Archinect - News

Penn State Architectural Engineering professor recognized by UN for work in sustainable buildings

2021-11-08T14:07:00-05:00

A professor of architectural engineering at Penn State by the name of James Freihaut has been recognized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Committee on Sustainable Energy for his work in improving sustainability and safety in buildings. During the committee’s 30th Jubilee session on September 22, Freihaut was honored for his contributions over the past 30 years.

Freihaut’s research focuses on building mechanical systems, with specific interests in indoor air quality and building science, combined heat and power systems, distributed energy systems, enclosed space air quality issues, and system constraints on air treatment/filtration solutions.

The UNECE Committee on Sustainable Energy’s work is designed to improve access to affordable and clean energy and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the carbon footprint of the energy sector. The focus is on energy efficiency, cleaner electricity production from fossil fuels, renewable energy, natural gas, and ...

What past designs for outer space can teach us about the future

2018-08-20T14:45:00-04:00

A drawing in [Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's] 1883 manuscript Free Space might be the first depiction of humans in orbital weightlessness. Four figures float in a spherical spaceship, each pointed in a different direction, disoriented... This basic design — primary thruster, secondary retro rockets, axial gyros for orientation — has been used by all crewed Russian and American spacecraft to date, including the International Space Station.

Looking back at the history of outer space design, Fred Scharmen brings past innovations into the present with applications for our future. Starting back in 1883 with the first design for humans in outer space (seen below), Konstantin Tsiolkovsky imagined a new way of thinking about spatial design.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Free Space, 1883. Image: Russian Academy of Sciences.

Scharmen follows this path of design up through 1975 with Princeton physicist Gerard O’Neill's project, funded by NASA, to develop habitats for civilization in space. A team of engineers, space scientists, physicists, artists, urban planners, and architects were assembled to create isolated and controlled interiors for humans to live in.

Bernal Sphere, 1975. Image: Rick Guidice/NASA Ames Research Center.

Habitats like the Bernal Sphere were created as exercises in imagining completely new systems of design. Scharmen advocates that these outer space design exercises are the key to innovation for design both on and...

Startup Katerra wants to revolutionize the construction industry

2018-06-27T15:18:00-04:00

A Menlo Park company called Katerra announced that it had acquired Michael Green Architecture, a 25-person architecture firm in Vancouver, British Columbia. On June 12, the company revealed that it had bought another, larger architecture firm, Atlanta-based Lord Aeck Sargent. This comes five months after Katerra raised $865 million in venture capital from funders led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund, which has also invested heavily in the co-working startup WeWork.

Startup Katerra looks to revolutionize the construction industry through streamlining the entire process with their design-build model. The company has acquired Michael Green Architecture, known for designing tall wood buildings, and Lord Aeck Sargent.

With these two firms obtained, Katerra will now consolidate by designing and building its products in house. Michael Green Architecture's influence can be seen as Katerra is developing a catalog of mass timber products for residential and commercial building projects. Uniquely Katerra has also created a system to guarantee price early on, a rarity in the industry.

How financial technology benefits from architectural design

2018-04-16T16:13:00-04:00

Design lies at the heart of both architecture and software. People continuously try to define what design is (which maybe means designers are not good at designing design), and the reason is perhaps because there is no single type of design but several. Here I’m going to talk about three that are relevant to both architects and fintech: blueprint-based design, recipe-based design, and systems design.

David Galbraith, previously featured in our Working Out of the Box series, explores what financial technology can learn from architectural design by diving into three design types. Galbraith has worked for Norman Foster and Fisher Park, and is currently a partner with Anthemis Group, a VC firm that focuses on financial services.

"The Life Aquatech" by thinkTANK fuses aesthetics and performance with hydronics

2013-10-01T17:37:00-04:00

After 16 months of computational and fabrication research into building system technology, a team of students known as thinkTANK created "The Life Aquatech" for their thesis project at the AA Design Research Laboratory (AADRL). Prioritizing human comfort in terms of temperature, the structure has a self-regulating hydronic system that behaves more like a biological mechanism instead of the standard HVAC system. Additionally, the water-based system easily fuses with the building's contoured aesthetics and doesn't compromise performance.

Here's the project description and images that thinkTANK sent to us:

"The Life Aquatech investigates the relationship between the building systems that mediate between interior and exterior and architectural design by shifting from air-based systems to a water-based system.

Human comfort is one of the main drivers of the investigation, seeking an ideal relationship between the user’s comfort in relation to temperature and how the building can sel...