“One time I had a group of furious housewives on my doorstep, telling me I was doing them out of a job and that if they didn’t have to clean their houses, their husbands wouldn’t need them anymore, and I said, ‘Well, if you had more time to spend with your husbands, don’t you think they would like that better?’ ” — NYT
"For decades, Frances Gabe did not clean her house, nor did anyone clean it for her. Yet for all that time, it was spotless. Ms. Gabe, a once-celebrated inventor who died in obscurity late last year, was the creator, and long the sole inhabitant, of the world’s only self-cleaning house. In... View full entry
In each room, Ms. Gabe, tucked safely under an umbrella, could press a button that activated a sprinkler in the ceiling. The first spray sent a mist of sudsy water over walls and floor. A second spray rinsed everything. Jets of warm air blew it all dry. The full cycle took less than an hour. Runoff escaped through drains in Ms. Gabe’s almost imperceptibly sloping floors. It was channeled outside and straight through her doghouse, where the dog was washed in the bargain. — The New York Times
More than half a century ago, incensed by the housecleaning that was a woman’s chronic lot, Ms. Gabe began to dream of a house that would see to its own hygiene: tenderly washing, rinsing and drying itself at the touch of a button. Ms. Gabe built the self-cleaning house with her own hands and... View full entry
Construction of ODA's 251 1st Street residential complex in Park Slope is now reaching completion, demonstrating fragmented massing which the firm believes imbues the structure with a "living facade." As the architects explain, "ODA’s inflected the building’s upper massing with a cascade of... View full entry
Permissive building codes, industry inertia, and market demands — like clients clamoring for floor-to-ceiling views — have widened the discrepancy between the kind of buildings cities say they want and what they actually allow. So while the industry inches towards better environmental performance, buildings in Boston and other cities still fall short of the sustainability goals that everyone claims to embrace. — The Boston Globe
Courtney Humphries of Boston Globe argues that the current trend for extensive use of glass in buildings contradicts today's strive for sustainability and "green building." When New York started tracking energy use by skyscrapers, the gleaming 7 World Trade Center — one of that city’s more... View full entry
A pair of USB ports on a console on the front of the bench provides juice from the solar panel mounted at lap level between the seats. Who wouldn’t want to hang out at a bench like this? It certainly catches the eye of passersby. What these kids might not realize, however, is that this bench is watching them back. — Landscape Architecture Magazine
"Smart" benches are spreading—recently a series of them, manufactured by Soofa, was installed in a tiny neighborhood park next to I-77 on the north end of Charlotte, North Carolina with the intent of the neighborhood's analysis and redevelopment. Soofa, founded in 2014 by three graduates of... View full entry
American e-commerce giant Amazon has filed a patent with the US patents office for a system for storing and retrieving goods in an underwater facility.
When an item is ordered for delivery, a sonic signal is transmitted from a buoy to the warehouse, which activates an air canister that inflates a balloon, allowing the chosen product to float to the surface where it would be dispatched to the customer.
— globalconstructionreview.com
Just last month, Amazon made headlines when it filed a patent for a drone tower design, essentially a multi-level fulfillment center for unmanned aerial vehicles in densely populated areas. Now a recent Amazon patent for "Aquatic Storage Facilities" has surfaced, allowing us a glimpse into the... View full entry
Full-time creative positions, like architects and sound engineers, come with considerable salaries and benefits. “We have 20-year-olds making $50,000 a year with us,” remarks Everett. — Artsy.net
Meow Wolf may have put the starving artist trope to rest in the form of a magnificent new business/installation model. Photo by Kate Russell. Courtesy of Meow Wolf.As this article explains: Since the Santa Fe-based art collective Meow Wolf opened its permanent installation, the House of Eternal... View full entry
This is the second and likely final time construction will be halted on the one million square foot plant, which according to The Verge, was going to be Faraday Future's way of competing with fellow electric car manufacturer Tesla. Faraday Future's "FFZero1 Concept Prototype." Image: WikipediaAs... View full entry
Until now, architects have had to design around the elevator shafts, which can comprise 40 percent of a building's core. Multi could allow them to install elevators almost anywhere, including the perimeter.
Strong magnets on every Multi car work with a magnetized coil running along the elevator hoistway’s guide rails to make the cars float. Turning these coils on and off creates magnetic fields strong enough to pull the car in various directions.
— Wired
After three years of work, ThyssenKrupp, a company synonymous with elevators, is testing the Multi in a German tower and finalizing the safety certification. Zooming up, down, left, right, and diagonally the new elevator was just sold to a residential building under construction in Berlin, and is... View full entry
Google parent Alphabet is spinning off a little-known unit working on geothermal power called Dandelion, which will begin offering residential energy services. [...]
Dandelion chief executive Kathy Hannun said her team had been working for several years "to make it easier and more affordable to heat and cool homes with the clean, free, abundant, and renewable energy source right under our feet," and that the efforts culminated with the creation of an independent company outside of Alphabet.
— phys.org
"In the U.S., buildings account for 39% of all carbon emissions, mostly from the combustion of fossil fuels for heating and cooling," Dandelion CEO Kathy Hannun explains on the company's blog. "In the Northeast, heating and cooling is particularly carbon-intensive due to the relatively high use of... View full entry
The built environment of the Valley does not reflect the innovation that’s driving the region’s stratospheric growth; it looks instead like the 1950s. Looking at aerial views of midcentury campuses like the Eero Saarinen-designed Bell Labs next to contemporary ones like Apple, it’s nearly impossible to tell the midcentury structures from the 21st-century ones. — New York Times
While Silicon Valley is a place of much interest to many, its architectural image and overall planning is hard to grasp or call successful. Allison Arieff of NY Times argues that the isolated corporate headquarters of tech giants have no consideration for the larger context of their... View full entry
Facebook announced today that it has partnered with OMA to design the masterplan for Willow Campus, a mixed-use neighborhood adjacent to their existing headquarters in Menlo Park. "The first official step will be the filing of our plan with Menlo Park in July 2017. We will begin more formal... View full entry
It will be built from the top down on a suspension bridge, modelled after and painted the colour of the Golden Gate bridge. At its base will be a new 1,075-seat theatre, and below that an excavation site that’s 4.5 times as large as the museum’s excavation. It is expected to cost over $300m. — The Guardian
In a noteworthy meeting of infrastructure and luxury real estate development, Tasmanian organizer of Hobart's Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) David Walsh believes the people who enjoy the museum will definitely dig an onsite luxury hotel that uses a suspension bridge to support its seven upper... View full entry
After nearly three decades of involvement with the L.A. Skid Row Housing Trust (and working relationships with architects including Michael Maltzan and Brooks + Scarpa), C.E.O. Mike Alvidrez has announced his plans to step down next year. Brooks + Scarpa's homeless housing "The Six" developed in... View full entry
Many transportation experts were worried about the viability of the project from its earliest stages, including one of the concept creators, Craig Hodgetts. An architecture professor at the University of California in Los Angeles, Hodgetts told Quartz last August that the TEB appeared be an “immature project” with some “fundamental problems.” He mentioned, for example, the tight space potentially having a psychological effect on drivers who might respond by braking when driving under the bus. — Quartz Media
While no clear reason has been given as to why the trial run of the so-called "car-eating" bus has been shuttered, Chinese officials have confirmed that they are removing the electric tracks on which the TEB was running. The trial run was launched last year in August, around which time hopeful... View full entry
