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
The Trump administration has awarded contracts to build four border wall prototypes using non-concrete "other materials," U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced Thursday.
The contracts came a week after the administration announced four companies that will build prototypes of concrete border walls. In all, the eight prototype walls will cost about $3.6 million.
— The Hill
Adding to the four firms already selected to build border wall prototypes last week, Trump now also contracted another round of companies that will specifically build non-concrete prototypes of his favorite campaign promise. By encouraging 'other materials' border wall designs, Trump hopes to... View full entry
Design Topology Lab founder Joseph Choma continues to put his fiberglass hand-folding technique to the test in a new larger scale structure called “Chakrasana”, which is currently on display at Clemson University, where Choma is an architecture professor. Weighing in at only 400 pounds, the... View full entry
First, given their robust physical characteristics, like, reinforced concrete, between 18-30 feet high, the concrete border wall prototypes are designed to deter illegal crossings in the area in which they are constructed.
Second, the concrete border wall prototypes will allow CBP to evaluate the potential for new wall and barrier designs that could complement the wall and barrier designs we have used along the border over the last several years.
— U.S. Customs and Border Protection
On Thursday, CBP announced that it had awarded contracts to build several 30-foot-high concrete wall prototypes, which are supposed to inform future design standards and will likely continue to evolve to meet the U.S. Border Patrol’s requirements. The four companies that will build the... View full entry
Twenty-one participants from 11 countries got to hone their skills in computational design and research during the AA Summer DLAB: ORANGE workshop at AA's London campus this past July. Building upon the last two Summer DLAB cycles, students worked side by side in researching and developing... View full entry
Contrasting against the greenery of Hooke Park is “InFlux”, a brick-red wall prototype that 18 students and their tutors assembled for the AA School of Architecture's Summer DLAB::RED 2015 program. Taking place from July 27 to August 8, the RED-themed agenda explored the phenomenal process of... View full entry
In a major reversal, Gov. Jerry Brown is seeking state funds for a fledgling earthquake early warning system for California, which would allow for a limited rollout of alerts by 2018...Though the governor’s proposed funding is a big step for the system, it does not come with ongoing funds to operate it. An earthquake early warning system for California alone will cost about $23 million to build and $12 million annually to operate[.] — Los Angeles Times
More on Archinect:Checking in on Nepal, one year laterDeath toll climbs to 350 after powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake hits EcuadorIn Los Angeles, landlords and tenants will share seismic retrofit costsShigeru Ban builds earthquake-proof homes in Nepal: "I'm encouraging people to copy my ideas. No... View full entry
Curated by Spela Videcnik, Rok Oman, and John T. Dunlop (Design Critic in Housing and Urban Development), the "Habitation in Extreme Environments: Alpine Shelter" exhibition currently at the Harvard GSD presents a prototypical alpine shelter that students designed in an option studio this past... View full entry
Students and professionals had another opportunity to take part in the third cycle of the AA Athens Visiting School program, "Cipher City: Revolutions". Taking place at the National Technical University of Athens this past spring, participants focused on addressing the roles of change, adaptation and interaction through scripting and digital fabricating techniques at large scale models. — bustler.net
The program set out to challenge the motionless built environment in the collaborative creation of a kinetic pathway prototype called Kinetic Haze. Participants applied the basic design elements from their own proposals in creating the project in less than five days.Here's a glimpse of the... View full entry
Photos have emerged of what looks like the first facade piece for Apple's new mega HQ.While civil engineering is now well underway at the site in Cupertino, California, the facade element was spotted thousands of miles away in the tiny Bavarian town of Gundelfingen. Josef Gartner GmbH, a Germany... View full entry
Garrison Architects adds to the pressing topic of 21st-century disaster resilience for dense urban cities with their modular post-disaster housing prototype. Developed for the New York City Office of Emergency Management, the project aims to provide New Yorkers not only with reliable and adaptable... View full entry
American/German architectural practice Barkow Leibinger is back at the Venice Biennale with "Kinetic Wall". Specifically designed for this year's Biennale, the prototype highlights the evolution of wall-making while also standing as an ode to the 20th century fantasy of kinetic architecture -- or architecture that can move. Kinetic Wall is currently on display in the Wall Room at the "Elements of Architecture“ exhibition in the Venice Biennale. — bustler.net
Get more details on Bustler.See it in action in the video below. View full entry
At its core, Context encourages hyper-efficient iteration by allowing designers to see their work three-dimensionally as they’re in the creation process. The goal is to radically reduce the time and effort it takes to realize a fully-developed design, which in turn will let designers spend more time on brainstorming great ideas and less time on the mechanics of bringing them to life. — Wired
Context, an app for Mac from former Apple and IDEO designer Joshua Distler, allows anyone to apply their designs to a real-world setting in a simple, reactive way. The app works in sync with Adobe Illustrator to essentially map a design (for a book cover, bottle label, cake decoration, etc.) onto... View full entry
The breakthrough not only allows an object made up of many different materials to be printed, but also lets the user change the look and feel of a single material used to print an object. It's possible to print an object with hard and compressible sections out of a single material, even if the raw material isn't flexible in itself. — Gizmag
Now you can 3D print a single object with multiple materials and varying densities, thanks to MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL). Through an adapted software called Spec2Fab, the designer can specify precisely which materials are to be used in each part of the printed... View full entry
Openarch is a real prototype of a smart home. The first home designed from scratch to incorporate a digital layer connecting the house and its elements to the Internet. Its inhabitants lead a new digital and connected life. It is flexible and thanks to its ability to transform, it can adapt to any condition that the user requires. — openarch.cc
