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.
https://www.archdaily.com/931309/de-blasios-glass-skyscraper-ban-could-mass-timber-and-transparent-concrete-take-its-placeLilly Cao
Gone are the days when the kitchen was relegated to a service area. Following the traditional system of bourgeois residential tripartition (dividing the house into social, intimate, and service areas), the kitchen was originally designed as an independent and closed space. Today, more and more, projects seek to integrate and relate it to other rooms in the house, facilitating different interactions among its residents. Due to this transformation, the appearance of the kitchen also changed, and traditional ceramic and stone cladding gave way to new materials.
Ondřej Císler from Aoc architects and Petr Tej from the Klokner Institute at CTU in Prague have designed a bridge over the Dřetovice stream in Vrapice, near the city of Kladno in the Czech Republic.
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Gerbert Rappaport. Director. Image from the movie Cherry Town (Cheryomushki) 1963.
Flying Panels - How Concrete Panels Changed the World is a new ArkDes exhibition designed by Note Design Studio and curated by Pedro Ignacio Alonso and Hugo Palmarola - authors of the Monolith Controversies exhibition, the winner of the Silver Lion award at the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2014.
It brings together a series models and material as posters, paintings, films, toys, cartoons and opera sets are gathered to reflect on how concrete panels influenced culture for the construction of a new society.
Concrete is the second-most used material on earth. It is also the second-largest emitter of CO2, with cement manufacturing accounting for 5 to 7 percent of annual emissions. The continued popularity of concrete as a material of choice in the design and construction industry, coupled with increasing unease of the environmental consequences, has put concrete firmly in the spotlight of innovation and experimentation. As a result, designers, architects, and researchers around the world are generating multiple visions for what the future of concrete in architecture could look like.
https://www.archdaily.com/926854/what-is-the-future-of-concrete-in-architectureNiall Patrick Walsh
Building / Prototype II is an experimental architectural pavilion designed by architect Marc Leschelier for the Feÿ Arts Festival in Burgundy, France. Created in the middle of the forest, in the park of the Château du Feÿ, the permanent installation is the first of an acquired collection to be always displayed on site.
One of the most practical and functional spaces of any residential project is the kitchen. Its artificial surfaces – be it countertops, kitchen benches, or coverings – contain most of the space's equipment. Thus, it’s essential to build kitchens with the most resistant and hygienic materials. Aside from these requirements, it's also important to pay attention to aesthetics and profitability, while adapting the space to the dynamics of each family.
Concrete, a material commonly used in the construction industry, is made of a binder combined with aggregates (or gravels), water, and certain additives. Its origins reach back as far as Ancient Egypt, when the construction of large structures created the need for a new kind of material: one which was liquid, featured properties of natural stones, could be molded, and communicated a sense of nobility and grandeur.
The history of concrete dates back to ancient Rome, approximately 2,000 years ago. The so-called “Roman Concrete” is composed of limestone, volcanic ash, and seawater and it permitted the construction of aqueducts, highways, and temples; many of them still stand to this day. Some time ago, this original mix was discovered to form a mineral called aluminum tobermorite, which gets stronger as time goes by.
Since its invention in 1920, cellular concrete tackled the search for an industrial material that had similar characteristics to wood. It was lightweight, could be cut or perforated, and avoided some of its disadvantages; for instance, its water absorption and need for maintenance. Nowadays, Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC) blocks are actively present in the marketplace by manufacturers like Hebel or Retak, which are building an easy to use and efficient constructive system. If you ever wondered about how to build with these masonry ingredients, it is pertinent to dig a bit deeper into the advantages of this material.
British company Kast has launched a new version of its traditional pigmented concrete sinks. Since concrete is an extremely versatile material, which combines the characteristics of natural stone with the ability to be molded in different forms, the products show carved surfaces with highly defined textures. The exploration of their linear patterns ranges from smooth horizontal ripples to diagonal folds or 'sharp' and vertical grooves. The organic variations in the colors and textures of the surfaces create a different aesthetic that comes directly from the character of the material.
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