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UK-based Invisible Studio has completed a rammed stone yoga studio for the Newt Hotel in Somerset, UK. Aside from its innovative use of rammed earth, the scheme is defined by a 36-foot-long rooflight made from a single insulated double-glazed unit. Image credit: Jim Stephenson Image credit: Jim... View full entry
This post is brought to you by Architecture at Zero 2024 The American Institute of Architects California (AIA CA) invites students and professionals worldwide to participate in the twelfth edition of the Architecture at Zero competition, with a registration and submission deadline of December... View full entry
Henning Larsen has expanded its Unboxing Carbon initiative with the release of two open-source catalogs detailing the carbon emissions of building materials for architects and designers. Originally launched in 2021 as a carbon literacy course, “Unboxing Carbon” aims to address the construction... View full entry
Building Transparency has announced the development of Tally® 2.0 in partnership with KieranTimberlake. This updated version of the LCA tool aims to enhance the building industry’s capacity to evaluate and reduce the environmental impacts of materials and design choices. The original Tally tool... View full entry
HOK’s Anica Landreneau, the chair of the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Steering Committee, has sat down for an in-house interview published by the firm in a preview of the changes contained in the LEED v5 update. The new changes align with the Paris Agreement, AIA 2030, MEP 2040, SE... View full entry
Populus goes one step further in its boast of being 'carbon positive', not just offsetting the hotel’s carbon footprint but actually taking out far more carbon than it puts in – a promise few businesses would dare to make, for both financial and publicity reasons.
As a term, however, 'carbon positive' can be linguistically confusing [...] and with no clear definition of what 'carbon positive' means, there are no metrics by which to determine its validity.
— The Guardian
The project, first announced in February 2021, has since garnered skepticism amidst its developer Urban Villages' claims of being a first-of-its-kind carbon-positive American design in the typology. The true sustainability of the firm’s 2009 Aqua Tower in Chicago has been scrutinized in the past... View full entry
On an island within the Finnish archipelago, a sleek, pebble-shaped sauna seems to delicately balance atop a small rock formation. Called Kivi Sauna, the structure was designed by Helsinki-based design and architecture studio Sotamaa.Image courtesy of Sotamaa The firm’s design process was guided... View full entry
Twenty-six CEOs from some of the world’s most influential landscape architecture firms have publicly committed to making their profession zero emissions by 2040, aligning with the goals set out in the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA Climate Action Plan). Collectively generating... View full entry
A new performing arts complex designed by Perkins&Will, in partnership with Schmidt Hammer Lassen, has opened in Beijing. Located in the city’s southeast district, Tongzhou, the Beijing Performing Arts Center sits along the banks of the Grand Canal, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, anchoring a... View full entry
The National Endowment for the Humanities has announced that it has awarded a $190,000 competitive grant to the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Fund. The grant comes in the form of the Landmarks of American History and Culture award, which aims to support a series of... View full entry
Earlier this week, the City of New York released a request for proposals (RFP) to redesign a portion of Park Avenue, between East 46th Street and East 57th Street, by adding greenery, public seating, concessions, and safer crossings for pedestrians. This section of Park Avenue sits atop the... View full entry
The Environmental Protection Agency has published details of a new label program aimed at increasing the amount and quality of more sustainable U.S.-made construction materials in the marketplace. It supports the agency’s new $160 million grant initiative to spearhead new Environmental Product... View full entry
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Maine are leading interesting new engineering research into floor cassettes made using recyclable natural materials that are strong enough to be used in multi-story buildings. Thanks to experiments at UMaine's... View full entry
Researchers from Germany's Fraunhofer Institute have discovered a new bioconcrete solution made using cyanobacteria (formerly known as blue-green algae) that sequesters carbon through a process of photosynthesis. Their work for the “BioCarboBeton” project examined the potential of... View full entry
During two decades with GSA, [Kevin] Powell has had a front seat view of how technologies in facilities have evolved over the years. As electrification and decarbonization efforts continue to emerge for buildings, Powell remains excited about seeing the future of buildings unfolding. — FacilitiesNet
The architect behind the U.S. General Services Administration’s Green Proving Ground program is Berkeley CED graduate Kevin Powell, who spoke recently with FacilitiesNet about emerging technologies and decarbonization efforts in the building sector. As the manager of the country’s largest... View full entry
