In the arid plains of the southern New Mexico desert, between the site of the first atomic bomb test and the U.S.-Mexico border, a new city is rising from the sand.

Planned for a population of 35,000, the city will showcase a modern business district downtown, and neat rows of terraced housing in the suburbs. It will be supplied with pristine streets, parks, malls and a church.

But no one will ever call it home. — CNN

at least some part of architectural practice needs to move on from having buildings as the only output. The answer to every urban question cannot always be a building, clearly. Whilst buildings may be part of some solutions, there are broader, deeper questions in play—good architects see this, but the practice (from education up) is still not exploring this implied question broadly enough. — cityofsound

Apple has announced a range of new products, including a new larger iPad, two new smartphones and a long-awaited update to Apple TV.

In a now traditional September event, this time held at San Francisco’s 7,000 seater Bill Graham civic auditorium, 2,000 engineers, advertisers, executives and journalists saw Apple’s marketing chief Phil Schiller reveal a new 12.9-inch screen iPad that the company hopes will appeal to both professional creatives and committed tablet users. — The Guardian

As 3D printing advances from its plastic roots, we’re seeing more and more materials passing through its nozzles. Metal, glass, random gunk—each new filament opens the door to new manufacturing applications.

Now researchers have made a printer they claim can use up to ten different materials at once. The “MultiFab,” made by MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), could offer a relatively low-cost option for the multimaterial 3D printing market. — motherboard.vice.com

While wind may be one of the most economical power sources out there, photovoltaic solar energy has a big advantage: it can go small.

While wind gets cheaper as turbines grow larger, the PV hardware scales down to fit wherever we have infrastructure. In fact, simply throwing solar on our existing building stock could generate a very large amount of carbon-free electricity. — Ars Technica

Canadian space and defense company Thoth Technology is attempting to make reaching the stratosphere as simple as riding an elevator up a tower about 23 times taller than the world’s tallest building.

The Thoth space elevator patent, approved by the US patent office on July 21, specifies that the tower could be built on any “planetary surface,” (i.e. not just Earth), a sign that Thoth is thinking pretty far ahead. [...] the top of the tower will serve as a rocket launch site. — qz.com

Like all supertall skyscrapers, Tapei 101 has a mechanism inside to help stabilize itself in high winds. [...]

At 6:59 am, in the winds of Typhoon Soudelor, the damper moved by a full meter from its center position, farther than it has ever moved in the building's decade history. [...]

Soudelor brought sustained winds of 100 mph, with at least one confirmed gust of 145 mph . — popularmechanics.com

[...] the drought is a gusher for a growing number of tech startups in the emerging world of the Internet of Things, the buzzy term for the trend of connecting devices and data in the physical realm to the Internet. Getting more sensors into the environment will help thousands of farms, businesses and cities figure out where water is going and how it can be diverted for the most efficient use. Agriculture is the area most ripe for collecting more and higher-quality data. — forbes.com

MX3D, a research and development startup company, will use robots to 3D print a pedestrian bridge across one of Amsterdam’s canals. The versatile six-axis robotic arms will ‘draw’ steel structures in 3D, starting from one side of the canal and building across until it reaches the other end. The robot will also print its own support, which allows it to work autonomously. The location of the bridge will be announced soon and construction is set to commence in 2017. — iflscience.com

The L.A.-Waze partnership is, at least in theory, an initial step toward allowing the city’s planners and engineers to regain a healthier role in mediating the kinds of longstanding cross-town conflicts that Waze has renewed and amplified. Whether the deal will help to resolve fundamental long-term issues related to the city’s growth and inadequate infrastructure is another matter. — newyorker.com

A vibration control device to dramatically reduce shaking caused by long-period earthquake ground motion — a phenomenon in which major earthquakes shake skyscrapers slowly but severely — was shown to the media on Monday after being installed in a 55-story building in central Tokyo. [...]

The companies said it is the nation’s first rooftop vibration control device against earthquakes. — the-japan-news.com

The downside of giant banks of windows or glass walls, though, becomes obvious when the relentless afternoon sun makes the heat and stuffiness inside intolerable [...].

The makers of “smart glass” say they can address this problem. Smart-glass windows transform from transparent to opaque, and every shade in between, in seconds. They often rely on electrochromic thin films embedded in the glass.

The upshot: Less energy is needed to heat or cool a building. Shades and blinds become optional. — qz.com

In the 1990s, Frank Gehry pioneered... “smart” digital design in architecture, by using software to optimize designs and translate them directly into a process of fabrication and construction.

Now known in the industry as parametric design and building information modeling, this approach has ushered in a new era of architecture, according to art historian Irene Nero: the era of “technological construction” [...]

How did an architect who doesn’t use computers start a technology company? — Priceonomics