Archinect - News

Wing is setting up its drone delivery service in Dallas-Fort Worth

2021-10-21T16:54:00-04:00

Drones will soon be buzzing overhead in Dallas-Fort Worth, bearing small containers filled with Tylenol and Band-Aids. Wing, a subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet, is bringing its drone delivery service to the Texas city, its first densely populated market.

Walgreens will be the first U.S. retailer to employ this new service. For now, just one Walgreens in the Dallas-Fort Worth area will be involved, making deliveries to the city of Fresco and the town of Little Elm. The drones will arrive in small containers that serve as hangars from where the aircraft will be deployed. Walgreens employees will be trained to process orders and load packages onto the delivery drones.

Along with the Walgreens location, Wing plans to establish another drone delivery facility in Frisco Station, an urban, mixed-use development north of Dallas.

According to Wing, this type of service in the U.S. has been limited to smaller towns, where land usage is less crowded and complex. The company attributes their automated drone delivery service’s ability to operate in more urban environments to their aircraft’s advanced flight planning and routing capabilities.

Aerial reforestation by drone: Flash Forest Kickstarter wants to plant a billion trees by 2028

2019-12-26T14:13:00-05:00

[...] a team of Canadian science and engineering graduates is pitching a dream to plant a billion trees by 2028 using drones. The project is dubbed Flash Forest and combines the use of drones with specially-designed pods and an accelerated seed germination process. According to Flash Forest, its technology can plant trees 10 times faster than a single worker and at a cost that is 80 percent cheaper than traditional tree planting methods.

On their Kickstarter page, the team behind the Toronto-based Flash Forest project explains what happens before and after heavy-lift drones pneumatically fire their custom-designed seed pods into the ground: "Before we plant our pods, we pre-germinate the seeds inside using our own 'secret sauce.' This ensures that the seeds have already sprouted before they’re even in the ground and that they have a strong rooting system when they grow. Not only that, but after we plant them we follow up with our spraying drone to remove competition and provide nitrogen and other nutrients for the best chance of success. We continuously monitor our seedlings with the mapping drone to make sure they’re healthy."

Construction teams for Microsoft's new corporate campus outside Seattle use drones to update 100 BIM models in real-time

2019-10-10T17:30:00-04:00

Microsoft's new corporate campus in Redmond, Washington, designed by LMN, NBBJ, WRNS Studio, and ZGF Architects, is being built with a bevy of digital technology tools.

Construction Dive reports that the massive construction project will bring up to 1.3 million square feet of new development to the company's historic corporate office campus. The build-out includes 17 new buildings, each of which will run between 180,000 and 220,000 square feet in size, a Microsoft press release reports. The project includes bringing upgraded accessibility features to the campus while also integrating the development with surrounding landscapes. Berger Partnership will be the lead landscape architect for the development in conjunction with OLIN.

All of this is being brought into being through a data-driven construction process that includes the use of an autonomous drone surveying system that makes weekly passes over the site to create high-accuracy GPS scans of the construction progress.

The surv...

Should drones perform building inspections?

2019-07-17T16:25:00-04:00

Municipal laws in New York City are hampering the city's real estate developers and building owners as they look to embrace the use of drones to perform periodic building and facade inspections on their properties, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

In New York City, owners of buildings rising six stories or more are required to inspect their building facades every five years to assess building safety issues as part of the Facade Inspection and Safety Program (FISP). The process typically involves painstaking visual inspection as well as the erection of extensive temporary scaffolding. Typically, the inspections can cost thousands of dollars to perform while also cluttering sidewalks and overhead areas with the scaffolding elements.

“It’s long been our feeling that it would enable buildings to save a tremendous amount of money if inspection of facades could be done with drones with cameras,” Mary Ann Rothman, executive director of the New York City Council of Coopera...

San Francisco's Salesforce Tower deploys drones to inspect its 1,070-foot-tall facade

2019-03-13T13:56:00-04:00

Salesforce Tower, San Francisco’s tallest building, can be seen for miles around the Bay Area. But to inspect the building’s exterior for potential damage, owner Boston Properties needed to get close. So it enlisted a drone. At 1,070 feet, the tower is a major example of the growing use of drones for building and construction inspections.

The SF Chronicle writes about the increasing deployment of flying high-tech equipment to cut down on the inspection time (and cost) on very large buildings, such as Salesforce Tower: "The small aircraft, which now have high definition cameras, are cheaper, faster and safer than traditional human inspections, said Zeev Braude, CEO of SiteAware, which created the drone software used in the Salesforce Tower inspection."

Despite all the technological advancements, the age of human building facade inspections isn't entirely over yet and, instead, takes to new heights: Meet New York City's fearless rope-access building inspectors.

Fairy Tale Architecture: The Butterfly Dream

2018-12-20T12:08:00-05:00

Fairy tales have transfixed readers for thousands of years, and for many reasons; one of the most compelling is the promise of a magical home. How many architects, young and old, have been inspired by a hero or heroine who must imagine new realms and new spaces — new ways of being in this strange world? Houses in fairy tales are never just houses; they always contain secrets and dreams.

"The Butterfly Dream" by Bernheimer Architecture is the third and final installment of this year's Fairy Tale Architecture series, curated by writer Kate Bernheimer and architect Andrew Bernheimer. ⠀

The team imagined the butterfly in Zhuangzi's famous parable as a drone, collecting data which can be abstracted to explore the transformation of things. The drawings of this story consist of data from the flight of the drone. These data were converted into a flight path, and then a flight-space. This space was then extruded into shapes and volumes, illustrating both the act of flying as well as the act of (detached, remote) seeing.

Thesis project develops drone architecture for adaptable public spaces

2018-09-07T14:49:00-04:00

A recent thesis project from three students explores adaptable architecture using drones and "smart" materials. The project, Cyber Physical Macro Material, uses lightweight carbon fiber building blocks with integrated sensing communication to create dynamic public spaces.

Cyber Physical Macro Material thesis project by Miguel Aflalo, Behrooz Tahanzadeh, and Jingcheng Chen. Image: University of Stuttgart.

The user can program drones to reconfigure the canopy according to the sun's position, providing occupants with optimum shade thorughout the day. The architecture system can also actively rebuild itself to influence the occupants or retreat completely to nearby rooftops.

Cyber Physical Macro Material thesis project by Miguel Aflalo, Behrooz Tahanzadeh, and Jingcheng Chen. Image: University of Stuttgart.

The project was developed by students Miguel Aflalo, Behrooz Tahanzadeh, and Jingcheng Chen within the Integrative Technologies and Architectural Design Research (ITECH) Master Progr...

Conceptual proposal by Humphreys & Partners envisions futuristic mixed-use NYC project with micro units and drone landings

2018-02-21T13:28:00-05:00

Although Mayor Bill de Blasio announced last year new mandates to force building owners to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as a way to fight climate change, a Dallas-based architecture firm has taken the idea of sustainable design to the next level. During last month’s International Builder’s Show, Humphreys & Partners presented a conceptual plan for a mixed-use project on Manhattan’s waterfront. In Pier 2: Apartment of the Future, the architects tackled major issues prevalent in many cities, like affordability and energy efficiency (h/t Curbed NY). The futuristic proposal includes two towers with modular and micro-units, which would boast futuristic amenities like artificial intelligence, drones, home automation and more.

The proposal cites Elon Musk’s Hyperloop proposal as a look into the future of transportation. The firm incorporates the concept of autonomous transportation by including automated parking systems, areas to land drones and energy-generating walkways. On the ground...

Bogota from the Roofs, Streets and Sky by Camilo Mønón Navas

2018-01-26T13:56:00-05:00

To me, everything looks fascinating from the air. But, for some reason, I never expected Bogotá, Colombia, to look so striking.

Colombian artist, Camilo Mønón Navas has produced a series of images titled, Arial Façades, in which Camilo takes various perspectival photographs and assembles them whimsical and fantastical means while bringing his home city of Bogota to the surface through all its cultural glory.

In Camilo's words. "Those buildings, spaces, or architectural complexes that are part of our city and that show us through a drone the incredible details that our city hides from the air...by exploring from the terrace of my apartment–a 10-story building–the structures of the cities from the zenith views.”

Drone Supervisors

2017-11-28T14:41:00-05:00

Following their research into the Droneport—a project that explores the potential of an ‘infrastructural leap’ using cutting edge technology to surmount the challenges of the future—Foster + Partners is now working with Be Tomorrow UK, the UK arm of a leading autonomous drone software developer, to develop a drone-based solution to accurately detect clashes and potential snagging issues on construction sites.

The project aims to create a reliable and cost-effective system that can map construction sites and help compare the as-built environment with the proposed design on a continuous basis, thereby eliminating potentially expensive construction errors and delays. Such a service will offer significant benefits to the construction industry, helping lower overall project costs and risk, while increasing quality and client confidence, for a relatively small investment.

Be Tomorrow has worked on a wide array of drone related research and implementations, from the medical world to the e...

University of Michigan to get $800,000 drone testing lab

2017-08-15T17:54:00-04:00

Autonomous aerial vehicles have a host of applications, researchers say. Large ones can be used for commercial transport and national security. Small drones could survey disaster sites, inspect infrastructures like bridges and wind turbines, gather environmental and atmospheric data, and deliver packages, for example. Package delivery goes beyond Amazon orders.

University of Michigan’s College of Engineering is adding an outdoor fly lab for testing autonomous aerial vehicles to the university’s spate of advanced robotics facilities. Designed by Harley Ellis Deveraux, M-Air will be a netted, four-story complex situated next to the site where the Ford Motor Company Robotics Building will open in late 2019. Construction of the $800,000 M-Air is expected to begin in August and be complete by the end of the year.

“M-Air will allow us to push the edge of our algorithms and equipment in a safe way, where the worst that can happen is it falls from the sky,” said Ella Atkins, professor of aerospace engineering. “With this facility, we can pursue aggressive educational and research flight projects that involve high risk of fly-away or loss-of-control—and in realistic wind, lighting and sensor conditions.”

Amazon submits patent for a drone tower

2017-06-23T15:11:00-04:00

Spotted by The Mercury News, it’s designed for “densely populated” areas. The tower allows drones to fly in and out, acting like a giant beehive, with robotic arms that help snatch them out of the sky. Inside, the core features layers of spokes around one central hub. The spokes are specialized for various purposes, like repairing the drones, or loading them with goods.

Amazon has been experimenting with the use of delivery drones for some time now though this approach to shipping has yet to take off for the e-commerce giant. As they continue testing this prospective delivery method, it is clear the retailer takes the particular vision quite seriously. On Thursday, the company filed a patent with the US Patent and Trademark Office for a drone tower that would essentially be a multi-level fulfillment center for unmanned aerial vehicles.

United States Patent Office