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

Brutalism will never happen again. Our stock of Brutalism is limited, and sadly under constant attack. The demolition and ‘refurbishment’ of great buildings by Rudolph, I M Pei, Denys Lasdun and other giants of the movement should be taken as seriously as would the loss of buildings by Donato Bramante, Christopher Wren or Frank Lloyd Wright. Brutalism deserves far better than the wrecker’s ball: it was the pinnacle of world architecture through all of history. — Aeon

Surfing on this social media hype, the German Architecture Museum (DAM) and the Wüstenrot Foundation have started using the hashtag #SOSBrutalism to make these buildings visible worldwide in order to contribute to saving those that are currently threatened.

"Brutalism represents an anti-attitude, an anti-idyll," says campaign co-initiator Philip Kurz, of the Wüstenrot Foundation. [...]

The German Architecture Museum also plans to create an exhibition next year based on its online campaign. — dw.com

A scientist in Mexico has created glowing cement that absorbs solar energy during the day and emits light after sun-down.

Claiming the engineered cement can last a hundred years, he says it could make roads and structures glow in the dark, cutting the cost of street-lighting.

The patent is the first for Mexico’s University of San Nicolas Hidalgo, says the researcher behind the invention, Dr. José Carlos Rubio, according to Investigación y Desarrollo. — globalconstructionreview.com

The greatest work of art at New Haven’s Yale Center for British Art is arguably the landmark building itself—and Louis Kahn’s last structure is due to reopen this month after a 16-month renovation of its public galleries and lecture hall, and an upgrade of its accessibility, security, mechanical and electrical systems. This is the third phase of a $33m conservation project that began in 2008. — theartnewspaper.com

[UCLA's team of interdisciplinary researchers'] plan would be to create a closed-loop process: capturing carbon from power plant smokestacks and using it to create a new building material — CO2NCRETE — that would be fabricated using 3D printers. [...]

“We can demonstrate a process where we take lime and combine it with carbon dioxide to produce a cement-like material ... We’re trying to develop a process solution, an integrated technology which goes right from CO2 to a finished product." — luskin.ucla.edu

Thanks to the work of Lin Wan and pals at Northwestern University...these guys have worked out how to make Martian concrete using materials that are widely available on Mars. And, crucially, this concrete can be formed without using water, which will be a precious resource on the red planet. — Technology Review

There’s the legacy of Brutalism being such a negative term. It begins the conversation with negativity about these buildings, and this falls into the misreading of them as harsh, Stalinist, or some other kind of monstrous, mean architecture. The name plays into that mischaracterization that’s grown around a lot of them. I think “Heroic’” is a better title for what their actual aspirations were. The architects had a real sense of optimism. They were developing architecture for the civic realm. — citylab.com

During the first few weeks of August 2007, the American Midwest was devastated by heavy and repeated flash flooding as a result of Hurricane Dean and Tropical Storm Erin dumping massive amounts of rain on several states. And of the US$549 million or so in property damage that came from it, more than two-thirds was caused by water running off pavements or overflowing from drainage systems. So what's the solution? — Science Alert

“I was a little disappointed in the fire service,” said Belles, standing on the charred hillside next to the dome in his semi-rural neighbourhood on the edge of town. — theguardian.com

Goldfinger’s [brutalist] buildings were decreed “soulless.” Inhabitants claimed to suffer health problems and depression from spending time inside of them. Some of Goldfinger’s buildings were vacated because occupants found them so ugly. Yet, architects praised Goldfinger’s buildings. [...]

This divide—this hatred from the public and love from designers and architects—tends to be the narrative around buildings like Goldfinger’s. Which is to say, gigantic, imposing buildings made of concrete. — slate.com

At what cost? The LAVA plan could be difficult to manage structurally, cost a significant amount of money and see Sirius occupants relocated anyway. But it could also be a more sustainable option than knocking down and rebuilding. — architectureanddesign.com.au

Inspired by the human body, Jonkers, who works at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, created self-healing concrete. He embeds the concrete with capsules of limestone-producing bacteria, either Bacillus pseudofirmus or Sporosarcina pasteurii, along with calcium lactate. When the concrete cracks, air and moisture trigger the bacteria to begin munching on the calcium lactate. They convert the calcium lactate to calcite, an ingredient in limestone, thus sealing off the cracks.  — smithsonianmag.com

"Modern architecture is a defining artistic form of the 20th century at considerable risk, often due to the cutting-edge building materials that characterized the movement." -Deborah Marrow