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Heatherwick Studio has unveiled a new small greenhouse project for the National Trust’s historic Woolbeding Gardens estate in West Sussex, England. Taking the form of a sheltering flower bud, the structure comprises ten steel ‘sepals’ operated by a hydraulic mechanism that takes about... View full entry
London-based architecture studio Bureau de Change and Lulu Harrison, a postgraduate student in Central Saint Martins' Material Futures program, have collaborated to create a series of cladding tiles made from glass using mussel shells. Their work explores alternatives to the processed and... View full entry
Renderings from INOA Architecture are the first to reveal a new seven-story mixed-use building at 308 East 59th Street in Sutton Place, Manhattan. Located immediately next to the Queensboro Bridge onramp, the building will house a mix of hospital outpatient facilities with specialized medical spaces above. — New York Yimby
Plans for the structure were first revealed in 2015 from local developer Tony Boemi. Original renderings from C3D Architecture depicted a 16-story building with 12 rental apartments and a 2,000-square-foot retail space on the ground floor. This, however, never broke ground. Here, the new... View full entry
Architects have known how to prevent their buildings from becoming bird killers for more than a decade: Patterned glass, exterior screens and turning the lights off at night can all significantly reduce bird deaths. But those standards clash with the big glass and big views that clients associate with big money. — Bloomberg CityLab
The problem stems from the way glass reflects green spaces surrounding them. Recent advancements in data and social media tracking have combined with architectural studies have been able to successfully produce guidelines which recommend a wide array of interventions like ceramic frits, visual dot... View full entry
Officials in Venice are finally caving to local demands to author significant changes to Santiago Calatrava’s Ponta della Costituzione bridge following years of protest and a rash of recent injuries. The New York Times is reporting that glass from the pedestrian bridge is going to be removed and... View full entry
Bulgari is getting a timely makeover this holiday thanks to a green facelift from MVRDV. Using recycled champagne bottles, the Dutch firm was able to produce a dazzling new jade-like facade for the luxury retailer’s new Shanghai flagship. Image: © Bulgari/Xia Zhi A nod to the Art Deco style... View full entry
An international research team led by scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore has invented a new window material that controls heat transmission without blocking views, which could help reduce the energy required to cool and heat buildings. The new energy-saving... View full entry
Even before Covid-19, many ambitious productions had been taking place not in the three-sided black boxes that defined the experimental zest and emerging punk of the late 1970s, or […] theater-in-the-round pioneered in ancient Greece and Rome, but in elaborately engineered glass cubes that evoke the International Style’s high Modernism and the minimalist penthouses of the contemporary metropolis. There would not seem to be a more flagrant violation of dramatic immediacy. — The New York Times
Glass cube sets from Miriam Buether, artist Todd Knope, and Expo 2020 Dubai British Pavillion designer Es Devlin have been popular among directors like Sam Mendes. One of Devlin's previous designs was based on a temporary Rachel Whitehead installation in East London from 1993. The artist's work... View full entry
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles. Today's top images (in no particular order) are from the board Glass. Tip: Use the handy FOLLOW feature to... View full entry
Researchers at the University of Kassel in Germany have published their findings on the potential for smart glazing to transform building energy use. With buildings responsible for 40% of primary energy consumption, and 36% of total CO2 emissions, the team led by Harmut Hillmer sought to explore... View full entry
Amazon has unveiled the latest design plans for the second phase of its $2.5 billion Arlington HQ2 campus. The proposal for the PenPlace site includes three 22-story office towers, several smaller buildings, a 250-seat outdoor amphitheater, public green space, and a fourth 350-foot swirling glass... View full entry
Image courtesy of Liget BudapestPraised by both the architecture and music profession, Sou Fujimoto's House of Hungarian Music aimed to blend the natural and built environment. According to Fujimoto, he wanted to create a sense of harmony between "the nature of sound and the sounds of nature." The... View full entry
Powerhouse Company's "Paper Roof," the new design for a reception center in Tianjin, China has been completed. The form is a transparent glass block topped by a light sweeping roof inspired by traditional Chinese architecture. Photo by Weiqi Jin Photo by Weiqi Jin Photo by Weiqi Jin The roof... View full entry
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles. Today's top images (in no particular order) are from the board Glass. Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to... View full entry
Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) researcher Junyong Zhu in co-collaboration with colleagues from the University of Maryland and University of Colorado, have developed a transparent wood material that may be the window of tomorrow. Researchers found that transparent wood has the potential to outperform glass currently used in construction. — USDA Forest Service
The abstract of the researchers' paper A Clear, Strong, and Thermally Insulated Transparent Wood for Energy Efficient Windows points out that besides its energy-efficient qualities, transparent wood is a "sustainable material, with low carbon emissions and scaling capabilities due to its... View full entry
