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Glass has always been an unlikely material for large buildings, because of how difficult it becomes to control temperature and glare indoors. In fact, the use of fully glazed exteriors only became possible with advances in air conditioning technology and access to cheap and abundant energy, which came about in the mid-20th century. And studies suggest that on average, carbon emissions from air conditioned offices are 60% higher than those from offices with natural or mechanical ventilation. — Fast Company
Philip Johnson, after building his own Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut, had this bit of advice to offer others in the field: "Don't build a glass house if you're worried about saving money on heating." The advancement of modern architecture was predicated on the seemingly magical properties... View full entry
Could one of Alvar Aalto's most sublime works be the result of a mistake? And more intriguingly, did Aalto exploit error to acheive a certain aesthetic/politically pointed effect? In this thoughtful piece on Medium, Dan Hill explores the role of "benign errors" in Aalto's work, a term the... View full entry
The intent is to save energy by controlling the temperature of an individual person, rather than an entire building, a goal that anyone who's ever turned on a personal space heater in a frigid office building in July can get behind. The team just won $10,000 from MIT's Making And Designing Materials Engineering Competition, which the inventors will use to improve the prototype and the algorithms that automate the pulses. — popsci.com
