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Terracotta: The Latest Architecture and News

How to Use Alternative Products and Materials to Reduce a Project’s Carbon Footprint

Working within the restrictions of a limited carbon footprint can be one of the hardest – but also most rewarding – parts of a modern architect’s role. Whether to suit a large multinational corporation’s sustainability report, to achieve LEED status or similar for a commercial developer, or to build an eco-home for a climate-conscious private client – or even one who just wants to spend less on energy, it’s imperative to keep up-to-date with the latest carbon-neutral and low-carbon building practices and materials.

Whether looking at a project’s structural beginnings, its high-grade finishes, or thinking more holistically about its entire lifetime, there are huge gains to be made with sustainable substitutes and alternatives to traditional materials and techniques.

How to Use Alternative Products and Materials to Reduce a Project’s Carbon Footprint - Image 1 of 4How to Use Alternative Products and Materials to Reduce a Project’s Carbon Footprint - Image 2 of 4How to Use Alternative Products and Materials to Reduce a Project’s Carbon Footprint - Image 3 of 4How to Use Alternative Products and Materials to Reduce a Project’s Carbon Footprint - Image 4 of 4How to Use Alternative Products and Materials to Reduce a Project’s Carbon Footprint - More Images+ 5

Terracotta House / Austin Maynard Architects

Terracotta House / Austin Maynard Architects - Exterior Photography, Renovation, FacadeTerracotta House / Austin Maynard Architects - Interior Photography, Renovation, ChairTerracotta House / Austin Maynard Architects - Interior Photography, Renovation, Kitchen, CountertopTerracotta House / Austin Maynard Architects - Exterior Photography, RenovationTerracotta House / Austin Maynard Architects - More Images+ 43

  • Area Area of this architecture project Area:  255
  • Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2020
  • Manufacturers Brands with products used in this architecture project
    Manufacturers:  Grohe, About Space, Barazza, Blackbutt, Bosch, +22

Subversive Methods Make A Skyscraper in Michael Ryan Charters and Ranjit John Korah's "Unveiled"

Subversive Methods Make A Skyscraper in Michael Ryan Charters and Ranjit John Korah's "Unveiled" - Facade, Cityscape
Night View. Image Courtesy of Michael Ryan Charters and Ranjit John Korah

In a Los Angeles Times article last December, “The future is in the past: Architecture trends in 2014,” acting critic Christopher Hawthorne sought to make sense of a year that included Koolhaas’s Venice Biennale, Smiljan Radic’s Serpentine Pavilion, and periodicals like Log 31: New Ancients and San Rocco 8: What’s Wrong with the Primitive Hut? Through these examples and others, Hawthorne concluded that it was a year of overdue self-reflection, where in order to determine architecture’s future it was necessary to mine the past.

Building on these precedents, Hawthorne predicted that after years of baroque parametricism, in 2015 architects would use last year’s meditations on history as a practical foundation for new projects and proposals. An example of this can be found in the work of Michael Ryan Charters and Ranjit John Korah, a duo who recently shared the top-five prize for the CAF led ChiDesign Competition (part of the Chicago Architecture Biennial) for their project Unveiled. In a brief that called for “a new center for architecture, design and education,” and with lauded jurors including Stanley Tigerman, David Adjaye, Ned Cramer, Monica Ponce de Leon, and Billie Tsien, Charters and Korah proposed what could casually be summarized as a terracotta framework over a multi-story crystalline form of wooden vaults, but is actually something much more complex.

Subversive Methods Make A Skyscraper in Michael Ryan Charters and Ranjit John Korah's "Unveiled" - Facade, Column, Arch, Handrail, ArcadeSubversive Methods Make A Skyscraper in Michael Ryan Charters and Ranjit John Korah's "Unveiled" - Arch, Arcade, Column, LightingSubversive Methods Make A Skyscraper in Michael Ryan Charters and Ranjit John Korah's "Unveiled" - Facade, CityscapeSubversive Methods Make A Skyscraper in Michael Ryan Charters and Ranjit John Korah's "Unveiled" - Arch, Arcade, Column, CityscapeSubversive Methods Make A Skyscraper in Michael Ryan Charters and Ranjit John Korah's Unveiled - More Images+ 3