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Construction and materials group Holcim has announced a collaboration with the Norman Foster Foundation at the 2023 Venice Biennale to develop a model for essential housing. Titled the Essential Homes Research Project, the model is intended to “provide safety, comfort, and well-being for... View full entry
After Hurricane Fiona tore through Puerto Rico on Sunday [Sept. 18], roads in the small mountain city of Caguas—hit with more than 20 inches of rain—were underwater. Landslides washed away some streets. As on the rest of the island, the electric grid went down, and it wasn’t clear how many homes had been damaged or destroyed. But in two new prototype homes, the electricity stayed on. — Fast Company
The prototypes are single-family homes completely off-grid with electricity and potable water. They were designed by New York City and Puerto Rico-based Marvel Architects and paid for by nonprofit Acacia Network. The homes utilize hurricane and... View full entry
One of the most promising recent healthcare infrastructure concepts has engendered an offshoot project that looks to expand on its original framework design. As a product of the research done for their collaboration on the Al Daayan Health District Master Plan in Doha, OMA and Buro Happold have... 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
[Dr. Raman's] prototype device employs radiative cooling, the phenomenon that makes buildings and parks feel cooler than the surrounding air after sunset. As Dr. Raman’s device releases heat, it does so unevenly, the top side cooling more than the bottom. It then converts the difference in heat into electricity. — The New York Times
After driving through a dark village in Sierra Leone, UCLA electrical engineer Aaswath Raman got the idea of building a device that didn't have to rely on solar power or wind to generate electricity after dark. Dr. Raman and his research team did just that, and built a prototype thermoelectric... View full entry
INFONAVIT, the federal institute for workers housing of Mexico, is the largest mortgage lender in Latin America. Founded in 1972, the Mexico City-based institute has played a critical role for families across Mexico attempting access decent housing. The institution, along with MOS architects, has... View full entry
And the prototypes came tumbling down. [...]
They have been used most dramatically as a backdrop for a presidential visit last March and for protest art. [...]
On Wednesday, slabs from seven out of the eight prototypes fell in clouds of dust in under two hours, no match for a jackhammer. At the point of destruction, an owl fled from a steel tube atop one section.
— The Guardian
And just as quickly as they came, they're gone again: seven of the eight prototypes for a lofty 1,954-mile border wall project to Mexico were bulldozed and turned into piles of expensive rubble on Wednesday morning... View full entry
What's next for Airbnb? The estimated $38 billion dollar company has transformed the home-sharing network forever. Having successfully turned homes, mud huts, even castles into spaces for rent, the global enterprise is searching for new ways to to think about housing. In 2016, Joe Gebbia the CPO... View full entry
Behold the first prototype of the Brooklyn-based Klein, a new company that wants to make the process of building small houses more affordable all over the world. A45 is a 13-foot-long wood and glass cabin for one, two, or three people (if one of them is tiny) designed by the Danish architectural firm Bjarke Ingels Group [...] meant to be the first of many designs [that will fulfill the fantasy] of having a home outside the city... — fastcompany.com
Founder Soren Rose started Klein after leading the firm Søren Rose Studio based in New York and Copenhagen. By providing small, cheap, prefab houses the company aims to make vacation home ownership more affordable to a wider audience. Klein prototype A45 by BIG. Image: Matthew Carbone.While... View full entry
Swiss architectural practice Rahbaran Hürzeler Architekten is developing an experimental residence to be realized anywhere. Called movable house, every aspect of this project is determined by motion from floor plans to structural elements to energy storage. Movable house rendering © Rahbaran... View full entry
The notion that the prototypes could qualify as conceptual art might seem somewhat far-fetched. They were designed to United States Customs and Border Protection specifications, built to withstand a 30-minute assault from sledgehammers to acetylene torches, and to be difficult to scale or tunnel beneath. Aesthetic considerations are largely secondary to brute strength, but, when viewed up close, the walls collectively have the undeniable majesty of minimalist sculpture. — Art Net
Cadillac Ranch, Prada Marfa, The Gates from the Met and The Border Wall. As excessive, fantastical, dismal and maddening as that list may sound, it may be closer to reality than we would think. For artist, Christoph Büchel, the possibility that the expected role of the Border Wall proto-types and... View full entry
Sallam noted that the average stay in a refugee camp is 17 years, and many displaced people live in makeshift dwellings such as airplane hangars. They may have shelter, but it’s not “shelter with dignity,”
Design elements [of the Hex House] include 12-foot ceilings, which give the impression of roominess within the cozy space. Designed to function “off the grid,” [it] also has solar panels, and it’s raised slightly to protect against flooding and to provide some passive cooling, Sallam said.
— Finance & Commerce
The Minneapolis-based Architects for Society, a small non-profit group of mid-career architects from around the world, designed the Hex House to find better solutions for providing deployable emergency shelter for people displaced by natural or manmade disasters. The 500-square-foot Hex House is... View full entry
The prototypes for Donald Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico have been completed, and the six participating companies, whose names have been publicly released, are beginning to face some serious pushback. Since the bidding process began, companies vying for the construction contract... View full entry
[...] prototypes for President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico have been completed and will be subjected to punishment to test their mettle — by workers wielding sledgehammers, torches, pickaxes and battery-operated tools.
The testing lasting up to two months could lead to officials concluding that elements of several designs should be merged to create effective walls [...]. That raises the possibility of no winner or winners.
— Associated Press
The six companies that were awarded contracts to build prototypes of Trump's border wall with Mexico earlier this year have completed their full-scale models on a site near San Diego and will see their creations undergo rigorous testing for nonclimbability, nonunderdiggability, and resistance to... View full entry
Today, the Glasgow School of Art unveiled a full-size prototype of a section of the Mackintosh Library bay that is based on the original 1910 design, marking another step forward for the building's restoration after the devastating 2014 fire. Following two years of meticulous research and six... View full entry
