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workers have gotten sick, and even died, after cutting this engineered stone and breathing in its dangerous dust, public health officials say.
Overseas, some are even calling for a ban on selling engineered quartz for countertops.
— NPR
NPR takes an investigative look at some of the workplace safety issues that have arisen amid explosive growth in the engineered quartz industry over recent decades. The report looks into the incidence of silicosis—a debilitating and progressive lung disease caused when someone... View full entry
The possibilities of 3D printing and fabrication have propelled design by pushing the limitations of digital computation and construction. Earlier this month, the University of Maine's Advanced Structures and Composites Center used the world's largest 3D-printer to break a whopping three... View full entry
It is now almost 80 years since the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act enabled the construction of the post-war prefab, but controversies and concerns about building a home in a factory have run deep ever since. While practically every other item we buy rolls off a production line, housebuilding’s transition to the factory remains, for many reasons, problematic. — RIBA Journal
With the rise of automation and advances in building manufacturing, architects have considered if machines can replace the profession. However, makes the job so rewarding is thinking of new and creative ways to execute ideas. This level of creativity and design distinction is something architects... View full entry
Researchers at MIT have developed a way to shrink objects to nanoscale. Using a technology called implosion fabrication, the method allows objects to be 3D printed at a scale smaller than what one can see with a microscope. "It’s a way of putting nearly any kind of material into a 3-D pattern... View full entry
It's important to have a diverse team when it comes to seeing a project come to life. Whether it be fabrication, 3D modeling, renderings, or even graphic design it's these details that help give projects an extra element of possibility. This week we've curated employment opportunities for those... View full entry
For one, there is no such thing as a 3D printer that doesn’t emit concerning microparticles into the air. Even industrial models that appear sealed, complete with fans and filters, put out measurable particulates. — Fast Company
Ask any architecture student, 3D printing can be one of the best and worst things about the design studio. Architectural drawings and renderings are necessary, but in order for the concept to really come to life 3D scale models have acted as catalysts for translating the vision. Physical scale... View full entry
Showcasing their first exhibition in Latin America, Zaha Hadid Architects creates a dazzling structural form honoring architect and engineer Félix Candela. The Spanish-Mexican architect made several major contributions in shaping and developing Mexican architecture. One of his most notable... View full entry
In the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, architects Kagan Taylor and Justin Rice of knowhow shop have designed and built a new office for their design studio in their backyard. Named ‘Lighthouse’, the project is a micro-building that is a place for work and also a physical example of the studio’s thinking and practice — Wallpaper
Diverting from traditional construction processes, the founders of knowhow shop, focus on the possibility of constructing an office testing their skills as craftsmen while challenging their understanding of spatial perception. Image © Stephen SchauerThe office's unique shape and construction... View full entry
Morphosis recently announced the opening of a new flagship research and design facility for The Kolon Group, a leading manufacturing company based in South Korea. The 820,000-square-foot facility is located in Magok, an emerging tech hub in Seoul. Kolon Group facility by Morphosis, located... View full entry
A team of researchers from Swiss university ETH Zurich is to use robots to help assemble prefabricated timber modules into a 100 sq m, three-storey house. [...]
The robots use information from a CAD model to cut and arrange the beams, then drill holes and connect them. Human workers bolt the beams together.
— Global Construction Review
Photo: NCCR Digital Fabrication / Roman KellerThe Spatial Timber Assemblies robotic research project, with support from Switzerland's National Centre of Competence in Research Digital Fabrication, is the first large-scale architectural application for the construction robots at the new Robotic... View full entry
From glass fiber reinforced concrete to upcycled waste foam, the building blocks of the future are being developed in the research labs of today and a current exhibit at the California College of Arts in San Francisco is putting some of these new methods and techniques on display. Curated by... View full entry
Beginning tomorrow, the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, will host Designing Material Innovation, an exhibition being held on the College's Back Lot—soon to be converted into their new campus by Studio Gang—which will put on display new approaches to material, fabrication... View full entry
[The] Digital Construction Platform (DCP) [is] a four-ton solar powered robot arm on tank tracks. And yet, it’s a working proof-of-concept that a machine can build a lot like a tree does, sourcing local energy and adapting to local conditions to construct a building out of local materials–anything ranging from dirt, to ice, to moon dust...The tip of the arm is fit with a nozzle that can mix and spray mud, foam, or concrete–basically any viscous building material you could imagine. — FastCo.Design
Designed by the MIT Mediated Matter group, the DCP robot is an “experimental enabling technology for large-scale digital manufacturing” that has shown impressive results in printing with various media, including light printing, excavation, welded-chain construction, and additive... View full entry
Last Wednesday afternoon, traffic briefly stopped at the main entrance to the University of Michigan’s North Campus as 12 of us hauled a stark white blob the size of a jet ski up hills and across intersections. Curious and confused onlookers watched us as we carried what must have seemed like an... View full entry
There is a misleading myth that “architecture is just architecture”, that assumes that architecture is a form of knowledge that neither research definitions, nor processes applied in other disciplines, can be applied to architecture research. It is a myth that has been used enduringly as an... View full entry
