Sustainability startup ByFusion has developed what they describe as “the first construction-grade building material made entirely of recycled, and often un-recyclable, plastic waste.” Named ByBlock, the interlocking blocks use the same principles as LEGO with protrusions on the top surface... View full entry
Dewan Architects + Engineers have unveiled Babel 4.0, a project which the firm with headquarters in the UAE describes as “the first architecturally-inspired NFT from the Middle East.” A reinterpretation of the mythical Tower of Babel, the project speculates on the role of architects and... View full entry
Minecraft lovers may soon be able to wander around a virtual Albany.
A voluntary group of builders associated with Build the Earth Northeast USA is building the city and other parts of the Capital Region into the game.
— Albany Times Union
The organization is made up of thousands of volunteer gamers who have produced successful virtual versions of other cities distributed across regional networks. Building in the hugely popular MMOG has seen a renaissance of late thanks to a mod intervention which produced construction techniques... View full entry
Las Vegas has become the latest city to embark on constructing a digital twin, following the unveiling of a digital model at the city’s Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month. Developed by Chicago-based Cityzenith and Las Vegas-based Terbine, the model encompasses a 2.7-square-mile portion... View full entry
Energiesprong (which translates to “energy jump”), a nonprofit that the Dutch government helped launch a decade ago, is coordinating a system of mass retrofits. “We thought, okay, let’s make home retrofits into a scalable solution,” says Christian Richter, who works in the organization’s market development team in Germany. — Fast Company
The Netherlands has pursued an aggressive agenda which has meant a spate of net-zero residential conversions. Now groups are looking for ways to apply lessons from the program outside the country in the hopes of matching increased demands with advancements that have produced certain types of... View full entry
The German University of Technology in Oman (GUtech) along with Danish 3D printer producer COBOD and Mexican cement company Cemex has completed the largest 3D printed building in the world made with real concrete. Located in the Omani capital of Muscat, the 2,100-square-foot structure was... View full entry
This post is brought to you by Azure Magazine The 2022 AZ Awards is now accepting entries into its eight major categories, from architecture, landscapes and urban design to interiors, product design and the A+ Award for best student work. It welcomes submissions until February 25 and – as ever... View full entry
ETH Zurich has unveiled details of their latest investigation into advanced building materials in construction. The project, titled FoamWork, explores how foam 3D printing can assist in creating concrete formworks. The initiative saw ETH Zurich’s Digital Building Technologies team work in... View full entry
It's 2022, and the state of architecture viewership continues to rely on visual images that capture and inspire. As a result, architecture and its relationship with social media have been an ongoing topic of discussion on Archinect. With that in mind, the way news and projects are being consumed... View full entry
Together, ONE Sotheby’s International Realty and Voxel Architects, along with general contractor and NFT collector Gabe Sierra, are introducing the first ever ‘MetaReal’ mansion that includes a real-world home and a virtual counterpart in the metaverse. The virtual home will live within The Sandbox metaverse.
The buyer of the NFT asset will also acquire ownership rights of the physical home, set to be completed in Miami in Q4 of 2022. This is the first time something like this has been done.
— Forbes
The company picked the up-and-coming virtual design firm that has rapidly gained a reputation for its metaverse designs hosted by platforms like Decentraland. Under a licensing agreement, the real estate entity leases its name from the -year-old auction house, which itself has dabbled rather... View full entry
A new computer program powered by artificial intelligence takes mere minutes to determine whether homes and buildings have been destroyed by wildfires once the smoke has cleared.
Developed by scientists at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and Stanford University, DamageMap evaluates the destruction by scrutinizing post-wildfire aerial and satellite images.
— Santa Cruz Sentinel
The team worked to fix a major flaw in existing modeling systems that required exact lighting and photographic angles in order to produce an accurate survey of structural damage in a specific area. 50,000 images from various fires across California were used as a baseline for the software, which... View full entry
The Biden administration wants to shove more money into projects that are supposed to capture CO2 emissions from power plants and industrial facilities before they can escape and heat up the planet. But carbon capture technologies that the Department of Energy has already supported in the name of tackling climate change have mostly fallen flat, according to a recent report by the watchdog Government Accountability Office. — The Verge
According to the report, the Department of Energy (DOE) has invested about $1.1 billion in 11 carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration projects since 2009. Of those, only three were ever built, however, the sole participating coal plant shut down in 2020, leaving only two industrial projects... View full entry
If there’s one thing that 2021 has shown us, it is that, for better or for worse, the world is evolving faster than ever. While this is a natural phenomenon, it’s apparent that the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the level of uncertainty the world faces. Sociopolitical and... View full entry
Alphabet’s self-driving car company Waymo is partnering with Chinese automaker Geely to create a fleet of all-electric, self-driving robotaxis. — The Verge
The cars will be designed in Sweden, where Geely owns Swedish car manufacturer Volvo. Waymo will integrate the Waymo Driver, their autonomous driving technology, into Geely's electric, transportation-as-a-service (Taas)-optimized Zeekr vehicle. Waymo plans to deploy the vehicles in the US within... View full entry
The Pennsylvania city announced in August it will become a dark sky city starting in 2022, meaning that it will switch to lower wattage LED bulbs and add shades along bridges, roads and other public areas. It’s the first city in the eastern part of the U.S. to adopt such policies but it joins other cities, including Tucson, Sedona and Flagstaff in Arizona, and Fulda in Germany, in their efforts to reduce light pollution and increase energy efficiency. — Bloomberg CityLab
The dark-sky movement officially began in 1988, has produced events such as Earth Hour, and is currently expanding into other U.S. cities such as Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia. Light pollution caused by stronger “white” LED fixtures has been shown to cause health and... View full entry
