Metal: The Latest Architecture and News

Ateliereen Architecten has proposed a metal and wood configuration for an observation tower in Peize, Netherlands. Their plan is to construct a resistant, permeable and playful structure.

The project is designed so that people climbing up the tower will have unique viewpoints. This tower is also easily assembled from screws and bolts. 

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With the green premise growing in popularity across the globe, more and more people are turning to recycling shipping containers as a way to reduce the extremely high surplus of empty shipping containers that are just waiting to become a home, office, apartment, school, dormitory, studio, emergency shelter, or anything else. The conversion of shipping containers to living spaces is not a new concept.

Shipping containers have become a more common architectural tool over the past few years. Through clippings, insertion of external elements, coatings, and equipment, the container is adapted according to its future use and desired aesthetics. See below 10 examples of works that adopt the use of containers.

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Shipping container architecture has developed its own niche in both design and representation. Colorful or grungy? Economical or gentrified? Either way, you look at it, designing with shipping containers is a serious exercise in modular planning. The physical constraints of the object make designing projects with containers a complex task, which demands specific studies in spatial organization.

The responses using this element in architecture are great and diverse, so we have selected a number of different project plans, both helpful and inspirational, that rise to the shipping container-challenge of design.

Check out selection of 10 architectural project plans using shipping containers below:

Understanding the structural aspects of architecture is an inherent task of the architect; sufficient structural knowledge allows designers to propose ideas such as large structural elements which offer an interesting response to a project's needs.

Steel trusses are an example of such a response, which demonstrate an ability to define spaces and structures that are truly complex and interesting.

Below is a list of 10 inspirational projects that use metal trusses as an essential element of design.

The geometric design of the 'Protostar Pavilion' for the launch of the new Mercedes-Benz E-Class is a morphological response associated with the iconic brand logo: a three-pointed star.

The project is a removable metal pavilion, made up of a series of folded aluminum plates that besides generating a light structure, allow for a quick and easy construction. 

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Videos

A metal microlattice developed by Boeing and HRL Laboratories has just been awarded the Guinness World Record for lightest metal.

Made from nickel phosphorus, the microlattice emulates human cell structure, reaching a density and surface area similar to lung tissue. So light it can be balanced on the top of a dandelion seed head, the material weighs in at approximately 100 times lighter than styrofoam.

Designed by Félix Guyon of Les Ateliers Guyon in Verchères, Quebec, "Sails Benches" is a monument to the original founding families of Verchères, commissioned by the municipality. Having worked in Montreal for many years, Guyon returned to his native village for this personal project, which was selected as the winning design of the Furniture Category at the World Interiors Awards 2015 in London, "charming" the judges with the personal narrative and sensitivity of his Sail Benches, according to a press release. Read more about the project after the break.