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Founded in 1991 by Nader Khalili, the California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture has researched and developed solutions, including the SuperAdobe, a structure made with patented, long plastic bags filled with dirt from the building site and held in place with barbed wire. Khalili’s ultimate aim was to empower refugees and the poor to build homes using minimal materials and without the need for highly skilled practitioners such as architects, engineers and contractors. — LA Times
Marissa Gluck of the LA Times writes a thoughtful piece remembering the late Kahili and the influence he's made in the architecture community. Read more about Gluck's coverage of CalEarth and its revival here. Correction 6/13/19: The original article unintentionally used similar language to the... View full entry
Called the NikeLab Chicago Re-Creation Center, the space feels like being inside a giant Nike shoebox designed by Abloh himself. It features the self-aware, over-indexed print labeling that Abloh is known for. The Re-Creation Center sign itself has “for promotional use only” printed on top. The rest of the space’s irony is more subtle, or arguably nonexistent. — Fast Company
Virgil Abloh is a name that's grown synonymous with what is trending in design and fashion. A connoisseur of creating new things from the simplest of concepts, Abloh's collaboration with Nike has emphasized his influence not only in design but in design culture. Having worked with some of the... View full entry
Many may remember playing with cardboard boxes as children. The material is widely common and found almost everywhere. However, it is rarely seen in a contemporary design setting. Now imagine having coffee in a fully functioning cafe built almost entirely out of cardboard. Thanks to Mumbai-based... View full entry
Snøhetta has unveiled the S-1500 chair, made from 100% recycled plastic and steel from the local fish farming industry in the North of Norway. Presented during Stockholm Design Week, the chair has one of the lowest carbon footprints in the market. A collaboration between the international... View full entry
Showcased during the Mextrópoli International Festival of Architecture, one of the largest festivals in Latin America with over 50,000 people in attendance, I-CONO dazzles the streets of Mexico City. Aimed at creating and sparking discussion around architecture and the city architects, students... View full entry
With the increase in festival events and attendance, one company strives to fix the waste problem these highly attended festivals make. Based in Christchurch, Dorset, Above All C6(n) is a sustainable technology company that is using recycled plastic water bottles to create sustainable alternatives... View full entry
UNStudio's Ellipsicoon was designed by Ben Van Berkel and created as part of the Revolution Precrafted pavilion series, focusing on collectible structures whose wide variety of functions are designed to complement existing spaces. Ellipsicoon by UNStudio. Image: Revolution Precrafted. This space... View full entry
Waste from construction and demolition sites accounts for approximately 15-30% of all landfill content in the United States. According to NASA's estimates, more than 500 million tons of often non-biodegradable building materials containing carcinogens and other toxins are sent off to the junkyard... View full entry
A company in Colombia is tackling plastic waste issues and affordable housing with a single ingenious solution: interlocking LEGO-like bricks that can be used to build houses for a few thousand dollars per structure. Walls are formed using a slim slotted brick then framed using a thicker module used for beams and columns, locking the smaller units into place and providing rigid vertical and lateral support. — weburbanist.com
What to do with the heaps and mounds of plastic piling up all over our planet? Build LEGO's. Conceptos Plásticos' technological innovations make their plastic block homes cost only $5,000. The company is also using this new method to build emergency shelters, community and educational... View full entry
The construction firm VolkerWessels unveiled plans on Friday for a surface made entirely from recycled plastic, which it said required less maintenance than asphalt and could withstand greater extremes of temperature– between -40C and 80C. Roads could be laid in a matter of weeks rather than months and last about three times as long, it claimed.
The company said the environmental argument was also strong as asphalt is responsible for 1.6m tons of CO2 emissions a year globally
— theguardian.com
Related: Taiwan tests recycling's limits with bus stops out of bottlesAfrica's First Plastic Bottle House Rises in Nigeria View full entry
David Boyle did not build his house out of shipping containers to be hip, though he does live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He left the water pipes exposed not in pursuit of an industrial chic aesthetic, but to make them easier to fix. [...]
Their goal, he said, was not style, but a place immune to the neighborhood’s rising rents, built out of materials cheap enough that it could inspire other urban homesteaders to do the same.
— nytimes.com
"We want to take recycling to the next level," says Mr Huang. "Not only will this factory do the usual e-waste recycling, extracting gold and copper from your discarded computers and smartphones, but it will be built completely out of recycled materials. — BBC News
Katia Moskvitch visited Taiwan to examine how a zero landfill policy, adopted in 2010 has created new opportunities for entrepreneurs. While there she talked with Arthur Huang (an architect, urban designer), Managing Director of MINIWIZ, a company focused on using... View full entry
Raumlabor just completed construction on "The Big Crunch" - a recycled building made from a heap of discarded objects. The mound of materials is condensed in a theater plaza from all over the area, seemingly to move like a small wave cresting on the Georg-Büchner-Platz grounds in Darmstadt, Germany. — Inhabitat
Built from a decommissioned Boeing 747, the home features a floating roof made out of the plane's wings that results in a curvilinear home with large floor-to-ceiling windows to take in the sights of the Malibu mountains and Pacific Ocean below. — Inhabitat
Inhabitat has just received the first photos of David Hertz Architects' completed 747 wing house in Malibu. View full entry
