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Earlier this month, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was closed due to weather. However, a video posted to Twitter of the bridge undergoing heavy winds went viral due to the sights and sounds recorded. Bridges are built to pass strict safety and construction standards and be capable of withstanding... View full entry
Tougher building rules for skyscrapers have been drawn up by the City of London because of concerns that a high-rise, urban microclimate will generate winds capable of knocking over cyclists and pedestrians.
Developers will have to provide more comprehensive safety assessments of how proposed buildings will affect people on street level, with more robust testing of roadways and pavements using detailed scale models in wind tunnels and computer simulations.
— The Guardian
After a series of high-profile skyscraper design controversies, including documented incidents of pedestrians being knocked off their feet and cyclists being pushed sideways into the path of vehicles due to strong skyscraper-generated winds, London is moving to regulate the wind-driven... View full entry
The world’s biggest offshore windfarm has officially opened in the Irish Sea, amid warnings that Brexit could increase costs for future projects.
Walney Extension, off the Cumbrian coast, spans an area the size of 20,000 football pitches and has a capacity of 659 megawatts, enough to power the equivalent of 590,000 homes.
The project is a sign of how dramatically wind technology has progressed in the past five years since the previous biggest, the London Array, was finished.
— The Guardian
The Walney Extension is made up of 87 turbines and has a total capacity of 659 MW, enough to power almost 600,000 homes in the UK. This makes it now the largest operational offshore wind farm, however with wind farm supersizing along the British coastline it may not hold the record for long. ... View full entry
Last month, Cavalry 360°, a vast site-specific musical instrument designed by NEON opened on the banks of the North Tyne, UK. The structure uses the force of 32 wind turbines to create an ever-changing sound of the cavalry moving across the landscape—horse’s hooves hitting the ground... View full entry
...So today's engineers battle not only the force of gravity but the the whirling pockets of wind, known as vortices, that can cause towers to shake or vibrate. Failure to do so would make the motion of the building — or "acceleration," as engineers call it — uncomfortably noticeable. — Chicago Tribune
Tunnel tests for Chicago's future third-tallest skyscraper showed that the plan for the building—three thin, interconnected high-rises designed by Studio Gang—would not be able to withstand high winds. According to the engineers, the design for the Vista tower "would result in building... View full entry
[...] has completed advanced wind tunnel tests on The Tower at Dubai Creek Harbour, which is set to be 100 metres taller than the 828-metre Burj Khalifa when complete.
Emaar said the wind tests were crucial in defining the final height and design aspects, while the project’s Spanish-Swiss architect Santiago Calatrava Valls added that they "were an important component in the structural design stage, and we have deployed innovative engineering techniques to confirm the strength of the new icon".
— thenational.ae
The Tower at Dubai Creek Harbour project previously in the Archinect news: "A notch taller" than Burj Khalifa: check out these new renderings of Santiago Calatrava's megatall Dubai towerSantiago Calatrava to design a seemingly supertall observation tower in Dubai View full entry
The City of London Corporation has promised a more "rigorous" assessment of developers' predictions of ground winds, following complaints about strong gusts outside the 20 Fenchurch Street Building, better known as the Walkie Talkie.
"I almost got blown over the other day walking up past the building," a sales assistant working nearby said earlier this year. "When I got around the corner it was fine. I was scared to go back."
— bbc.com
It's not the tower's first run-in with the laws of physics:Rafael Viñoly-designed "Walkie Talkie" skyscraper melts car with light reflections'Walkie Scorchie’ building given permanent sunshade View full entry
Because of its size and intense radiation, Texas leads the nation in solar energy potential, but the solar industry has long struggled to get a foothold in the state... and solar energy currently makes up a tiny percentage of the state’s energy portfolio. That’s beginning to change. Improving technology has driven down the price of solar power, making it more competitive with other resources — even without incentives, developers say. — The Texas Tribune
The municipal utility of Georgetown, a Texan city of about 55,000, recently signed a 25-year contract with SunEdison to buy 150 megawatts of solar power as well as 144 megawatts of wind power from the EDF Renewables wind farm through 2039 -- reportedly being the first city-owned utility to take... View full entry
A research team from the Mechanical Engineering department at University of Utah is using high-performance computing resources from XSEDE to instantaneously and accurately simulate how infrastructure elements, such as parks, buildings, and parking lots, as well as their specifications and variations, affect air characteristics and quality in urban settings. — Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment
On stormy days and windy nights, Tribeca residents say their neighborhood is filled with a strange, high-pitched whistling sound coming from the redeveloped World Trade Center site. It's an inopportune location for howling (although, really, where is?), but it's hardly the first building to surprise its neighbors by humming or whistling. [...]
But just to be clear? It's not haunted. Port Authority's rep told Pix 11 he hopes ghost stories won't "become part of the dialogue."
— gizmodo.com