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Heatherwick Studio has unveiled a new small greenhouse project for the National Trust’s historic Woolbeding Gardens estate in West Sussex, England. Taking the form of a sheltering flower bud, the structure comprises ten steel ‘sepals’ operated by a hydraulic mechanism that takes about... View full entry
The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) has unveiled a prototype greenhouse which responds to urban food and energy needs. The Solar Greenhouse was designed and built by a team of students, professionals, and experts from the school’s Masters in Advanced Ecological... View full entry
Vienna-based firm Delugan Meissl Associated Architects (DMAA) has completed the Taiyuan Botanical Garden, a project that introduces a vibrant artificial landscape, defined by three timber-based, domed greenhouses. Located in Taiyuan, China, the botanical garden occupies the site of a former... View full entry
Our original designs for the biomes – hundreds of hexagonal and pentagonal cells supported by geodesic tubular steel – looked more like Waterloo, but we used ETFE foil, or ethylene tetrafluoroethylene, which was more transparent than glass but extremely lightweight. It uses 1% of the energy and carbon of glass. The difficulty was creating biomes that would interlock across a constantly shifting landscape. — The Guardian
The Eden Project with its famed geodesic biomes opened twenty years ago on March 17th, 2001 in Cornwall, England. Inside the tropical biome of the Eden Project. Photo: Hchc2009/Wikimedia Commons. View full entry
Zuecca Projects and architecture firm Coldefy have presented the exhibition entitled DOMUS - Architecture, Materials, Innovative Systems as a "Collateral Event" of the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale due to be held in Venice from August 29th to November... View full entry
A proposed mixed-use development slated for a site beside the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) in New York City has BBG officials worried that the shadows created by the project’s twin 39-story towers will deprive the garden’s specimens of vital sunlight. Gothamist reports that the... View full entry
Astonishingly, the feel of the original emerged largely intact. [Darren] Walker, an aficionado of mid-century design with an eye for detail, spent serious money to salvage whatever was salvageable. Hanging brass lighting fixtures, door handles, granite-topped credenzas (some with embedded hot plates), Platner tables and chairs, black walnut bookshelves, bronze trim — 1,500 items in all — were given back their mid-century gleam. The Ford Foundation Building has become a museum of itself. — New York Magazine
After many years of detailed renovation, the Ford Foundation has been successfully renovated and is ready to house 2,000 occupants. According to New York Magazine, "[the Ford Foundation] has withdrawn into a fraction of its previous space, halving the size of the president’s once imperial, now... View full entry
French architects Coldefy & Associates Architects Urban Planners have revealed plans for the world's largest single-domed tropical greenhouse. Called Tropicalia, this vast indoor landscape will soon pop up in the Pas-de-Calais area in Northern France and house all sorts of tropical flora and... View full entry
Amazon’s Spheres, a botanical gardenlike workspace for the retail giant’s employees, are primarily a private space.
But the company has set up a few ways for the public to access the geodesic domes — in downtown Seattle on Lenora Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues — starting Tuesday, when the Spheres officially open to visitors and employees.
— The Seattle Times
The Amazon Spheres, designed by NBBJ, will now be open to the public; however, getting in may be tricky. There is the option of entering from the ground floor to see an exhibition about the Spheres, and the much more difficult option to join a guided tour of the entire headquarters. Inside the... View full entry
Innovative Industrial Properties, Kalyx and other similar groups are following the same strategy: buy buildings, retrofit them and lease them to commercial or medical marijuana growers. But it can often cost millions to turn a vacant warehouse into a facility suitable for cannabis cultivation. — NYT
David Gelles reports that the spread of legalization means the weed business is booming and with it, demand for commercial, industrial space. The latest post-industrial trend in states like California, Colorado, Massachusetts or even New York is a retrofitted industrial-scale "cultivation... View full entry
the spheres will be packed with a plant collection worthy of top-notch conservatories, allowing Amazon employees to amble through tree canopies three stories off the ground, meet with colleagues in rooms with walls made from vines and eat kale Caesar salads next to an indoor creek. [...]
“The whole idea was to get people to think more creatively, maybe come up with a new idea they wouldn’t have if they were just in their office,” said Dale Alberda, the lead architect on the project at NBBJ
— nytimes.com
While the benefits of greenery for employee productivity is well established, and any good tech company needs to play up the "serendipity machine" game, Amazon is taking this to an architectural level:The spheres will have meeting areas called treehouses, and suspension bridges high off the ground... View full entry
Constructed in an area which experiences frequent flooding, the Greenhouse That Grows Legs incorporates a novel approach to flood protection. The building is fabricated on a bespoke steel frame with four hydraulic legs, capable of lifting the building 800mm from the ground on command. — Bat Studio
According to the designer, Bat Studio, the greenhouse stands on hydraulic legs that can lift it up in case of flooding – a common occurrence in the area. Built in glue-laminated timber sections, the greenhouse is meant to be both visually-pleasing and functional. The most prominent façade... View full entry
Cooled Conservatories, Gardens by the Bay in Singapore by London-based Wilkinson Eyre Architects is the winner of the 2013 RIBA Lubetkin Prize for the best new international building. This is the second year running for Wilkinson Eyre, who also won the prize last year for Guangzhou International Finance Center in China. — bustler.net
Previously: 2013 RIBA Lubetkin Prize Shortlists Three International Buildings Also announced today: RIBA Stirling Prize 2013 goes to Astley Castle by Witherford Watson Mann Architects View full entry
We have received images of the fascinating project, SPACEPLATES Greenhouse Bristol, a class room and growing space for the horticulture students and their teachers at the South Bristol Skills Academy in Bristol, UK. The project is a collaboration of Danish artists' group N55 with Copenhagen architect Anne Romme. — bustler.net
The inside of the greenhouse will be anything but ordinary. Four-metre-high stacks of growing trays on motorized conveyors will ferry plants up, down and around for watering, to capture the sun’s rays and then move them into position for an easy harvest.
The array will produce about the same amount of produce as 6.4 hectares (16 acres) of California fields, according to Christopher Ng, chief operating officer of Valcent.
— vancouversun.com
