Archinect - News

Students at University of Cape Town grow bio-brick made from human urine

2018-10-29T18:40:00-04:00

Students at the University of Cape Town have developed a bio-brick that mixes sand, bacteria and human urine. Unsurprisingly, it is the world's first building material to be made from the liquid waste high in nitrogen and phosphorous.

The brick is created through a process called microbial carbonate precipitation, a complex reaction that has many applications. It has been used to improve concrete's durability, as a historical preservation technique on stone, and as a way of improving soil.

Here, when urine is mixed with sand and bacteria, the resulting chemical reaction produces calcium carbonate, which hardens the mixture and forms the brick. According to the scientists, it is similar to the way seashells are formed.

In picture are (from left) the Department of Civil Engineering’s Dr Dyllon Randall and his students, Vukheta Mukhari and Suzanne Lambert.

Each brick requires about 25 to 30 liters of urine, or roughly 100 bathroom trips, and is collected from a fertilizer-producing ur...

Architecture as forensic evidence in global crimes against humanity

2018-02-26T15:22:00-05:00

Forensic Architecture [...] is an agency based at Goldsmiths, University of London. The organisation’s founder and director is Eyal Weizman, a British-Israeli architect. Its primary mission is research, to “develop evidentiary systems in relation to specific cases”; in so doing, it acts as “an architectural detective agency”, working with NGOs and human rights lawyers to uncover facts that confound the stories told by police, military, states and corporations.

Weizman conceives of his work as an alternative practice, aiming to create a sub-discipline of architecture using architectural evidence in cases of war crimes or other human rights violations. Calling their activity "counter-forensics", the organization does not take commissions from governments or corporations and does not take political sides leaving them with many enemies.

“We think that architects need to be public figures [...] They should take positions, whatever they do. We map the most extreme and violent forms" explains Weizman.

Reconstruction by Forensic Architecture of the bombing of Rafah, Gaza, 1 August 2014. Image: Forensic Architecture.

Originally focused in Israel and Palestine, Forensic Architecture has taken their practice global to wherever their services are needed such as Kassel, Syria, the disappearance of a student in Mexico, a lethal factory fire in Karachi, and a detention center in Cameroon.

We live in a world where almost everything is exposed to view a...

Exchanging cinderblock for 'shrooms with "fungi bricks"

2017-05-30T12:48:00-04:00

To most people, mushrooms are a food source. To mycologist (mushroom scientist) Philip Ross, fungi are much, much more. In fact, Ross is most passionate about mushrooms’ ability to be used for building materials and it is this is what he primarily focuses his attention on. Recently, the mycologists figured out how to make bricks from growing fungi that are super-strong and water-, mold- and fire resistant.

Referred to as "mycotecture," the mushroom bricks originally were embraced by the art world, but increasingly are being considered for other structural uses.

Stronger and cooler-looking than concrete, the above fungi-brick structure is held together using chopsticks.

Tear down that wall (proposal)

2017-03-14T18:09:00-04:00

Rael writes that one of the most devastating consequences of the wall is “the division of communities, cities, neighborhoods and families, resulting in the erosion of social infrastructure.” When we talked, he wondered how we might create something positive from something so horrible: “Can reform happen through borderland investment? If you build 150 libraries along the border, you’d get a very different outcome.”

The RFP for the border wall is out, but the conscience-bearing architectural community is staying in (and trying to imagine alternatives to this xenophobic concrete smear job). In particular, in this New York Times article they're suggesting building anything but walls, suggesting that perhaps investing in communities instead of splitting them apart is the way to go for the political and social benefit of everyone involved.

Looking to start your own practice? Keep this in mind...

2016-03-23T12:10:00-04:00

In the transitioning state of today's architecture, alongside remarkable new technologies and unprecedented modes of practice, it can be hard to keep things straight. When the market is good, the options can be overwhelming, and the path to achieving your goals might not be so clear – even as you're one step closer to them.

For those just getting out of school and considering starting your own thing, Gem Barton is here to help you drum up motivation, not sweat the small stuff, and stay focused on what's important. Trained as an architect, Barton works as an author, academic and futurist (as well as a Senior Lecturer at Brighton University), and has written and lectured extensively on the state of architecture education and alternative modes of practice. Her recent book, Don't Get a Job... Make a Job: How to make it as a creative graduate is a catalogue of advice from a slew of architects and designers working all over the map – including Assemble, FAT Architecture, Stereotank, WAI Ar...

"The Other Architect" explores alternative practices and radical research projects

2015-10-27T15:59:00-04:00

For as long as architecture has been reduced to a service to society or an “industry” whose ultimate goal is only to build, there have been others who imagine it instead as a field of intellectual research: energetic, critical, and radical. But how can we produce or maintain this position?

The Other Architect, an expansive exhibition that considers "architecture’s potential to identify the urgent issues of our time" through twenty-three case studies from the 1960s to the present, opens tomorrow at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal.

Curated by Giovanna Borasi, the exhibition looks at various groups that have sought to critically intervene in the architectural profession, as well as to mobilize architectural thinking towards an expanded field. If the "normal architect" works within established conditions and using a defined toolset, these "other architects" developed (or borrowed) new methodologies, experimented formally and conceptually, and sought alternative organizational structures.

Architecture witnessed a proliferation of radical experiments beginning in the mid-20th century, resulting in outputs in a variety of a media, such as pamphlets, manifestos, videos, questionnaires, and books. In the exhibition, the material is organized in thematic ga...