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Plans for London’s first timber skyscraper were presented to the Mayor of London Boris Johnson this week with researchers saying natural materials were “vastly underused”.
The design is for an 80-storey, 300m-high wooden building integrated into the Barbican complex. The tower would create 1,000 new residences. Architects’ Journal described the concept scheme as “toothpick-like”.
— independent.co.uk
Read relating articles on Archinect here:A guide to London mayoral candidates and their housing policiesIs London experiencing a brick boom?Design revealed for 1 Undershaft, London's tallest skyscraper by the "thinking developer’s architect" View full entry
The streets of London are slowly being infilled by brick-faced buildings characterised by flat, austere façades and a certain self-effacement that seems to bow to its predecessors, even though its scale is often a huge step up. London might be acquiring a new vernacular. [...]
[Brick] is back in a big way. Manufacturers are running out of stock and there is a critical shortage of skilled bricklayers, leading to construction delays.
— ft.com
More on the elusive London style:Working Warrior: an interview with Katy Marks of Citizens Design BureauHonoring the "Maverick" British architectsInfrastructure or advertisement? Sky to sponsor the Garden BridgeThe (state-facilitated) death of the council houseAmid London's austerity measures... View full entry
Thanks to the work of Lin Wan and pals at Northwestern University...these guys have worked out how to make Martian concrete using materials that are widely available on Mars. And, crucially, this concrete can be formed without using water, which will be a precious resource on the red planet. — Technology Review
For more of Archinect's coverage of extra-terrestrial architectural news, check out:• NASA launches competition for structures built in situ using Martian resources• The Mars Ice House envisions the day Earthlings can live with ease atop the Martian surface• ESA proposes a village on the moon View full entry
Taking place annually for the last 22 years, the Ceramics of Italy Tile Competition is back for 2016! Architects and designers worldwide are invited to submit their projects that utilize Italian ceramic tiles in an aesthetically beautiful, original, and functional way. Do you already have a... View full entry
But some designers are toying with another idea—that there’s a different way to build that exploits randomness rather than avoids it. This kind of building will rely on new kinds of granular materials that when tipped into place, bind together in ways that provide structural stability. [...] Sean Keller at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and Heinrich Jaeger at the University of Chicago explain how this kind of “aleatory architecture” is finally becoming possible. — technologyreview.com
That will have a profound effect on the process of design. “As a result, preplanning is freed from considering the local structural detail,” say Keller and Jaeger. “Instead, the main task now becomes generating the proper particle shapes as well as the overall boundary and processing... View full entry
Choosing building materials is a delicate balance of factors – looks, quality, price, environmental impact and sustainability all contribute to the success and overall value of the product. When data about building materials are illegible or biased, the construction process can become convoluted... View full entry
This post is brought to you by GKD Metal Fabrics. In the ever-growing multitude of green building products available in today’s market, one material that doesn’t always come straight to mind is stainless steel. But this often overlooked material holds a wealth of sustainability benefits that... View full entry
This post is brought to you by Alucobond® The national and international building codes have recently challenged the construction market with design-oriented goals of sustainability and energy efficiency. The increasing demand for high performance, energy-efficient buildings has led to the... View full entry
Inspired by the human body, Jonkers, who works at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, created self-healing concrete. He embeds the concrete with capsules of limestone-producing bacteria, either Bacillus pseudofirmus or Sporosarcina pasteurii, along with calcium lactate. When the concrete cracks, air and moisture trigger the bacteria to begin munching on the calcium lactate. They convert the calcium lactate to calcite, an ingredient in limestone, thus sealing off the cracks. — smithsonianmag.com
More concrete news:Celebrating concrete architecture in a mini "block party"Getty awards over $1.75 million to fix crappy concrete in "Important Modern Buildings"Ten Top Images on Archinect's "Concrete" Pinterest BoardCould this revolutionary new material replace concrete?China used more cement in... View full entry
Khôra exhibition curators Robert Trumbour and Aaron Willette organized the Bigger than a Breadbox, Smaller than a Building competition as a means to explore the medium of installation in the architectural realm, specifically the medium's increasing appeal among emerging architects and designers... View full entry
Perhaps the most important and widely-used building material, concrete also has an enormous environmental impact. This is largely because in order to produce one ton of cement – the material that binds together rock aggregate in concrete – about 900 kg of C02 are emitted. In fact, the concrete... View full entry
This post is brought to you by Alucobond® The national and international building codes have recently challenged the construction market with design-oriented goals of sustainability and energy efficiency. The increasing demand for high performance, energy-efficient buildings has led to the... View full entry
As the Canadian Wood Council's annual North American Wood Design Awards demonstrate, building with wood easily fuses aesthetics, cost-effectiveness, and sustainability for various projects. Aiming to push for more demand in wooden design and construction, the prestigious awards program scopes out... View full entry
By manipulating the structure of steel on a nanometre scale, [Hansoo Kim and his colleagues at the Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea] (have) produced a material which has the strength and the lightness of titanium alloys but will, when produced at scale, cost a tenth as much. — The Economist
The new, potentially-revolutionary alloy utilizes nickel, in addition to aluminum and iron, to create a metal that is as strong as steel but much lighter and cheaper. The scientists created the alloy using nanotechnology to manipulate the structure of steel on a minute level.Noting the decrease in... View full entry
This post is brought to you by Mosa. Leading Dutch surface specialist Mosa knows that the choice of materials can be what transforms a good design into an outstanding one — especially when it comes to picking out a material as versatile as the ceramic tile. For over 130 years, Mosa continues... View full entry
