Archinect - News

Material Bank pushes the future of material discovery and sampling

2020-06-16T12:30:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by Material Bank

Material Bank is the world’s largest material marketplace, providing the fastest and most sustainable way to search and sample materials. It simplifies the complex process of material search and sampling by enabling architecture and design professionals to search hundreds of thousands of materials such as paint, flooring, and textiles across hundreds of brands on a single site.

Streamlining the material sampling process, Material Bank focuses on the client and their needs through an expedited search and sampling system.

Image courtesy of Material Bank

Architecture and design firms spend countless hours searching for the right textiles, flooring samples, paint options, and more. Through Material Bank's propriety database, the need for fumbling through large, clunky catalogues will cease to exist thanks to the company's powerful database and ultra-fast logistics hub. Having samples ready for next day presentations can make or break signing ...

Clean energy jobs evaporate amid COVID-19

2020-04-20T12:53:00-04:00

More than 106,000 clean energy jobs were eliminated in the month of March due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, according to an analysis of unemployment data by BW Research Partnership and E2. The layoffs reflect a 3% drop in overall industry employment.

According to Smart Cities Dive, the layoffs come as hundreds of clean energy-related manufacturing plants have closed, including those producing building materials and solar/wind power infrastructure. The largest drops have been seen Hawaii (6.4%), Pennsylvania (6.2%) and North Carolina (5.9%), while California lost the most clean energy jobs overall (19,949), Smart Cities Dive reports. It is projected that the industry could lose up to 500,000 which would be roughly 15 percent of its workforce.

LafargeHolcim Awards for Sustainable Construction announces a final call for competition submissions, $2 million in prizes

2020-01-09T12:40:00-05:00

This post is brought to you by LafargeHolcim Foundation

Entries in the 6th International LafargeHolcim Awards for Sustainable Construction will close on February 25, 2020. The competition seeks projects by professionals as well as bold ideas from the Next Generation that combine sustainable construction solutions with architectural excellence. The Awards foreground projects and concepts from architecture, engineering, urban planning, materials science, construction technology, and related fields.

Organized by the LafargeHolcim Foundation, the world’s most significant competition in sustainable design takes place in parallel across five geographic regions – each with its own jury of renowned and independent specialists. The regional juries are headed by Jeannette Kuo, Karamuk Kuo Architects, Switzerland (Europe), Reed Kroloff, Illinois Institute of Technology, USA (North America), Loreta Castro Reguera, Taller Capital, Mexico (Latin America), Mariam Kamara, atelier masōmī, Niger (Mid...

Architect Alejandro Aravena receives 2019 ULI J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development

2019-07-23T20:35:00-04:00

The Urban Land Institute (ULI) is a nonprofit organization that focuses on education and research initiatives supporting responsible land use and sustainability practices. This year the J.C. Nichols Prize has been awarded to Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena.

In a recent press release ULI trustee Jodie W. McLean shares, "One of Alejandro's greatest accomplishments is the process in which he's connected architecture and working with communities, taking care to include people's ideas on how to make a better environment to improve all parts of the community. He doesn't just draw solutions, he strives (for his work) to be part of the solution."

Founder of the Santiago-based architecture firm ELEMENTAL along with Gonzalo Artega, Juan Cerda, Victor Oddo, and Diego Torres, many of Aravena's projects, have reflected a simplistic and holistic design approach. Aravena has shared with the UCI, "When we crea...