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UNStudio is known for their groundbreaking work in solution driven designs relating to the ever-changing urban environment. Climate is changing, which leaves architects and designers taking steps towards designing buildings and structures that can accommodate to the overheated urban environment... View full entry
It’s known as the “urban heat island effect,” and it refers to the pockets of intense heat captured by the concrete, asphalt, dark roofs and the dearth of foliage that define many American cityscapes.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti wants to reduce the city’s average temperature by 3 degrees Fahrenheit over the next 20 years.
— Washington Post
Los Angeles is the first U.S. city to test cool pavement to fight urban heat, coating streets in a special gray paint known as CoolSeal, that can lower the temperature as much as 10 degrees. The officials say that the hope is that cooler streets will lead to cooler neighborhoods, less air... View full entry
A team of construction workers is pouring concrete onto the frame of a structure that will eventually become a wastewater treatment plant. It's 1 a.m. on a clear night in the suburbs of Phoenix.
The temperature is still in the high 80s. But that's way down from the area's recent record high temperatures, up to 118 degrees. [...]
"We try to pour and place and finish concrete when it's below 90 degrees," says Daniel Ward, the construction company's project director.
— npr.org
Related stories in the Archinect news:L.A.'s urban heat island effect accounts for temperatures up to 19 degrees hotterCan Phoenix un-suburbanize?"7,000 construction workers will die in Qatar before a ball is kicked in the 2022 World Cup," new ITUC report finds View full entry
the greater L.A. area sees more additional heat than any other region, in part because of how urbanized it is. [...]
Solutions include planting more trees and bushes, painting roofs white so they don’t absorb as much heat and using lighter colored concrete on streets and sidewalks.
— scpr.org
