OMA has scored another commission from major German retailer KaDeWe. A few years after they were appointed to renovate KaDeWe's Berlin store, the Dutch firm announced today that their team won the competition to design KaDeWe's new department store and hotel in Vienna's historic Museumquartier... View full entry
...the SmartCan is one of those rare home-focused robots that could...actually deliver some genuinely useful functionality...Using a companion app, the SmartCan will follow a pre-programmed schedule and automatically drive itself to a curbside drop off point on garbage pickup days, and then autonomously return to wherever you keep them parked the rest of the week — Gizmodo
While the SmartCan may prove a pragmatic solution for some homeowners, there are still questions of price, which have yet to be revealed, and maintenance, such as charging, risked damage, and owners remembering to keep paths clear, reports Gizmodo. View full entry
It’s well known that the production of cement—the world’s leading construction material—is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for about 8 percent of all such releases...A team of researchers at MIT has come up with a new way of manufacturing the material that could eliminate these emissions altogether, and could even make some other useful products in the process. — MIT News
The research team is exploring the "idea of using an electrochemical process to replace the current fossil-fuel-dependent system" that relies on coal-fired ovens to convert limestone, clay, and sand to Portland cement. Through the new process, the need to burn coal will be avoided and the emitted... View full entry
The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) has recognized influential Canadian landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander as the namesake for a new international landscape architecture prize. The Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize is set to be awarded for the... View full entry
Thanks to the Friendly Airports for Mothers Act (FAM) passed in 2018, the number of private breastfeeding pods available to the general public has steadily increased over the last year. Passed as part of a comprehensive Federal Aviation Administration funding package, the FAM Act requires the... View full entry
With their designs for a new flagship co-working environment "ShareCuse" in Syracuse, New York, Austin, Texas-based Architecture Office aims to reimagine the concept of an office cubicle by creating a "flexible office organization that does not kill the work... View full entry
The UK’s highest honor for architecture will go to a seminal firm in neighboring Ireland, the Royal Institute of British Architects announced this morning with the selection of Grafton Architects for the 2020 Royal Gold Medal. Based in Dublin, the practice was co-founded by Yvonne Farrell and... View full entry
As critical reaction to the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial continues to pour in, Archinect has collected some critical highlights from a collection of design writers and critics. (See here for Archinect’s 2019 CAB picks.) And while this year’s takes on the biennial have been relatively... View full entry
If you're a collaborative, mid-level architect or designer who can also demonstrate excellent skills in project and team management, you might find your next job here! Take a gander at the latest listings from last week's Employer of the Day featured firms. Snøhetta is hiring an Intermediate... View full entry
What happens to the New York and Chicago commercial-real-estate markets where WeWork was the biggest and the second-biggest tenants? [...] The reverberations here are going to be pretty dramatic. WeWork [...] went to zero in 30 days. That’s more value destruction than the three biggest losers in the S&P 500 lost all year. — New York
An eye-opening interview with NYU Stern School of Business professor and vocal WeWork critic Scott Galloway in New York Magazine raises questions regarding the potential built environment ramifications of WeWork's spectacular collapse. The uncertainty comes as commercial real estate... View full entry
As designers, we often are presented with an overwhelming amount of data to accompany a design problem. There are the client desires, the code constraints, zoning, the desires of the design team, materials, structural systems, and the list goes on. Sometimes, we can feel bombarded or crippled from... View full entry
With the prospect of the Rohingya not being able to return to Myanmar for years to come, the prototypes in Camp 4 Extension reflect how aid and relief organizations are finding new ways to manage the long-term needs of the most populous refugee camp in the world. — CityLab
CityLab reports on the latest efforts to drastically improve living conditions inside Kutupalong Refugee Camp, the world's largest camp of its kind and currently home to more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees that fled from ethnic and religious persecution in Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh... View full entry
Antonio Pacheco, Managing Editor at Archinect, praised César Pelli's Quirky Corners. In particular the way they not only step in section, but "also stepped in plan, adding subtly to the often extruded and repetitive floor plates common to this era’s tall buildings." Plus, Sean Joyner identified... View full entry
Google and the Château de Versailles have teamed up to take VR users on a private tour of Louis XIV's royal residence. It's the largest photogrammetry project ever done at the castle, with 21 rooms and 387,500 square feet of internal surfaces captured. — Engadget
Google has also made it possible to "handle and inspect over 100 sculptures, paintings and other works of art and see them with incredible close-up detail," according to Engadget. The experience is currently only available to HTC Vive and Oculus Rift users. In addition to the virtual tour... View full entry
It's no secret that planned obsolescence makes the world go 'round. We've all been there: You buy a big-ticket item that seems to work great until, that is, the product is no longer under warranty. Soon after, it breaks. Lo and behold, repairing the item is prohibitively expensive, it might even... View full entry
