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A new prototype multilayered fluid window system devised by researchers at the University of Toronto may have the potential to be an effective tool in the push toward greater sustainability in the building industry, according to their research published in the national academy of sciences journal... View full entry
Ultimately, removing containers from the circular economy by retrofitting them into usable spaces could put a strain on the industry and result in the need to use more iron ore, causing even more harm to the environment.
Even as the tiny house movement continues to gain popularity and shipping containers are beloved both for their aesthetic appeal and supposed sustainability, it’s worth asking if they’re the right material for this purpose.
— Fast Company
While shipping containers do generally keep project costs down owing to labor hours saved, the fit-out of their interiors can add between $20,000 and $150,000 to each construction. Materials such as spray-on foam insulation used in making a container design habitable are rarely among the... View full entry
Henning Larsen has released details of its newest K-12 project in the Danish village of Rønde. The project worked to add an ultragreen extension to the village’s existing Feldballe School that offers carbon sequestering while incorporating plans for its future disassembly and reuse as... View full entry
UNStudio, HKS, and Gehl have been selected by the Austin Transit Partnership (ATP) to lead the architecture and urban design of Project Connect, a major expansion of the city’s public transit system. The voter-approved investment includes new light rail, expanded bus routes, a subway, and more... View full entry
Copenhagen-based 3XN has been included in Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies 2023 list. The 50-company-strong list is described by Fast Company as the “definitive chronicle of the novel ideas transforming business and society,” ranging from ChatGPT creator OpenAI to the art collective... View full entry
Multidisciplinary designer Jozeph Forakis has unveiled the concept for a luxury superyacht, christened Pegasus, that he described as “invisible both in design and in her environmental impact.” When completed in 2030, the futuristic 288-foot ship will become the world’s first 3D-printed sea vessel that produces zero emissions and can cruise with near-infinite range. — Artnet News
Forakis says the inspiration behind the yacht is Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s Blur Building, a pavilion that sat above Lake Neuchâtelin in the Swiss municipality of Yverdon-les-Bains during Swiss Expo 2002. The structure was concealed by a mass of fog that was formed by pumped lake water and... View full entry
Snøhetta has been chosen to design a new National Court of Asylum and Administrative Court in Montreuil, France. The proposed scheme sees the two courts arranged on one site around large green areas, offering what the team calls “a place of calm during what can be a time of intense turmoil.”... View full entry
It is also the rare skyscraper designed with climate change in mind. It holds a self-contained, catastrophe-resilient power plant capable of generating as much energy as six football fields of solar panels. The building captures every drop of rain that falls on it, and reuses that runoff to heat or cool its 9,000 daily visitors.
But One Vanderbilt is also something else. It is already out of date.
— The New York Times
New York City’s recent ban on fossil fuels is making the green technology built into the merely two-year-old KPF-designed tower obsolete in terms of energy sources, the NYT's Ben Ryder Howe writes. Foster + Partners’ nearby 270 Park project is cited as an example of the forthcoming... View full entry
British firm Architecture for London has recently completed the extension and refurbishment of a traditional Edwardian terrace house into a modern, energy-efficient home. Photo: Lorenzo Zandri and Christian Brailey, courtesy of Architecture for London Called Low Energy House, the residence... View full entry
A new metric measuring the amount of carbon reduced in reuse projects is changing the way practitioners of the built environment can quantify the success of retrofit projects of all types and sizes. Architecture 2030’s new CARE (Carbon Avoided Retrofit Estimator) Tool is a way of providing... View full entry
A Swiss research team from Empa's Building Energy Materials and Components Lab explores the potential for using raw, plant-based materials as insulation for buildings. Led by scientist Dr. Jannis Wernery and researchers from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, the project is... View full entry
To kick off February, Howard University President Wayne A.I. Frederick announced at a groundbreaking ceremony the start of extensive renovations to the school’s historic, 109-year-old Myrtilla Miner Building. This restoration marks the start of Howard University’s $785 million Central... View full entry
Chicago’s $1.3 billion O’Hare International Airport Terminal 5 expansion and renovation has been completed, marking the end of four years of work to modernize the terminal. The project broke ground in 2019, with construction led by Austin Power Partners. The terminal’s capacity was... View full entry
With construction underway on the 3XN-designed Sydney Fish Market in Australia, the firm has offered an insight into the design of the scheme’s defining roofscape. When completed, the 700,000-square-foot building will be the largest fish market in the southern hemisphere. Image credit: 3XN The... View full entry
Researchers from the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering have published details of a new material that can auto-regulate its environment by changing its infrared colors and liquid-solid state. In the future, the ultra-thin material film could be added to a... View full entry
