A professor of architecture from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte has been awarded a $1 million grant for the development of windows that incorporate screens of microalgae. Professor Kyoung Hee Kim, who has spent decades researching the topic, believes her “biochromic windows”... View full entry
A Dubai-based developer named URB has entered the fray of futuristic community planning in the region after publishing plans for XZero City, a pedestrian-friendly, net-zero carbon community it says will eventually grow to accommodate up to 100,000 people. Billed as a “new paradigm in green urban... View full entry
The adoption of WELL Certification during the past eight years has been nothing short of incredible—the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) has just crossed the 4 billion mark for square footage enrolled to pursue WELL Certification, which means more than 36,000 spaces in more than 120 countries, serving more than 17 million people every day. — Multi-Housing News
Rachel Hodgdon, President & CEO of the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) and former U.S. Green Building Council Knowledge SVP and Center for Green Schools Director, shared with Multi-Housing News that the institute is currently in development of a single-family residential certification... View full entry
BIG has just released details for a new project called Masterplan Esbjerg Strand in Denmark they say will host a “completely new education platform that will rethink the traditional education system and campus in the country.” The initiative will entail the creation of a 90,500-square-meter... View full entry
Engineers at RMIT University have developed a method to use disposable personal protective equipment (PPE) to make concrete stronger, providing an innovative way to significantly reduce pandemic-generated waste. [...]
Joint lead author, Dr Rajeev Roychand, said there was real potential for construction industries around the world to play a significant role in transforming this waste into a valuable resource.
— Science Daily
According to the RMIT researchers, an incredible 54,000 tons of PPE waste has been produced daily since the start of the pandemic. "With a circular economy approach, we could keep that waste out of landfill while squeezing the full value out of these materials to create better products &mdash... View full entry
Historic England is taking action as preservation advocates in the country prepare for what could be a seminal decision that might alter the face of building conservation in the UK for years to come. More than 50% of the country's historic department stores have reportedly closed since... View full entry
Electric car company Polestar has overseen the construction of KOJA, a treehouse designed by Finnish designer Kristian Talvitie which they say balances architectural beauty with a commentary on the climate emergency. KOJA. Image © Polestar Originally awarded an honorable mention at the... View full entry
The timing couldn’t be more urgent. As Lang notes, 80% of the buildings projected to exist in 2050, the year of the UN’s net zero carbon emissions target, have already been built. The critical onus on architects and developers, therefore, is to retrofit, reuse and reimagine our existing building stock, making use of the “embodied carbon” that has already been expended, rather than contributing to escalating emissions with further demolition and new construction. — The Guardian
Tonkin Liu’s Stephen Lawrence Prize-winning Water Tower project is cited as one of many examples of the growing influence of adaptive reuse in the market as evangelized in Ruth Lang’s new book Building for Change, which is due out in September from the German publisher Gestalten. In a... View full entry
A group of 49 arts institutions has been awarded a total of $3 million in clean energy grants as part of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation’s Frankenthaler Climate Initiative (FCI), now in its second year. The Initiative is part of a larger $10 million effort being developed along with RMI and... View full entry
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has announced an ambitious new city-wide plan that would eliminate the use of fossil fuels in new developments and major renovations in an effort to take "every possible step to climate action." If passed, the Home Rule Petition to the state’s new Bill H.5060 would make... View full entry
Researchers from the American Chemical Society have developed solar panels that can take on a range of colors without sacrificing their efficiency, improving their attractiveness and, thus, their marketability. As the popularity of solar panels has grown, their application isn’t... View full entry
Last month, we used our Job Highlights series to profile an opportunity to design rural getaways at the full-service Brooklyn studio HUTS. The role offered an example of architectural careers intersecting with popular culture; in this case, the alluring cliché of leaving a bustling city to find... View full entry
This post is brought to you by Microsol Resources With the passing of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), expectations about the infrastructure sector in the U.S. have heightened. That legislation will be both a boon to the sector, but it also has the potential to exacerbate the... View full entry
A new report from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has outlined the potential impacts and trade benefits of the provisions included in the Biden Administration’s recently passed Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, that is set to be signed into law in the coming days. The $... View full entry
California Governor Gavin Newsom has unveiled a new plan to enable the state to secure its water supply in the face of a hotter, drier climate. The strategy is in response to a prediction that California’s existing water supply could diminish by up to 10% by 2040, the equivalent of losing more... View full entry