What if we could weaponize air conditioning units to help pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere instead? According to a new paper in Nature Communications, it’s feasible.
Using technology currently in development, AC units in skyscrapers and even your home could get turned into machines that not only capture CO2, but transform the stuff into a fuel for powering vehicles that are difficult to electrify, like cargo ships.
— CityLab
“Air conditioning,” Eva Horn once wrote, “is one of the oldest dreams of mankind. It means creating a world without heat or cold, rain or snow, without suffocating humidity or dusty winds.” However, when considering the challenges facing the current era, air conditioning yields a... View full entry
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles. (Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect profiles!)... View full entry
The City Council approved JP Morgan Chase’s plans Wednesday for a soaring 70-story tower to replace the Union Carbide Building in East Midtown. [...] The new tower will consolidate all of JPMorgan Chase’s employees in one building and will come with a 10,000 square-foot privately owned public space after Community Board 5 and elected officials pushed for more square footage. — Curbed NY
Despite environmental concerns, demolition of the historic 270 Park Avenue tower in East Midtown, New York has already started to make way for JPMorgan Chase's new 70-story headquarters, which Foster + Partners was selected to design. Construction of the new tower is currently scheduled to begin... View full entry
Los Angeles is a cornucopia of sites and experiences. However, beyond the city's experiential characteristics it's also home to an elaborate collection of historical landmarks and structures. This week the Los Angeles Conservancy announced its 2019 Preservation Award Recipients. The selected... View full entry
The Administrative Court of Paris has approved Paris’ first skyscraper since Montparnasse in 1973, set to be located in the city's south. [...]
The ambitious building was first rejected in late-2014, and subsequently approved after some modifications by the Council of Paris mid-2015 by a narrow majority.
— The Urban Developer
Herzog & de Meuron's controversial Tour Triangle project is back from a lengthy legal hiatus and will—now officially backed by court approval—start construction later this year. Image: Herzog & de MeuronFirst unveiled in 2008, the 42-story triangle-shaped skyscraper wasn't an... View full entry
Orange, mango, strawberry, lime. If an apartment could be said to be bursting with fruit flavor it would be this three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in Tokyo’s Nagatacho district, renovated by Adam Nathaniel Furman, a British architectural designer, for a pair of very adventurous clients over the past two years. — The New York Times
Adam Nathaniel Furman has recently completed a spectacular new renovation for an adventurous couple's apartment in Tokyo’s Nagatacho district. Interior of apartment, designed by Adam Nathaniel Furman. Photo by Jan Vranovsky.The renovation is significant for its novel use of colors, textures... View full entry
Following World War I, Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky (1897–2000) was tasked with the design of standard kitchens for a new housing project by city planner and architect Ernst May. The Great War left rubble and a desperate housing shortage in its wake, but it also opened the way for new ideas and new designs. — Citylab
Prior to World War II, the only homes to have complete kitchen spaces also typically had servants to make use of them, while apartments and tenement housing rarely had space for a room purely dedicated to cooking. The kitchen, in other words, was a luxury before a plan to make it more standard and... View full entry
In the 1960s, Walter Maria Förderer designed eight churches in Switzerland and Germany. Influenced by Le Corbusier, and even more so by the collages of Kurt Schwitters and Gothic architecture, Förderer designed cascades of concrete blocks and strange totemic objects that now form some of Europe’s most avant-garde religious buildings. — Wallpaper
It is always a delight and a mystery when one learns of a new name to add to their account of architecture history — a delight because with their name comes new buildings, textures, contexts and drawings to discover; a mystery because their near erasure from historical canon can appear... View full entry
The Marcus Center for the Performing Arts was designed by architect Harry Weese, with the surrounding landscape by Dan Kiley, and was completed in 1969. [...]
In December 2018, the Center announced an overhaul of the cultural venue, the culmination of a months-long strategic planning process. However, the proposal drew backlash for its insensitve treatment of the Dan Kiley-designed landscape.
— Docomomo US
At the center of the historic designation discussion is the planned replacement of the 36 horse chestnut trees in front of the Marcus Center with a lawn bordered by 18 honey locust trees. "Preservationists said removing the trees would harm the legacy of grove designer Dan Kiley, whose other... View full entry
As part of his Extra Extra series, Ryan Scavnicky admitted "I tend to bag on Bjarke Ingels a lot" following which he explains his beef with the BIG diagram. Will Galloway thought it was a nice essay but questioned "don't you think REM does the same thing, and if so does the same critique... View full entry
If this mass timber tower is built as originally envisioned, the tallest of its kind in the world, it could set an extraordinary precedent and benchmark for not only green building construction but also the future of development along Vancouver’s Central Broadway corridor. — Urbanized Vancouver
Daily Hive editor Kenneth Chan gives a detailed introduction of the Perkins+Will-designed Canada Earth Tower, a proposed timber tower that could rise up to 40 stories and accommodate around 200 residential units. "The structure would be predominantly made out of fire-resistant wood... View full entry
Everyone hates the Vessel, the stairway to nowhere for capitalism’s grifters at the heart of New York’s latest mirage of a neighborhood, Hudson Yards. Perhaps that’s why it’s so refreshing to see an observation tower that actually leads somewhere meaningful beyond an Instagram selfie frame: the Camp Adventure Observation Tower in Denmark. — Fast Company
While Thomas Heatherwick's Vessel has been a media darling (or pariah) for the last month, a similarly tall, arguably more elegant observation tower quietly popped up in a Dane forest. The Camp Adventure Forest Tower, by EffektThe Camp Adventure Forest Tower, designed by Copenhagen-based firm... View full entry
Today Sotheby's unveils its redesigned and newly-expanded gallery located in their global headquarters in New York. In collaboration with Sotheby's by Shohei Shigematsu and OMA, the redesign features updated exhibition spaces that provide optimal spatial layouts for their vast art collections... View full entry
The decision – that the Petronas Towers were indeed the world’s new tallest building(s), measuring 451.9 meters to the tops of their decorative spires – was based on the re-affirmation of a standard the Council had held for some 60 years. The antennae atop Sears Tower, which took it to an ultimate height of 527 meters, did not count toward its “architectural” height, because the antennae were not considered a permanent part of the building. [...]
It was not a popular decision in Chicago [...]
— Council for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat
Remember when the Southeast Asian nation of Malaysia laid claim to the title of "World’s Tallest Building" in 1996; daring to challenge Sears Tower's crown which had been the incumbent record holder since 1974? The Council for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, the organization responsible for... View full entry
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles. (Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect profiles!)... View full entry
