Archinect - News

This 3D-printed, hands-free door opener could be a quick fix to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 and other illnesses

2020-03-28T12:50:00-04:00

In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, many architects, designers, and students are turning to 3D-printing to rapidly produce much needed equipment, like protective gear for healthcare workers and respirator valves for sick patients. In their own effort to help slow the spread of the coronavirus, Belgian manufacturing company Materialise recently released free design files for a hands-free door opener that makes you use your wrist (ideally covered by a sleeve) instead of your bare hands to touch door handles, which are a hotspot for germs. Even MayoClinic has printed the door openers to be used in their facilities.

This add-on door opener doesn't require drilling holes or replacing your door's existing handle. According to Materialise, you only have to fasten the two 3D-printed pieces together with screws over your existing door handle. The company also created different designs to fit over different types of door handles. Or, you can adapt their design to make your own.

Last but no...

Legos, architecture, and miniature worlds

2019-08-28T18:52:00-04:00

Back in 2008, Lego launched its series of architectural kits with structures such as the Empire State Building, Fallingwater, the Villa Savoye, and countless others. "Architects operate in grids and if you analyze these, in pen and paper over blueprints, then you can derive the best translation into Lego bricks," said Rok Zgalin Kobe, senior designer at Lego, in a CNN article.

Kobe talked about how the Lego version of a building is not meant to only represent that real structure, but it should also, "tell a story about how it came to be built." He illustrated an example of the Empire State Building model and talked about how the real one was built using large steel girders. From this picture, the Lego version also has its own "replica of the steel skeleton inside the building," CNN reports.

Legos have also attracted a wide range of "superfans" who go to great lengths to recreate works of architecture completely by themselves. CNN writes how Tom Alphin, the author of The Lego Archit...

This company lets you build your dream A-frame for less than $2k

2019-06-10T13:52:00-04:00

All the blueprints and material specifications needed to put it together are included in a cardboard box. They come both on a flash drive in PDF format and printed on 36-by-24-inch sheets. The company says that the package also includes reading materials about the house, discount codes to build some of the stuff you need at providers all around the United States, as well as a door knob, a hammer, and a hat with the company logo.

A company that once sold designer trailer homes switched gears after a stalled venture to focus their attention on helping homeowners design their ideal A-frame cabin. For how much you ask? $1,950. As ideal as that sounds, one may be waiting for the catch. However, when Everywhere Inc.'s co-founder Brand Winnie left his tech job in Silicon Valley, he and his wife created Ayfraym. According to Winnie, the inspiration for creating Ayfraym came from his childhood upbringing.

Ayfraym. Image © Everywhere Inc.

"Growing up as a kid, I would always travel to our cabin that my grandpa Fred built in the ’70s,” Winnie says. “It’s up near the Tetons on the border of Idaho and Wyoming, and it’s one of my favorite places on Earth. The cabin my grandfather built was the base camp for all things adventure in the region, and it’s created some of my best memories."

If a family wanted to build a cabin similar to Ayfraym, they would have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to plan out the project in a...

Wallabot peers 4 inches through walls to identify pipes, wires, and other hidden objects

2017-06-01T12:47:00-04:00

The Android-only Wallabot device is apparently designed to help you avoid sawing through a waterline or prematurely snipping an electrical wire by virtue of showing you what lurks beneath your walls before you begin working. The device, which is demonstrated via video below, is paired with your Android and then pressed against the wall, where it renders various objects in a vivid purple, thereby transforming otherwise seemingly boring walls (and other solid objects) into virtual archaeological excavations:

A factory-making factory: Assemble revives manufacturing (sort of)

2017-04-13T17:39:00-04:00

By creating a machine that extrudes shaped clay, Assemble have created a factory that places an emphasis on the physical creation of one's environment (as well as the spontaneous ideas that can develop from working with materials and processes).

It's a throwback to the late 19th/early 20th century days when factories weren't necessarily about dehumanizing automation but rather more about the complexity of manufacturing using all sorts of tools and last-minute problem-solving techniques. This video by Vice gives a thorough tour of the concept, process, and blue-and-white-clad result of Assemble's "A Factory As It Might Be"...

DIY Space, After Ghost Ship: Safety, community and informal venues after Oakland's tragic fire, ft. S. Surface and David Keenan on Archinect Sessions #91

2016-12-08T19:22:00-05:00

Last Friday night, a fire broke out during a concert at the Ghost Ship warehouse in Oakland, California, killing (at present count) 36 people. While the precise cause of the fire is still unknown, the building was rife with code violations that accelerated the fire's damage, many related to its adapted use for living and work-spaces. While criminal investigations are just beginning, local artists worry that the city will use the tragedy to crack down on other adaptive and DIY venues in the Bay Area, restricting access even further to affordable spaces in an already tight housing market.

Within the architecture community, the tragedy has prompted discussions surrounding the safety and vitality of DIY venues, and the long-term effects of such building code violations for gentrification and zoning. To discuss on the podcast, we're joined by two guests who have personal and professional experience with forming community spaces: designer, curator and organizer S. Surface, and David Keenan...

Back to basics: building primitive architecture using only primitive tools

2016-10-12T13:33:00-04:00

Of the countless DIY YouTube channels out there, Primitive Technology has to be one of the most impressive. Starring an unidentified Australian protagonist—known as "Prim" by some within the channel's millions of followers—the videos document our primitive hero building huts, spears, a forge, and all kinds of other tools for survival using only what he finds in the bush of Northern Queensland.

Perhaps one of the most impressive projects, for the labor, time and complexity involved, is the tiled roof hut, complete with in-floor heating and an oven. How's that for design/build?

Despite always appearing shirtless in his videos, Prim still has a t-shirt tan, backing up the channel's origin story as a free-time hobby within a dude's otherwise modern life (although he'd like to pursue it full-time). All of his videos have millions of views, presenting one kind of project each episode, with no narration or introduction—only occasional subtitles—making them remarkable pedagogical resources fo...

The fascinating DIY architecture of these Hungarian summer houses brings back childhood memories

2015-08-18T12:38:00-04:00

One of the strangest places in Hungary lies beside the Tisza River in a village called Gergelyiugornya. Hugged by a bend in the river, it’s a relatively narrow, woody flood basin area packed with small cottages that show an incredibly wide variety of architectural designs and creativity. [...] Most of these houses were built in the 80s, when the workers of socialist Hungary were allowed to build for themselves on small plots of land.

All photos by Attila Nagy. Head over to Gizmodo to continue the architectural walking tour through Gergelyiugornya village and discover more goodies.

Izmir's charming DIY floating docks

2015-02-13T14:15:00-05:00

For months, three architects would meet at the waterfront of Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city. [...] Eventually it came to them – if you really wanted to bring people in Izmir together, transform the waterfront. But the very idea was daunting: Turkey’s bureaucracy is infamous, and a large-scale project to redevelop the waterfront seemed impossible. So the friends [...] built eight floating docks out of plywood.

Relocation or Adaptation: Building a DIY Civilization

2014-06-26T17:47:00-04:00

How do you build a civilization from scratch? According to Open Source Ecology (OSE), the first step is building the right machines.

Started by Marcin Jakubowski in 2003, OSE is a network of farmers, architects, and engineers based in rural Missouri with branches in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and California. According to their website, their mission is “to create a collaborative economic platform that optimizes development, production, and distribution – via open source collaboration – to accelerate innovation to unprecedented levels.”

Basically, the idea is that a self-sufficient community requires proper tools and equipment, which within our current economy are prohibitively expensive both to purchase and maintain. By developing open source industrial machines, OSE hopes to reduce such expenses to a fraction of their current cost while simultaneously eliminating reliance on global corporations.

The eventual goal of OSE is to manufacture the Global Village Construction Set (GVSE), ...