Eunpyeong Hanok Village was selling locals hanok, the traditional Korean tile-roofed residences that have, after hundreds of years, increasingly been destroyed and replaced by towering steel structures; indeed, not since the 1930s have hanok been constructed in significant numbers.
The decline of vernacular architecture in the face of global urbanization is, of course, hardly new, though traditional Korean hanok are a particularly stark contrast to modern city living.
— The New York Times
A new housing development, Eunpyeong, in northern Seoul is solely dedicated to constructing traditional Korean hanok houses. The design adheres to certain guidelines on proportion and design, with a low center of gravity, a courtyard, and an orientation towards nature. The hanok's popularity... View full entry
The company is negotiating a lease in 1 World Trade Center to take over about 200,000 square feet in the building, a source close to the deal told CNNMoney.
WeWork recently became the second-largest renter of office space in the borough, according to a Cushman & Wakefield report earlier this month. WeWork trails just about 74,000 square feet behind JPMorgan's New York tenancy. If the deal goes through, WeWork would surpass the bank.
— money.cnn.com
According to Crain's New York Business, WeWork is close to finalizing the lease with 1 World Trade Center. The co-working space company has grown tremendously in the past 8 years it has been operating with offices now in over 20 countries around the world. For more backstory on WeWork's... View full entry
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is back at it again with more outlandish ideas to solve Los Angeles' traffic. Earlier this month, Musk's latest venture–The Boring Company–resuscitated its flawed proposal to dig new car tunnels for Los Angeles, this time to connect the Red Line subway with Dodger Stadium [...] The Chicago tunnel idea is bad enough, but the Dodger Stadium plan is exceptionally poor even if one takes Musk's promises at face value. — urbanize.la
Alon Levy pokes holes in Elon Musk's public transit plans for Los Angeles. Musk's plan involves tunneling under Sunset Boulevard between the Dodger Stadium and one of three Red Line stops: Vermont/Sunset, Vermont/Santa Monica, or Vermont/Beverly. Levy cites major issues with construction... View full entry
The oversized skyscraper models in the window, one of them 38 feet tall, are the undisputed stars of the show, but they’re not the only reason to visit the Chicago Architecture Center, the engaging new home of the organization previously known as the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
There is also the dramatically expanded Chicago Model, an expanse of mini skyscrapers and other buildings that offers a helicopterlike overview of the city’s sprawling downtown.
— chicagotribune.com
Previously announced back in January, the Chicago Architecture Center (CAC) will now be open to the public this coming Labor Day weekend beginning Friday August 31. Formerly known as the Chicago Architecture Foundation, the CAC opens in its new location featuring everything architecture in... View full entry
Teams that compete in the Solar Decathlon Build Challenge must design and construct fully functional houses...In the National Showcase, teams will ship their houses to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in June 2020 for display and operation on the National Mall. In the Local Build, teams will showcase their built houses in their communities and bring a smaller representative exhibit to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival — US Department of Energy
Plus, both the Solar Decathlon and Race to Zero competitions are merging, creating the new, U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon. For further details check out the 2019–2020 Competition Guide View full entry
A venture firm and a major taxi company began trials of passenger-carrying autonomous taxi services on Monday with an eye on launching the full service around 2020 when Tokyo hosts the Olympics and the Paralympics.
ZMP Inc., a Tokyo-based developer of autonomous driving technology, and Hinomaru Kotsu Co., said they are the first in the world to offer autonomous taxi services to fare-paying passengers in the test through Sept. 8.
— Japan Times
Other tech companies and automakers have also been testing autonomous driving services in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. If the Tokyo RoboCar MiniVan trial is successful, officials hope to scale up the program to assist with the increased transportation demand during the 2020 Summer Olympics and... View full entry
Earlier this week, the Oregon Building Codes Division announced a statement of alternate method (SAM) that makes Oregon the first state to allow for construction of wooden high-rises without special consideration. Previously, Portland, Ore., was the first American city to issue a permit for an all-wood high-rise, Project’s 12-story-tall Framework. — engineering.com
The statement of alternate method (SAM) was developed over two years by a committee created from the International Code Council’s Board of Directors. The committee proposed 14 suggestions concerning cross-laminated timber standards and best-practices, which were all accepted by the Oregon... View full entry
Morphosis recently announced the opening of a new flagship research and design facility for The Kolon Group, a leading manufacturing company based in South Korea. The 820,000-square-foot facility is located in Magok, an emerging tech hub in Seoul. Kolon Group facility by Morphosis, located... View full entry
Now, Dubai has taken a step further along the road to making such dreams a reality by announcing that 25% of the city-state’s new buildings will be made using 3D printers by 2025.
The move is part of an ambitious 3D-printing strategy announced in 2016 by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice-president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and the ruler of Dubai.
— weforum.org
According to the Dubai Future Foundation the city aims to reduce labor by 70% and cut overall costs by 90% with their 3D-printed construction plan. The strategy not only aims at addressing the UN's projected density for urban areas in the future, but also holds potential to solve Dubai's severe... View full entry
CG Architect has announced their winners for their yearly visualization awards. The CGarchitect 3Dawards have 4 separate categories: Image, Film/Animation, Interactive and Student. Within the Film/Animation and Image categories there are also two sub-categories for Commissioned and... View full entry
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
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
Saturday, September 8, 2018 from 6:30-10pm the A+D Museum will unveil its second out of The Assembly. The Assembly is a new tradition; it is a gathering. This approach to exhibition openings is an expression of the museum's mission to join together a diverse group in celebration of different... View full entry
Once the crane arm locates and hooks onto a concrete block, a motor starts, powered by the excess electricity on the grid, and lifts the block off the ground. [Designed to withstand wind, the crane arm] can smoothly lift the block, and then place it on top of another stack of blocks—higher up off the ground. The system is “fully charged” when the crane has created a tower of concrete blocks around it. — Quartz
A tower of the concrete blocks — weighing 35 metric tons each — can store a maximum of 20 megawatt-hours (MWh), which Energy Vault says is enough to power 2,000 Swiss homes for an entire day. According to Quartz, the Swiss startup is planning to build their first commercial plants starting... View full entry
Before the advent of AutoCAD and other drafting softwares, the engineering drawings were made on sheet of papers using drawing boards. Many equipments were required to complete a given drawing such as drawing board, different grade pencils, Erasers T-squares, Set square etc. — vintag.es
Check out this fun collection of photographs from the pre-CAD era... View full entry
