlantic - privatized vs. collective, ecological survival

2014-01-22T10:02:00-05:00

The disaster capitalists behind Eko Atlantic have seized on climate change to push through pro-corporate plans to build a city of their dreams, an architectural insult to the daily circumstances of ordinary Nigerians.

Martin Lukacs argues that Eko Atlantic, a new privatized city to be built near Lagos, Nigeria, is the perfect illustration of how the super-rich will exploit the crisis of climate change to increase inequality and seal themselves off from its impacts.

Too Big to Flood?

2013-04-15T12:10:00-04:00

over the next half-century these coastal megacities may grow “too big to flood.” But flood they will unless they dramatically revise their growth strategies and undertake major infrastructure projects

Bruce Stutz explores how as economic activity and populations continue to expand in coastal urban areas, particularly in Asia, hundreds of trillions of dollars of infrastructure, industrial and office buildings, and homes are increasingly at risk from intensifying storms and rising sea levels.

h/t Bruce Sterling

Editor's Picks #293

2012-12-11T02:07:00-05:00

For the latest in the Showcase series Archinect featured Villa Solaire by JKA + FUGA as well as Folkwang Library by Max Dudler. The Folkwang Library took advantage of a special photographic/glazing technique to create the illusion of the facade being fashioned from the stone material itself. Save Western pointed out "It looks like the original proposal was for actual marble, which came back astronomically expensive, so they VE'd to curtain wall instead."

For the latest in the Showcase series Archinect featured Villa Solaire by JKA + FUGA as well as Folkwang Library by Max Dudler.

Villa Solaire in Pied de La Plagne, Morzine, France is an ancient farmhouse converted into a luxury rental villa. The project made use of a traditional technique of decorative cut-outs within the wood strips resulting in a uniform perforated cladding, which wraps the whole facade.

The Folkwang Library located in Essen-Werden, Germany is an institutional project which , combined musicological programs/collections from three institutions under one roof. The Folkwang Library also took advantage of a special photographic/glazing technique to create the illusion of the facade being fashioned from the stone material itself.

royc commented "it's a bit too literal of a reinterpretation for me...I love the knife edge though, it's nicely done. I'd be really interested to see the interior of that space, with the stairs/atrium". Save Western pointed out ...