TAKTL's ultra-high-performance concrete panels on the Waikiki Business Plaza by MGA Architecture. Image Courtesy of TAKTL
It's no secret that among the architecture profession's biggest sources of guilt is our reliance on concrete in a huge number of the buildings that we have a hand in creating. Architects are more likely than most to be aware of the environmental implications of the material, and yet we continue to use it at an alarming rate. But what alternatives are there in order to do our job? In an article for Forbes, Laurie Winkless runs down a list of three alternatives that stand a good chance of changing the face of concrete construction.
The Department of Spatial and Sustainable Design, Vienna University of Technology, and the Society of Architecture and Spatial Design is organizing the BLUE AWARD, an international student competition for sustainable architecture. The prize is overseen by the UIA, International Union of Architects, represented by its former President Albert Dubler.
The competition is open to university students of Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree programs as well as for students working on a diploma thesis or dissertation in the academic fields of architecture, urbanism or regional planning and civil engineering. The submitted project must be part of a supervised coursework, having taken place during one of the following semesters: Summer Semester 2014, Winter Semester 2014/15, Summer Semester 2015, Winter Semester 2015/16 and Summer Semester 2016.
The advancement of contemporary technology is changing the way we study the world around us. The way we describe and understand cities is being radically transformed, along with the tools we use to envision and impact their physical form.
These new technologies allow us to understand the built environment differently. The city is no longer a static collection of built objects, but can instead be understood as a series of social, environmental, and informational networks. Can we this new knowledge to positively impact the city of the future? Can these technologies allow us to rectify the mistakes of the past? What new possibilities exist within their creative use?
A proposal by Miba Architects and Calderon‐Folch‐Sarsanedas Architects has received 2nd prize in an international competition to design the new medical school for the University of Cyprus. The project proposes a “campus within a campus,” combining the strict bio-climatic regulations of a research lab with a social space for learning. Read more after the break.
BEE / HOUSE / LAB, is an international design competition open to students and designers in the field of environmental design, architecture, landscape architecture, industrial design, and other related fields. The competition calls for a design of a bee house prototype that can be fabricated and deployed for field testing. Up to ten designs selected by the Design Jury will be fabricated (30 prototypes per design) and deployed (300 houses), to study their space-form-habitat performances.
In the face of global doomsday predictions, sustainability has become one of the most crucial aspects of the 21st century, now playing a huge role in everything from politics to the way you dispose of your trash. Fortunately, most architects understand sustainability implicitly, and have adopted it into their lives and work. Or have they? In this article, originally published on Common Edge as "Why Architects Don't Get It," green building expert Lance Hosey highlights the failures of the architecture community in reaching their stated sustainability goals, and argues for a new conception of architecture in which good design and sustainable design are integrated.
A few years ago, the American Institute of Architects, the self-declared “voice of the architecture profession,” announced that "AIA members will no longer need to complete the sustainable design requirement to fulfill their AIA continuing education." Why? Because “sustainable design practices have become a mainstream design intention.” Hooray! If sustainability is “mainstream” now, and knowledge about it is no longer necessary “to maintain competency” and “to advance and improve the profession”—the purpose of continuing education, according to the AIA—then the profession must have met its environmental goals, and there’s nothing left to improve. Mission accomplished.
A three-day Building Energy Modeling workshop in Delhi for architects that equips them with knowledge related to building science, software training to design energy efficient and sustainably cooled buildings that save money for their clients, enhance energy access for underprivileged sections of our society, and reduce carbon emissions.
Agroecologist Amlankusum, together with Paris-based Vincent Callebaut Architectures, has created Hyperions, a vertical, energy positive eco-neighborhood proposed for Jaypee Green Sports City in the Delhi National Capital Region (NCR) in India. Aiming to “reconcile urban renaturation and small-scale farming with environment protection and biodiversity,” the project combines low-tech and high-tech elements with the “objective of energy decentralization and food deindustrialization.”
IaaC Student Elena Mitrofanova, working alongside biochemist Paolo Bombelli has created a proposal for a facade system that utilizes the natural electricity-generating power of plants. Consisting of a series of hollow, modular clay "bricks" containing moss, the system takes advantage of new scientific advances in the emerging field of biophotovoltaics (BPV) which Mitrofanova says "would be cheaper to produce, self-repairing, self-replicating, biodegradable and much more sustainable" than standard photovoltaics.
Kunlé Adeyemi’s recent work, the 'Makoko Floating School', is an innovative, prototype floating structure located on the lagoon heart of Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos. This acclaimed project is part of an extensive research project - 'African Water Cities' - being developed by NLÉ, an architecture, design, and urbanism practice founded by Adeyemi in 2010 with a focus on developing cities and communities.
BPD Marignan and XTU Architects, in association with SNI Group and MU Architecture, have won the Réinventer.Paris competition for Paris Rive Gauche site M5A2. The winning project, called In Vivo, seeks to “[promote] social mix and openness between citizens and [integrate] nature into cities, to achieve a fairer, more sustainable, and resilient city,” through three buildings for humans, and one to raise earthworms for vermicomposting of inhabitants’ organic waste.
On Tuesday, February 16th, Storefront for Art and Architecture will open Closed Worlds, an exhibition curated by Lydia Kallipoliti that presents an archive of 41 living prototypes of closed resource regeneration systems built over the last century. The archive represents an unexplored genealogy of closed systems in architectural practice. The exhibition will also feature Some World Games, a virtual reality installation by Farzin Farzin that presents a contemporary 42nd
Beylikdüzü Municipality has announced “Valley of Life International Competition” in Beylikdüzü district in Istanbul. The competition is searching innovative and sustainable ideas for the development of the valley in Beylikdüzü. Competitors are invited to develop visionary concepts that focus on the whole valley and on the focal points determined. These concept descriptions should include an operational idea for the area and a description of the ecological corridor with transportation connections, bicycle routes, services, functionalities etc.
Rendered VIew. Image Courtesy of Sasaki Associates
Located on four man-made islands in Iskandar Malaysia, “Forest City” is set to be South-East Asia’s largest, mixed use green development. Designed by Sasaki Associates, the master plan has an estimated investment of S$58.3 billion (US$40.9 billion) and is expected to bring around 220,000 jobs to the area. Located near the economic centers of Southeast Asia, the new Forest City is ideally placed to become a hub of commerce and culture. Designed to encourage live/work culture, it is composed of “financial institutions, high-tech research and development facilities, headquarter offices, and a variety of creative industries that establish an innovative and sustainable employment base for the region,” write the architects. Read more after the break.
Four Dutch designers—Chris Collaris, Ruben Esser, Sander Bakker and Patrick van der Gronde—have envisioned a sustainable design of re-use for a discarded oil tanker in the Southern Gulf Region, which they have entitled The Black Gold. They believe that the oil tanker is the "perfect icon" for representing "the geographic, economic and cultural history of the Arabic oil states" – an icon which they predict will become more and more obsolete as the supply of crude oil is moved away from shipping and into pipe infrastructure.
A design for a pavilion constructed out of recycled clothes hangers has been selected as the winner of the sixth annual City of DreamsPavilion Competition. The temporary structure will be built on Governors Island and available to the public for summer 2016, pending final approval and fundraising.
Hosted by FIGMENT, the Emerging New York Architects Committee (ENYA) of the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter (AIANY), and the Structural Engineers Association of New York (SEAoNY), the competition speculates on possible futures with solutions to the current strain on economic and natural resources. Designers are required to consider their materials from sourcing to disposal, or ideally, reuse, promoting sustainable thinking.
Over 100 design proposals were submitted, and the jury selected four finalists who were each given a month to further develop their designs in response to jury comments. See the winning design and the three finalists after the break.
Please join us for the opening of Structures of Coastal Resilience: Designing for Climate Change!
The devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy in October of 2012 has highlighted the vulnerability of urban coastal areas to the effects of catastrophic storms and climate change. Coastal communities must adapt planning strategies to mitigate the risk posed by these natural hazards.
Structures of Coastal Resilience (SCR) matches the latest science with urban and landscape design to propose actionable solutions for buffering against storms. Structures of Coastal Resilience (SCR) is a Rockefeller Foundation-supported project dedicated to studying and proposing resilient designs for urban coastal
The Buckminster Fuller Institue (BFI) has issued the Call for Proposals for the 2016 Fuller Challenge. Known as “socially-responsible design’s highest award,” the Fuller Challenge invites designers, architects, planners, entrepreneurs, scientists, artists, activists, and students worldwide to submit original solutions to some of humanity’s most pressing problems.
A $100,000 prize is awarded to support the development and implementation of the winning project. In addition to the grand prize, BFI will provide further resources for finalists, semi-finalists and select entrants through its Catalyst Program.
