Georgetown (pop. 67,000) last year became the largest city in the United States to be powered entirely by renewable energy.
Previously, the largest U.S. city fully powered by renewables was Burlington, Vermont (pop. 42,000), home to Senator Bernie Sanders, the jam band Phish and the original Ben & Jerry’s. Georgetown’s feat is all the more dramatic because it demolishes the notion that sustainability is synonymous with socialism and GMO-free ice cream.
— Smithsonian.com
In his piece for Smithsonian Magazine, Dan Solomon tells the story of Georgetown, TX's green energy transformation and its unexpected champion, Republican mayor Dale Ross—who is now friends with Al Gore and was even featured in his An Inconvenient Sequel documentary. View full entry
Last week, street planners Victor Dover and Kenneth García of the Miami firm Dover, Kohl & Partners published a proposal for redesigning the area. The pair criticized not only the “accelerated bridge construction” technique used in the FIU-Sweetwater UniversityCity Bridge, but the fundamental design of the street it once spanned. — citylab.com
Following the Miami FIU bridge collapse three weeks ago, investigations have been conducted on what went wrong. Looking ahead to reconstruction, the Miami based design firm Dover, Kohl & Partners proposes a new pedestrian friendly design for Eighth Street. Focusing on greater harmony between... View full entry
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has asked for public comments on the current and planned standards for manufactured housing. This action is taken following an executive directive to reduce the U.S. government’s overall regulatory complexity. — fluxus-prefab.com
In January HUD announced a review of manufactured housing rules seeking public comments on identifying regulations which stifle affordable housing. Fluxus LLC, a prefabricated building technology platform, has submitted the following comment for the HUD Regulations Division’s consideration... View full entry
Timber Towers are on the rise, propelled by the growing availability of new wood technologies that promise major environmental benefits. Today, proposals for increasingly tall wooden structures are sprouting up everywhere from Portland to Brisbane, with the world's tallest wooden tower recently... View full entry
Concepts like “making room for the river,” which works well in the Netherlands, can mean mass evictions in the Global South. Too often, the rhetoric of climate adaptation is doublespeak for the displacement of poor communities, and an alibi for unsustainable growth. — Places Journal
As coastal megacities adapt to climate change, they often bring in outside planning experts who push highly engineered, technocratic resilience programs. Lizzie Yarina looks at how this trend is affecting local communities in Bangkok, Manila, Ho Chi Minh City, and Jakarta, and argues that... View full entry
This post is brought to you by the Steven Myron Holl Foundation The Steven Myron Holl Foundation has announced the application for this year’s summer architecture residency. Entitled Rural Compression: Cosmic Dust, this year’s topic intersects architecture, the ecology of the Hudson Valley... View full entry
In architecture, there is an obsession with a building’s official completion, while its actual lifespan is often left out of the picture. — Failed Architecture
In his Failed Architecture piece "What If Architects Would Embrace, Rather Than Ignore, a Building’s Future?", René Boer looks at the imbalance of attention a building gets during its opening day compared to its lasting 'future legacy': "The fact that most architectural projects of a certain... View full entry
This week we have Mike Eliason on the podcast, Seattle-based Project Manager at Patano Studio and proponent of Passivhaus, Baugruppen, and a car-free cycling life. Long-time Archinectors may recognize him by his username holzbox, OP to a forum favorite minimal details. Listen to episode... View full entry
Phoenix and its surrounding area is known as the Valley of the Sun, and downtown Phoenix – which in 2017 overtook Philadelphia as America’s fifth-largest city – is easily walkable, with restaurants, bars and an evening buzz. But it is a modern shrine to towering concrete, and gives way to endless sprawl that stretches up to 35 miles away to places like Anthem. The area is still growing – and is dangerously overstretched, experts warn. — The Guardian
With cities in the Desert West, like Las Vegas and Phoenix, rapidly growing in size and population, water is becoming an evermore hot commodity; all while the source of that water, primarily the Colorado River, is becoming increasingly unreliable due to climate change. "And yet despite the federal... View full entry
Swiss architectural practice Rahbaran Hürzeler Architekten is developing an experimental residence to be realized anywhere. Called movable house, every aspect of this project is determined by motion from floor plans to structural elements to energy storage. Movable house rendering © Rahbaran... View full entry
The "Future of the American City" initiative led by Harvard Graduate University School of Design will begin in Miami with $1 million in support from the Knight Foundation. The project will engage Miami residents in creating new approaches to address pressing urban issues including affordable... View full entry
Working closely with DaeWha Kang, then the office’s design director, Hadid turned to nature for lessons. “When you look deeply at nature, you find out why things look the way they look,” Mr. Kang said. “You find systems that respond to environmental conditions that result in the forms you see.” — The New York Times
Photo © Hufton+Crow.The NYT's Joseph Giovannini reviews the Zaha Hadid-designed King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: "Her victory in the competition dovetailed with the agenda of a king who, in 2009, founded the coed King Abdullah University of Science and... View full entry
The pedestrian bridge that collapsed at Florida International University in Miami on Thursday was built using Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) technology, according to a statement from the university.
Unlike traditional methods of construction, ABC streamlines the building process so that bridge projects can be completed quicker and more cost effectively.
— cnn.com
The FIU bridge which collapsed last week was engineered using Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC), a method used by many companies for its time and cost efficiency. Weighing 950 tons, the bridge was meant to connect FIU's campus to an adjoining neighborhood where many students live. Of the... View full entry
The Cooper Union Board and President released yesterday a plan to return to full-tuition scholarships for all undergraduate students. This decision is the result of an ongoing strategic planning effort of re-examining the schools structure and values after the 150-year tradition of free... View full entry
UNSense, a new arch tech startup based in Amsterdam, is being launched by UNStudio. Operating as an independent sister company to UNStudio, the company will explore and develop new integrated tech solutions specifically designed for the built environment. UNSense explores new technologies... View full entry
