How much do you wish you knew about carpentry, solar energy or masonry? Leonardo Da Vinci said, "the noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding." Those who are open to learning and expanding their horizons are more likely improve their approach to design. If you've always wanted to understand more about construction processes, structures or materials, this list of online courses is for you.
WATG Urban's first prize design for The Freeform Home Design Challenge in 2016 is now moving one step closer to becoming a reality. Since winning the competition, WATG's Chicago office has been developing the winning design, dubbed Curve Appeal, alongside Branch Technology. Curve Appeal is now undergoing the "wall section testing, research and development phase" with an anticipated goal of breaking ground later this year. This revolutionary project could change the way we construct complex, freeform structures.
Designing public spaces without considering the circulation and parking of bicycles is no longer an option in today's world. Accessibility for the free traffic of cyclists must also be accompanied by adequate security conditions, incorporating these devices in the best possible way to parks, sidewalks, parking lots, and the streetscape as a whole.
Last year we shared a guide to the United States' ADA Standards for Accessible Design. Given the article's success and the diversity of our audience, we're making available a collection of guideline documents from Latin America and Spain. Whether you're working on projects in these countries or you're looking to broaden your knowledge of universal design, these guides should come in handy.
This vertical cladding for facades is a high-density laminated panel, composed of a core of paper fibers -compressed at high temperature and pressure- and an outer coating highly resistant to weathering and UV radiation. The wood used in the panels has been treated with Everlook®, a component that - without the need for maintenance - extends the useful life of the panel and the stability of its color regardless of weather conditions.
Brikawood is an intuitive and logical construction system of wooden bricks that allows the rapid construction of an entire house without the use of nails, screws or adhesives.
Whether architects are trying to meet the Architecture 2030 Challenge or pursuing their own mission to save energy, they have an opportunity to design buildings that can limit carbon emissions and be resilient against changing climate conditions.
After years of publishing projects and articles related to bamboo, we are strongly aware of its qualities as a construction material. But is it really an option that you would use into your next project? Despite widespread appreciation, bamboo seems to be a material that is rarely considered for use in everyday designs.
The social design from Natura Futura Arquitectura for a greenhouse in the warm subtropical climate of Nayón, Ecuador, the proposal approaches the use of local material resources in the construction of low-budget productive structures for the development of the collective.
At an altitude of 2735m, architecture students at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have built The Bonatti Bivouac, a temporary refuge for the A Neuve’s glacier. The shelter uses the envelope as a structural object, eradicating the need for metal, screws, or nails. Informed by theoretical architect Semper, their design uses the joints to form a piece of architecture.
“Hairy” isn’t typically a term used to describe architecture. However, a “hairy” exterior is perhaps the defining characteristic of this micro-office by 2hD Architecture Workshop in the UK—the outer facades are entirely clad in natural coco-fiber broom heads.
New Fundamentals Research Group, in partnership with S.N.B.R., designed and fabricated a stone vaulted pavilion for Rocalia, a natural stone fair held in Lyon last month. At a total area of 36 square meters and 3.20 meters in height, Flux reconnects the past to the present by combining traditional sculptural design with contemporary fabrication processes.
Sustainability. A word that, for many of us, has been driven into our minds from the very start of our careers as architects. We have a responsibility to the planet and future generations to design buildings that are socially conscious—from solar panels to triple-glazed windows, we have tried it all.
An Italian architect is proposing a new model of housing that, unlike the traditional residences, does not consist of a settled building, but in a folding and transportable house. It can be assembled in just six hours with the help of three people.
As a construction material, bamboo is resistant, versatile, grows rapidly and is immensely friendly with its own ecosystem and its agroforestry environment. In addition, it presents a large number of species that deliver different diameters and heights. But are there also variations in its color?
Out of 200 applicants, London-based Gilles Retsin Architecture won the Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2017 competition with their temporary outdoor installation. Participants were challenged to use the fabrication abilities of Estonian wooden house manufacturers in a new and creative way. Jury member Martin Tamke said the Retsin proposal is, “characterized by outstanding aesthetic and intellectually challenging, as it questions current beliefs and trends in architecture."
"Bamboo is close to an ideal structural material." This statement by Neil Thomas during his talk at Bamboo U, which took place in November 2017 in Bali, really caught my attention. Neil is the founding director of atelier one, a London office of structural engineering, whose outstanding projects include stage and scenography for the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and U2; art installations by Anish Kapoor and Marc Quinn; the Gardens by the Bay, in Singapore, among many others. From the last few years, the engineer has exhaustively studied about bamboo, its structural properties and its most diverse potential.
Testing the limits of structural viability and computer-based modeling, the 2017 Komorebi Pavilion used thin sheets of polyethylene terephthalate (PETG) in a unique way to develop an ethereal, self-supporting enclosure. The pavilion is the result of a collaboration between architecture students at Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) and engineering researchers at the University of Tokyo.