“Any change in the way you do business involves some concerns and issues,” said Richard T. Anderson, the president of the New York Building Congress...“If for New York City construction, business as usual is a challenge, you need to change some of the basic ingredients, and labor and management needs to address this.” — NYT
In the Real Estate section of last Sunday's NYT, Julie Satow talks with architects, city officials, various trade organizations and developers (although no union representatives) about the recent growth in projects using prefabricated, modular construction techniques. Such an approach offers... View full entry
In October of last year, we reported that the parametric design concept Cast Thicket had been selected as the winning entry of APPLIED: Research Through Fabrication competition. Over the past 4 months, the winning designers Christine Yogiaman and Ken Tracy have further developed their proposal in collaboration with TEX-FAB, and now Cast Thicket is complete and installed in the University of Texas at Arlington’s School of Architecture Gallery. — bustler.net
Previously: Winner of APPLIED: Research Through Fabrication Competition View full entry
When Hurricane Sandy wiped out the lifeguard stations and public bathrooms on many of New York City’s beaches, the city found itself in a bind. How could it rebuild these necessary facilities in time for the summer of 2013? — Inhabitat
Loos on stilts, modular shiny boxes, what more could beach goers in NYC ask for? View full entry
In our last post, we published the six finalists and category winners of New York City's ambitious Reinvent Payphones Design Challenge. Here is now the award winner in the "Creativity" category, the concept "NYC Loop" by New York architects FXFOWLE, in more detail. — bustler.net
Previously: Six Finalists of NYC’s Reinvent Payphones Design Challenge View full entry
New York City leaders have announced the winning prototypes from the Reinvent Payphones Design Challenge which launched last December. [...] The competition had invited architects, students, urban designers, planners, technologists, and policy experts to create physical and virtual prototypes that imagine the future of NYC’s approximately 11,000 public pay telephones. — bustler.net
Related: NYC Reinvent Payphones Design Challenge Entry by FXFOWLE View full entry
Using advanced aeronautical design software, Mark Burry and other architects have been able to reverse engineer Gaudi's models from leftover shards. Today, Burry is among a group of architects leading construction on the church's central tower, which, when completed, will stand 566 feet above the ground, making it the tallest church on Earth.
But the fact that they had to use 21st century software to realize a 19th century vision stands as testament to Gaudi's avant garde design language.
— theverge.com
Carl Bass, who’s helmed the $2 billion corporation since 2006, admits that the delineation between building virtual and physical products is eroding, and that has created opportunities for companies who have traditionally focused on developing and selling software.
“It used to be that it was this unwritten rule that software companies don’t do hardware, and vice versa,” he says, “but I think the rules are changing…. It totally would be fun. I personally would love it.”
— wired.com
It's been almost one year since the collaboration of artists RE:Site and architects METALAB won the competition to design Texas A&M University's new Memorial Student Center 12th Man Hall [...]. The resulting lighting installation, Memory Cloud, has now been completed, and we have first photos and a video of the project. — bustler.net
Frank Tjepkema of Dutch design studio Tjep. has designed an ecologically friendly getaway home to be self-sufficient in remote areas.
Called Isolée, the small house embraces and uses technology to be as energy efficient as possible.
— DesignBuild Source
In 2012, filmmaker Leon Gerskovic chronicled the journey of 16 design/buildLAB students as they conceived and realized the Masonic Amphitheatre. The project, a charitable undertaking, consisted of the complete redevelopment of a post-industrial brownfield into a public park and performance space. Reality Check is their inspirational story. — design/buildLAB
"Reality Check" a 45-minute documentary about the conception and realization of the Masonic Amphitheatre by the students in Virginia Tech's design/buildLAB will premiere on March 28th at 7PM at VT's Hancock Auditorium. The screening will be followed by a question-and-answer session with filmmaker... View full entry
The City of New York invited students, urban planners, designers, technologists and creators to build physical and virtual prototypes imagining the payphone of the future. Judges selected the top six designs, now you get to decide which design will receive the Popular Choice Award. — NYC Gov Facebook
You can participate in the voting for the city's future of payphones on Facebook. View full entry
Rather than using cranes to take the building apart from the outside, they start from the inside, taking the structure apart floor by floor from the top down. A crane inside the building lowers materials harvested from each floor to ground level, generating electricity to power other equipment in the process. So with Tecorep, higher buildings are actually an advantage, since the crane can generate more electricity lowering materials over longer distances. — popsci.com
In construction or renovation of buildings you'll be able to identify poorly insulated areas and badly wired electrical outlets before you put the drywall up. You'll find places where water has penetrated the structure where it should not have. Identifying mold and moisture is a much easier task with the Mµ Thermal Imager. — indiegogo.com
Mµ Optics is currently seeking financial support on crowsourced-funding website Indiegogo. The iPhone attachment may offer steep competition to the existing thermal imaging cameras that range in prices from $2,000 to $22,000, according to Mµ Optics. The Mµ Thermal Imager is... View full entry
Facebook recently got a big blue thumbs up from the Menlo Park Planning Commission to build its sprawling Frank Gehry-designed headquarters. Along with the requisite rezoning for the design, the commission approved the project’s environmental impact report, an official statement concluding that the new development would have more positive than negative effects on the area, and a cartographical change that will create a private road in front of the property called “Facebook Way.” — blogs.artinfo.com
A new partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration brings an out-of-this-world opportunity for Cal Poly Pomona architecture students. Over the past months, students have been constructing a massive 30 foot structure in the parking lot of the Interim Design Center. [...]
The scenario given by NASA was to build a vertical habitat facility for four astronauts that can go into deep space for 60 days.
— thepolypost.com