Archinect - News

GSAPP launches interdisciplinary affordable housing lab

2019-09-16T14:15:00-04:00

The Columbia University Gradate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation has launched a new interdisciplinary research initiative called the Columbia GSAPP Housing Lab. The lab is to be led by GSAPP dean Amale Andraos.

Architect and GSAPP associate professor Hilary Sample has also been named to the school’s first endowed professorship position. GSAPP's new IDC Foundation Professorship of Housing Design is made possible by a $2 million donation from the Institute of Design and Construction Foundation, a group that "provides grants to educational institutions in Greater New York City to advance research and the training of students in fields relating to architectural design, engineering, and building construction," according to the IDC website.

Sample has led the school's housing design curriculum since 2011, including the school’s impressive housing studio, and is a co-founder of architecture firm MOS. MOS recently masterplanned an experimental housing community in Mexico th...

China to sustainably build 10 New York City's worth of space in the next decade

2016-01-06T14:38:00-05:00

In this rush to urbanize, China also has an enormous opportunity to move toward a “new pattern of urbanization.” Chinese cities could fulfill their potential to be the most energy-efficient human habitat rather than stoking energy consumption.

With a projected urban population of one billion by 2030, China needs a few more cities—but it needs them to be sustainable, a challenge that could be met if smart growth and planning is instituted now. According to this article, no perfect eco-city model exists yet, but certain practices could be scaled up to help create urbanities that are both dense yet green, or at least greener than current smog-laden metropolises (hello, Beijing). Archinect has been keenly following different strategies for building large-scale sustainable living situations, including:

• Werner Sobek believes we could live in entirely renewable-energy-powered cities by 2020

• Viennese student dorms may Passively House refugees

• Powering your (SOM-designed) house with your car (and reverse)

Cutting across the Chicago Architecture Biennial: Tatiana Bilbao's solution to Mexico's housing shortage

2015-10-20T19:56:00-04:00

Housing – its affordability, accessibility, and form – is a key preoccupation of the Chicago Architecture Biennial. While not necessarily the core concern for most of the Biennial's participants, housing gets a significant share of the exhibition's floorspace.

Several participants' considerations of contemporary housing issues are exhibited in full-scale, benefitting the visitor with an easily relatable (and, at least by size, literally inhabitable) form. As one of these life-sized installations, Tatiana Bilbao Estudio's sustainable housing project stands out for already being realized outside of the Biennial's walls.

Designed in response to Mexico's housing shortage, referencing the country's overall deficit of 9 million homes, Bilbao's Sustainable Housing project aims to provide a prototype for affordable, adaptable, single-family social housing. After researching with potential users and observing concurrent trends in local social housing design, the firm produced a modified vision...

Philippe Starck + Riko realizes first prototype of custom eco-prefab house

2014-10-17T09:38:00-04:00

First launched in 2013 after years of technological development and collaboration, French designer Philippe Starck and Slovenian wooden prefab building company Riko released the second generation of their customizable Prefabricated Accessible Technological Homes (P.A.T.H.) to the global market just this month. The first P.A.T.H prototype was also recently realized in Montfort, France.

As France works towards its 2020 thermal regulation goal to have all new buildings possess positive energy status, Starck + Riko's prefab homes are packed with high eco-technological systems to allow the homes to produce more energy than they consume. Homeowners have the choice to integrate features like photovoltaic solar panels, wind turbines, rainwater recovery systems, and heat pumps.

Perhaps the most interesting, if not highly marketable, feature of these prefab homes is the variety of mix-and-match design options that cater to homeowners' individual needs and aesthetic preferences. For starters, P....

Italian team wins first place at the Solar Decathlon Europe 2014

2014-07-17T20:32:00-04:00

The top three winners of the Solar Decathlon Europe 2014 were recently announced during the awards ceremony this past weekend in Versailles, France. For two years, the 20 student teams worked to build a full-scale, fully functioning solar-powered house.

(Pictured above) 1st Place/Overall: "Rhome for Dencity" by Team Rhome (Universitá Degli Studi di Roma TRE)

2nd Place: "Philéas" by Atlantic Challenge (Nantes, France)

3rd Place: "A Home with a Skin" by Prêt-à-loger (TU Delft, The Netherlands)
(Previously on Archinect)

Head over to Bustler for more.

Winning designs of Cambodian Sustainable Housing competition now built

2014-04-18T13:45:00-04:00

It's a well-known fact that a safe and comfortable home is essential to one's well-being. From Building Trust International's 2013 "The Future of Sustainable Housing in Cambodia" competition, over 600 registered entrants proposed sustainable housing solutions for low-income families in Cambodia. The jury -- which also comprised of the families who moved into their new homes -- chose 3 joint-winning designs recently constructed in Phnom Penh.

The winners are:

Courtyard House by Jess Lumley & Alexander Koller (UK)

Open Embrace by Keith Greenwald and Lisa Ekle (USA)

Wet + Dry House by Mary Ann Jackson, Ralph Green, Muhammad Kamil & Nick Shearman of Visionary Design Development Pty Ltd. (Australia)

More details on Bustler.

Also check out our recent feature of Building Trust International's "Moved to Care" competition results.

Richard Rogers' Homeshell built in 24 hours at London's Royal Academy

2013-08-20T14:33:00-04:00

The pre-fabricated, flatpack homes of Pritzker laureate Richard Rogers are a centerpiece for his 50-year retrospective, “Richard Rogers: Inside Out”, currently at London's Royal Academy of Arts until Oct. 13. The homes, which are an adaptation of his 2007 Oxley Woods housing development, are described as "stepping away from the traditional mud and mess of the domestic building site" and with a full list of pros: easily adaptable, lightweight, energy-efficient, low-cost, fire- and water-retardant, even earthquake and hurricane-proof, and of course, innovative -- just to name a few.

The pieces of the 3-story technicolor Homeshell arrived at the RA last week. It was fully assembled within 24 hours, making a clear statement in the debate for the wider availability of cost- and energy-efficient, mass-production homes in Britain.

Watch the video below to see a time-lapse of the house's construction.
And click here for another video that gives an exclusive look into Rogers' retrospe...

Artist Damien Hirst's eco-homes vision to regenerate town is unveiled

2012-02-18T19:45:00-05:00

ARTIST Damien Hirst has unveiled plans to build more than 500 landmark eco-homes in Ilfracombe, which he hopes will regenerate the town and provide a national blueprint for environmental housing. Architects working for Hirst, said to be the richest living artist in the world, hope to submit a planning application for the development at Winsham Farm in six months.