Scientists with the European Space Agency (ESA) have created a terrestrial simulation of moon dust to practice making bricks with. And it appears lunar “soil” is significantly different from its terrestrial equivalent, as it can be crushed, burned and compressed to form building materials, or used as the raw material for 3D printing. — globalconstructionreview.com
The European Space Agency (ESA) is experimenting with lunar dust as a building material with goals to avoid lifting hefty materials from Earth into space. Lunar dust is electrically charged and primarily composed of basalt (like volcanic rock) with 40% of its mass made of oxygen. ESA is testing... View full entry
Today, 3 Canadian mayors, alongside 16 mayors from around the world, representing 130 million urban citizens, committed to significantly cut greenhouse gas emissions from their cities by ensuring that new buildings operate at net zero carbon by 2030 [...] Buildings in urban areas are one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and typically account for over half of a total city’s emissions on average. I — canadianarchitect.com
Mayors from 19 cities around the world have now signed the Net Zero Buildings Declaration, which also pledges to ensure all buildings will meet net-zero carbon standards by 2050. A net zero building uses energy efficient design by drawing from renewable sources to meet performance needs. These... View full entry
As Moscow’s Zaryadye Park approaches its first birthday next month, the city’s chief architect, Sergei Kuznetsov, is defending the Diller Scofidio + Renfro-designed green space for an unexpected feature: its aphrodisiacal properties. Just a stone’s throw from the Kremlin, the firm’s carefully crafted experiment in “wild urbanism” has lived up to its billing, apparently, becoming something of a hotbed for outdoor lovemaking. — news.artnet.com
Moscow's one year old $245 million public park by Diller Scofidio + Renfro was meant to bring freedom of exploration and a feeling of comfort within the urban setting. The space provides visitors with an amphitheater, flora-covered terraces, green spaces with views of the city, and a 230 foot... View full entry
Ahead of the new academic year, Dickinson College has opened a new $19 million residence hall that will house 130 students.
The High Street Residence Hall, the Carlisle liberal arts college's first new residence hall since 1973, is part of a $46 million campus investment plan that began in 2012. Officials said demand for on-campus housing exceeded available space, prompting the start of construction on the new residence hall last year.
— cpbj.com
Deborah Berke Partners' new dormitory for Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA is now open for the upcoming academic school year. Residence Hall at Dickson College by Deborah Berke Partners, located in Carlisle, PA. © Deborah Berke Partners.The 40,500 square foot building is currently targeted to... View full entry
TIME Magazine has revealed 100 destinations for their first annual list of the World's Greatest Places. Included in the lineup are a range of museums, parks, hotels, and restaurants that they believe are breaking new ground and offering truly extraordinary experiences. Among the selected are a... View full entry
From the mid century modern world of Mad Men to the traditional English aristocratic look of Downton Abbey, the designs behind our favorite productions play a vital role in creating authentic backdrops viewers can delve into. Compare the Market and Neomam Studios have brought these set designs to... View full entry
Microsoft has been experimenting with undersea data centers for years, and the current installation in the Orkney Islands will be deployed for around five years. There are 12 racks with 864 servers and 27.6 petabytes (27,600 terabytes) of storage [...] The data center is powered by a giant undersea cable that also connects it back to the internet, and the findings could mean the company will scale this project up to more powerful data centers in the future. — theverge.com
Microsoft has now installed a webcam by its undersea data center located off the shores of Scotland. The video stream is part of the company's efforts to observe environmental conditions of Project Natick, a research project aimed at determining the feasibility of subsea data centers powered by... View full entry
Mexican President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Friday he would let voters decide whether to continue construction of Mexico City’s new airport, throwing into doubt the country’s biggest public-works project and billions in investment and debt.
The airpot, designed in part by U.K. architect Norman Foster, is about one-third complete. About $5.2 billion has been spent on the infrastructure project, the biggest of the administration of current President Enrique Peña Nieto.
— wsj.com
After softening his original stance on cancelling the new Mexico City International Airport, president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has now opened up the project's fate to the public. The partially built infrastructure project by Foster + Partners and FR-EE now hangs in the balance of... View full entry
The Bioscleave House (Life-Span Extending Villa), designed by avant-garde artists Madeline Gins and Arakawa, has hit the market, the four bedroom, two and a half bath house asking for $2,495,000 via Brown Harris Stevens. Building upon the couple's fifty year body of research into solving... View full entry
Architect twitter account @robyniko known as 'the "schtick" haver' has started a thread where worlds collide locating iconic modernist architecture in Thomas Kinkade landscapes. Whether or not this should have ever been done is up for debate. These mashups may just be so terrible you can't look... View full entry
O’Herlihy’s “same old stuff” is, in actuality, bringing plenty of fresh thinking to the issue of density at a time in which Los Angeles is building up instead of out — a time when changes in zoning, especially along transit lines, is adding more condos and apartments to the skyline, transforming the landscape of single family homes for which the city is known.
Over the last 15 years, LOHA has made a name for itself by working on projects that make innovative use of tight urban spaces.
— latimes.com
Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects (LOHA) has been designing spaces for 24 years with an array of projects ranging from residential complexes to bus stations. Rather than creating luxury living, the firm has chosen to focus on affordable housing, dormitory, and non profit projects. Dormitory building... View full entry
The National Building Museum's Summer Block Party installation Fun House has been one of the hottest events this vacation season in D.C. Designed by New York design studio Snarkitecture, the installation turns a conventional household into a sequence of interactive rooms inviting play. From a... View full entry
...the center, known as Runway, is being remade as a place where pedestrians will be more inclined to hang out, shop and eat — without having to dodge vehicles.
After seeing the closed-off streets packed with people during farmers markets and other special events, manager DJM Capital Partners Inc. concluded that Runway’s autocentric ethos was outdated and has decided to make the ban full time, even though the center was built only three years ago in the recently developed community.
— latimes.com
The Runway, a 220,000 square foot retail space in Los Angeles neighborhood Playa Vista, will undergo a $9.1 million renovation lead by local architect team Design, Bitches. The complex is located next to Marina Del Rey, Venice, and Santa Monica making it part of the Westside area known as... View full entry
This week, Ikea opened its first store in India–a feat the company has been planning for many years. But while the big, blue exterior of the store looks the same, the interiors, from the displays to the products themselves, have been subtlety tailored to accommodate cultural differences. It’s a strategy Ikea has used to expand from its origins in Sweden, now reaching 30 markets in Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia... — fastcompany.com
As Ikea expands into Asia, the brand recently opened their first store in India tailoring their products to the county's culture. This is part of how Ikea introduces their brand to countries around the globe, by keeping their designs mostly the same with subtle, pointed changes for specific... View full entry
A drawing in [Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's] 1883 manuscript Free Space might be the first depiction of humans in orbital weightlessness. Four figures float in a spherical spaceship, each pointed in a different direction, disoriented... This basic design — primary thruster, secondary retro rockets, axial gyros for orientation — has been used by all crewed Russian and American spacecraft to date, including the International Space Station. — placesjournal.org
Looking back at the history of outer space design, Fred Scharmen brings past innovations into the present with applications for our future. Starting back in 1883 with the first design for humans in outer space (seen below), Konstantin Tsiolkovsky imagined a new way of thinking about spatial... View full entry
