“We are simply not making significant strides in crucial metrics that predict building performance,” states Greg Mella, FAIA, Director of Sustainable Design at SmithGroupJJR and co-chair of the AIA 2030 Working Group, in a new report that gauges the progress made by firms voluntarily... View full entry
high-intensity LED streetlights ... emit unseen blue light that can disturb sleep rhythms and possibly increase the risk of serious health conditions, including cancer and cardiovascular disease. [...]
Some [researchers] noted that exposure to the blue-rich LED outdoor lights might decrease people’s secretion of the hormone melatonin. Secreted at night, melatonin helps balance the reproductive, thyroid and adrenal hormones and regulates the body’s circadian rhythm of sleeping and waking.
— washingtonpost.com
While the American Medical Association cautions cities to re-evaluate their use of high-intensity LED lights for health reasons, others have pointed out that most televisions and computers also emit the blue light wavelength found to be potentially harmful. Aside from human health concerns, LEDs... View full entry
How many lives could be spared, the researchers then asked, if the city planted more trees and grass, replaced dark asphalt and concrete with light-colored and reflective roofs and pavement, and cut back on the excess heat seeping out of buildings and the tailpipes of cars and buses? — The New Yorker
Madeline Ostrander visited Louisville Kentucky, to learn how one city is trying to cool it. With an increase in urban deforestation, extreme heat waves and global climate change, the urban heat-island effect is now a concern for politicians and non-profits. Not just researchers... View full entry
Back in May, Foster + Partners unveiled their design for the Droneport, a modular shell-like structure that is constructed with local labor from earthen bricks and thin compressed tiles to create loading areas for food and medical-aid bearing transport drones. A version of the Droneport was built... View full entry
Bjarke Ingels has found the elusive silver lining in global sea level rise and the European affordable housing crisis in the form of "Urban Rigger," a series of inexpensive student housing complexes that are designed to float in the sea, especially in those cities which have dense urban cores next... View full entry
Day one of Heliomorphism, the inaugural conference convened by the new research arm of the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Office for Urbanization, ended with Thom Mayne of Morphosis Architects finally breaking through the jargon and superficiality of the topic at hand. The theme of the... View full entry
"Humanity went through stone age, went through ice age, and today, going through plastic age. We need to find solution,” explains Robert Bezeau, the man intent on amending the global reach of plastic waste by building houses out of it. A transplant to Panama from Montreal, he has started... View full entry
Designed by three architects, one Cuban and two Italian, the new schools were constructed in flamboyant, sinuous forms deliberately reflecting the local landscape. Built in brick and terracotta as a pragmatic response to the US embargo of imported steel, ... these were a confident repudiation of Western-style International Modernism. But of the five original schools in the complex, only two were completed, as the deepening relationship with the USSR prompted disdain for such exotic forms — theartnewspaper.com
More on Archinect:Unfinished Spaces premieres tomorrow night on PBS; Archinect talks to the filmmakerHow Havana tries to come out of its crumbling shell without betraying Cuba's revolutionary rootsSelling Cuba (Gehry's already there)The promises and problems of a Cuban architecture marketRicardo... View full entry
Beating out SOM and Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, the Portland-based firm ZGF Architects has taken the number one spot in Architect Magazine's annual ranking of the fifty best architectural firms. The ranking, which evaluates firms using the criteria of Business, Sustainability, and... View full entry
The project, which is being designed by UM SoA’s Responsive Architecture and Design Lab (RAD-UM Lab), will be built next to the Yucatán Science and Technology Park (YSTP), established by the National Autonomous University of Mexico. RAD-UM Lab specializes in technology-based designing and the “internet of things,” everyday objects that can collect data and connect to modern tech. — The Miami Hurricane
The University of Miami School of Architecture continues to experiment in the realm of responsive architecture, this time at an urban scale. Zenciti is a proposed "smart city" to be located in the Yucatan Peninsula where the gathering of data will play a prominent role. Information technology... View full entry
The South Sea Pearl Eco-Island development is funded by HNA Group and will include houses, hotels, a cruise ship port, yacht harbour, spa and theme park. [...]
The jury said the “singular and clear” design would “create a beautiful, iconic form rising naturally out the landscape, recalling the volcanic caldera of the area, and shape the island into a continuous structure that would be an extremely efficient compaction of resort, retail, and housing."
— globalconstructionreview.com
The "eco" stands for... well, it depends. To HNA Group: “This proposal is one for a truly a human-made island that celebrates all that makes such water-bound places so attractive and beautiful, while contributing to our understanding of deep, intrinsic ecology.” To the Permanent Court of... View full entry
Once known as the city of single family homes, Los Angeles is now developing high-density housing complexes, not only in downtown, but according to this Urban Land article, on the traditionally reluctant-to-develop West Side.The developments mark a shift in how Los Angeles conceptualizes living... View full entry
The building sector has a uniquely intimate relationship to global warming. One the one hand, cities consume 78% of the world’s energy and are responsible for more than 60% of global carbon emissions; building maintenance accounts for nearly 50% of energy usage and construction is one of the... View full entry
The 6.2 magnitude earthquake that hit central Italy on August 24 reduced the medieval towns of Amatrice, Accumoli and Pescara del Tronto to ruins, and has claimed the lives of at least 290 people. With over 3,000 people displaced by the quake's damage, Italy's prime minister Matteo Renzi called on... View full entry
“Right now (the industry is) setting targets of 30 to 40 per cent reduction in energy savings from the current business as usual. I think that’s just not enough. I am for net zero,” he says. [...]
“The time scale between what we know can be done and should be done, and when the technology and processes become the norm, needs to be shortened. Currently it takes about 10 to 15 years.”
— eco-business.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:Masdar abandons its dream of becoming the first zero-carbon cityFrance Mandates "Green Roofs" for all new buildings2015 Solar Decathlon winner Stevens Institute of Technology addresses post-Sandy resiliency with the SURE HOUSEAlso, don't miss Deans List... View full entry
