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The Pavilhão do Atlântico sports facility by Valdemar Coutinho Arquitectos was recently completed this year in Viana do Castelo, Portugal. The brutalist gymnasium was built to serve both the local Pedro Barbosa School and community. Pavilhão do Atlântico by Valdemar Coutinho... View full entry
Once the crane arm locates and hooks onto a concrete block, a motor starts, powered by the excess electricity on the grid, and lifts the block off the ground. [Designed to withstand wind, the crane arm] can smoothly lift the block, and then place it on top of another stack of blocks—higher up off the ground. The system is “fully charged” when the crane has created a tower of concrete blocks around it. — Quartz
A tower of the concrete blocks — weighing 35 metric tons each — can store a maximum of 20 megawatt-hours (MWh), which Energy Vault says is enough to power 2,000 Swiss homes for an entire day. According to Quartz, the Swiss startup is planning to build their first commercial plants starting... View full entry
Changing the mindset behind short-term wooden constructions is MIT. A group of researchers at the university are leading an initiative to investigate new mass timber designs- wood-based buildings designed to be more efficient and cheaper than, yet just as durable as, concrete and steel buildings. The team proposes building mass timber longhouses - large wooden engineered houses built from massive pieces of timber. — interestingengineering.com
Mass Timber Design, MIT's architecture workshop exploring sustainable building design at the intersection of architecture and technology, has developed a Longhouse prototype. Mass timber, a wood-based building design and construction technology, has continued to be explored for its... View full entry
Kiev is a city of eclectic beauty, with modernist landmarks that dot the skyline. But as the capital grows and evolves, many of these Soviet-era gems are falling out of favour and into disrepair, with many already cleared away to make room for newer projects. — Calvert Journal
The short Soviet Modernism, Brutalism, Post-Modernism: Buildings and Projects in Ukraine from 1960 – 1990 was recently released in support of the upcoming book of the same title, examining some of Kiev's remarkable concrete architecture heritage. Still from Soviet Modernism, Brutalism... View full entry
According to the CDP report, the cement industry is the second-largest industrial emitter of carbon after the steel industry. And when accounting for its use in human-made structures, it is responsible for more than a third of the world’s carbon emissions. But unlike the transportation sector, in which a new type of fuel can dramatically decrease the sector’s pollutants, cement’s problem is, well, cemented in its formulation [...] — The Outline
In his longform piece for The Outline, Mike Disabato explains why the cement industry shows little interest in earnestly reducing the tremendous environmental impact of its (nearly) indispensable product. "No one in the cement industry has seriously engaged in the herculean task of enhancing the... View full entry
How could an architect who had made the pursuit of lightness the essence of his design aspirations become one of the great form-givers of the aesthetics of weightiness? — Places Journal
In this rich examination of the work of Marcel Breuer, Barry Bergdoll explores the marked shifts between his early European and later American work, and finds a constant in the pursuit of lightness. In his efforts to reconcile vernacular traditions with modern expression and the conditions of... View full entry
Concrete placement work for Dubai Creek Tower's pile cap has been completed two months ahead of schedule.
A 20m-thick, multi-layered pile cap has been developed for the $1bn (AED3.67bn) Dubai Creek Tower, which is part of the 6km2 Dubai Creek Harbour master development.
The pile covers and transfers the load to the foundation barrettes.
— constructionweekonline.com
Image: Emaar Properties. Up to 16,000 tons of steel reinforcement, reportedly twice the weight of the Eiffel Tower, have been buried in the sandy Dubai ground to support (what has been promised to become) the world's tallest tower at a yet to be disclosed height: the Dubai Creek Tower designed by... View full entry
Drilling holes—for windows, granted—into famed architect Marcel Breuer’s final project could cost $1 million, and preservationists are peeved such plans are still on the drafting board.
But despite community pushback, the window plans are still very much alive.
Tuesday night, a crowd again convened at downtown’s Central Atlanta Library, a Breuer-designed Brutalist building, to argue against aspects of the $50 million plan to renovate the 38-year-old structure.
— Curbed Atlanta
Current state of the Atlanta-Fulton Central Library building. Photo: Aleksandr Zykov/Flickr. To drill or not to drill—that's at the center of a heated debate between the Atlanta–Fulton Public Library System, who would like to see additional windows to bring some natural light into their... View full entry
Zaha Hadid Architects just revealed a design proposal for Lushan Primary School, a new learning center for 120 children from 12 local villages in a remote rural area of Jiangxi Province, China. The campus is designed as a network of intersecting barrel and parabolic vaults that accommodate... View full entry
Another Oscar Niemeyer headquarters building in France has been newly explored by photographer Denis Esakov. This concrete undertaking was previously home to L'Humanité, a daily newspaper formerly a branch of the French Communist Party. Niemeyer completed this project in 1989 – take a look... View full entry
Oscar Niemeyer's Communist party headquarters in Paris was recently captured by photographer Denis Esakov. Take a new look at the Brazilian architect's concrete achievement, one of his first in Europe. View full entry
Envisioned to reach a height of 100 feet, the piece, titled “Bust of a Woman,” was approved to tower over the campus of the University of South Florida (USF), with its single cutout eye gazing blankly at its surroundings. The project — which also involved construction of a new art center — had an estimated cost of $10 million, however, and university officials ended up killing it due to lack of funding. Picasso passed away in 1973, and his angular, hard-edged figure never came to fruition. — hyperallergic.com
Originally designed for a museum in Sweden, Picasso's "Bust of a Woman" was donated to USF in 1971 and would have been the tallest concrete sculpture in the world at that time. Visualization of Paul Rudolph’s building with Picasso’s sculpture. Image: USF Special Collection Library.He agreed... View full entry
Some treats should really go into an art gallery instead of your mouth.
Like these Brutalist-inspired delights by Danish designer and goldsmith Kia Utzon-Frank, which look like they've been chipped from the side of a concrete skyscraper.
— Mashable
If cold concrete surfaces AND sweet treats happen to be your kinda thang, then this is for you: London-based Danish designer/goldsmith Kia Utzon-Frank has developed her native country's flødeboller desserts in a béton brut look and now also offers masterclasses on how to make them... View full entry
Belgian maker of architectural prefabricated concrete elements, Enjoy Concrete, show us how the product can be the architecture in its most beautiful sense: when the company was in need of a new industrial facility in the small town of Veurne, they partnered with Govaert & Vanhoutte Architects... View full entry
Always wanted concrete walls? Now you can choose from a selection of Concrete Effect Wallpaper from murals wallpaper. Featuring the Brutalist Welbeck Street Mural option pictured above, the company offers multiple Brutalist choices of Cathedral, High Rise, London, or Metro. Most of mural... View full entry
