In 2018, the UN released an article stating that 55% of the world’s population already lived in urban areas, predicting that by 2050 this percentage would reach 68%. This trend toward greater urbanization carries with it several implications regarding environmental degradation and social inequality. According to National Geographic, urban growth increases air pollution, endangers animal populations, promotes the loss of urban tree cover, and heightens the likelihood of environmental catastrophes such as flash flooding. These health hazards and catastrophic phenomena may be more likely to impact poorer populations, as larger cities tend to demonstrate higher rates of economic inequality and uncontrolled growth tends to produce unequal distributions of space, services, and opportunities.

To mitigate these negative effects of urbanization, designers are increasingly prioritizing sustainability and the maximization of available space – allowing more people to occupy less space with a smaller footprint.

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Door handles are a ubiquitous part of daily life, being used constantly in almost every space but rarely given thought by the passing user. Nevertheless, the chosen material of each handle can vary widely in terms of aesthetics, durability, and sustainability, with good choices going noticeably right and poor choices going noticeably wrong. For objects that are seen and used multiple times every day without fail, it’s imperative that designers get the choice right.

To deepen this topic, FSB helps us to lay out the properties of four of the most common handle materials below, allowing you to make an informed decision on which material aligns best with your project’s needs.

Open More Doors is a section by ArchDaily and the MINI Clubman that takes you behind the scenes of the world’s most innovative offices through exciting video interviews and an exclusive photo gallery featuring each studio’s workspace.

For this episode, we talked with Jo Nagasaka of Schemata Architects about his firm’s history, mission, and office space. Schemata works on a wide range of scales and programs, from furniture to city development, but maintains a commitment to a one-to-one scale of design that focuses on material exploration.

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As the climate crisis continues to unfold, professionals in architecture, engineering, and sustainable design have relentlessly searched for new ways to mitigate the negative effects of modern industrial production. One group of such innovators, Zero Mass Water, have contributed to this effort through their creation of ‘the world’s first and only hydropanel’ - an apparatus called SOURCE.

While technology and construction have progressed rapidly in recent years, allowing structures to be built taller and faster than ever, remnants of colossal ancient monuments remind us that construction techniques from as long as hundreds of years ago had enormous merit as well. In fact, many of the innovations of antiquity serve as foundations of modern construction, with the Roman invention of concrete serving as a cogent example. Other essential ancient construction techniques, such as the arch and the dome, are now often considered stylistic flourishes, with designs like the Met Opera House reinterpreting classical typologies in a modern context. Yet perhaps the most relevant reinterpretations of ancient construction today are those that do so in the interest of sustainability, renouncing high-energy modern construction methods in favor of older, more natural techniques.

Videos

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Open More Doors is a section by ArchDaily and the MINI Clubman that takes you behind the scenes of the world’s most innovative offices through exciting video interviews and an exclusive photo gallery featuring each studio’s workspace.

In this installment of the series, we talked with Kai-Uwe Bergmann, a partner at Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). Despite the size and fame of the firm – BIG has around 500 employees and maintains offices in Copenhagen, New York, Barcelona, and London – he emphasized camaraderie and connection as the most defining characteristics of the company. These traits are doubly emphasized in the open, nonhierarchical layouts of their offices.

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Indoor gardens can contribute important benefits to home living, ranging from aesthetic beauty to improved health and productivity. Research has shown that indoor plants help eliminate indoor air pollutants called Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) that emanate from adhesives, furnishings, clothing, and solvents, and are known to cause illnesses. They also increase subjective perceptions of concentration and satisfaction, as well as objective measures of productivity. Indoor gardens may even reduce energy use and costs because of the reduced need for air circulation. These benefits complement the obvious aesthetic advantages of a well-designed garden, making the indoor garden an attractive residential feature on several fronts.

Last April, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York announced plans to introduce a bill that would ban the construction of new all-glass buildings. Part of a larger effort to reduce citywide greenhouse emissions by 30 percent, other initiatives included using clean energy to power city operations, mandatory organics recycling, and reducing single-use plastic and processed meat purchases. The announcement came on the heels of the city council passing the Climate Mobilization Act, a sweeping response to the Paris Climate Agreement that included required green roofs on new constructions and emissions reductions on existing buildings.

From playful indoor pools to tranquil exterior fountains to soaring waterfalls and grand lakes of enormous proportions, architecture throughout the centuries has engaged with water in endlessly innovative ways. Sometimes serving aesthetic purposes, but just as often acting as centers of activity or promoting sustainability, water features can take countless different forms and serve multiple different purposes. Below, we synthesize a series of water features espoused by innovative contemporary architectural projects, ranging from single-family residential homes to vast commercial complexes.

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Videos

Open More Doors is a section by ArchDaily and the MINI Clubman that takes you behind the scenes of the world’s most innovative offices through exciting video interviews and an exclusive photo gallery featuring each studio’s workspace.

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Podium construction – alternately known as platform or pedestal construction – is a building typology characterized by a horizontal division between a lower ‘podium’ and an upper tower. The podium, which is typically made of concrete or steel, is crowned by multiple light wood-frame stories. Often, the lighter upper structure contains four to five stories of residential units, while the podium houses retail, commercial, or office spaces and above- or below-grade parking. An alternative configuration sports six to seven residential stories (including the podium) and subterranean parking. Some visible examples of this podium construction style include the amenity-rich Stella residences designed by DesignArc; an attractive yet cost-effective student housing project for the University of Washington by Mahlum Architects; and the warm, modern University House Arena District also designed by Mahlum Architects in Eugene, Oregon.

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Calgary’s upcoming Attabotics Headquarters, designed by the Modern Office of Design + Architecture, physicalizes complex circulatory systems into a structure that is simultaneously aesthetically pleasing and programmatically successful. The client, a robotics manufacturer, was initially inspired by the spatial organization of ant colonies in their design for their emblematic robotic storage and retrieval system. This attribute consequently embeds itself in the new design for their headquarters, which navigates height restrictions, views, programming, and sustainability within this already intricate system of organization.  

For the most part, rubber isn’t considered a conventional building material – at least not to the same extent that materials like wood, concrete, or glass are. But rubber is commonly used in interiors for flooring of extraordinary color or brightness, and even more unexpectedly for exterior facades with unique aspects or upholstery effects. This functionality is motivated by unique advantages such as smoothness, elasticity, durability, and color consistency.

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Finnish practice JKMM’s newest project, The Dance House Helsinki, is set to become Finland’s first venue dedicated primarily to dance and the performing arts. Offering rehearsal and performance spaces for artists, Dance House forms an extension to Cable Factory, the largest existing cultural center in Finland.