Innovation: The Latest Architecture and News

There has been a lot of talk about how automation will affect the way we do architecture, and what our role will be when technologies reach our own desks and work tables. In recent years, while we have seen how robotics and advanced technology are gaining ground in construction and manufacturing, new tools are emerging that promise to automate the design process itself. These would allow us to quickly and easily configure living spaces and their dimensions in the initial stages of a project, using simulations and artificial intelligence.

Will this automation be the future of architectural design? We talked with Jesper Wallgren, architect and founder of Finch 3D, to better understand this tool and its possible scope.

Materials, products, and construction systems are constantly evolving and following new technologies, discoveries, and market trends. Today, within the framework of our Monthly Topic “Innovation” we wonder: what products or materials could we use so that our projects make relevant contributions to the way we are inhabiting our planet?

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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.

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a term used to identify the manufacturing processes performed by 3D printing through layer-by-layer construction. In addition to avoiding the generation of waste through the use of precise geometries and exact quantities of material, these controlled processes can be much faster than traditional ones, since they don't require tools or other instruments.

Additive Manufacturing is done based on a digital model. The process begins with a CAD design or three-dimensional scan and then translates that shape into an object divided into sections, allowing it to be printed. Its use has extended from industrial design to the replica of archaeological objects to the manufacture of artificial human organs and tissues, among many others.

The digital revolution coupled with the unforeseen environmental, economical and social challenges our world face today, urge architecture to shake much of the traditions and basis upon which it operated for the last decades, if not centuries. 

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The Institute for Computational Design and Construction (ICD), the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) and the Institute for Textile and Fiber Technologies (ITFT) at the University of Stuttgart have launched the ITECH Research Demonstrator 2018-19. The project aims to investigate large-scale compliant architecture.

Automation has finally reached our desks. If just a few years ago we believed that technology (including robots) could replace the work done by humans, minus the design specifications and some 'creative' aspects, we were wrong.

Matter Design Studio has partnered with CEMEX Global R&D to challenge the relationship between the mass of materials and the physical effort of contemporary construction practices, exploring the movement and assembly of heavy objects on a real scale, manufactured using advanced computing. The objective of Walking Assembly is to eliminate the crane from the constructive equation, transferring the effort from people to objects, freeing them to play with the mass.

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Although James Blish’s “Cities in Flight” was not the first attempt to combine architecture and anti-gravity technology, it was in this book series that we can see it prevailing on an urban scale. Throughout its evolution, architecture has crawled out of caves, settled on grounds, climbed on pilotis, floated on water, stood high, and even danced. Now many argue that it is high time for it to move forward and assume some of its multi-directional and forthcoming probabilities.

Until recently, the architecture world largely viewed plastic polymers as inferior building materials, handy for wipe-clean kitchen surfaces, but not practical in full-scale building applications. But with technological innovations driving material capabilities forward, polymers are now being taken seriously as a legitimate part of the architect’s pallet. One of the most widely-used of these materials is a fluorine-based plastic known as ETFE (Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene). Brought into the public consciousness thanks to its use on the facade of PTW Architects' Water Cube for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, architects are now realizing the film’s capabilities to express a new aesthetic and replace costlier transparent and translucent materials. Its most recent and spectacular public appearance was on the 120-foot telescopic shell of The Shed, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Rockwell Group in New York City.

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Cardboard tubes are so commonplace that we may no longer even notice them. Yet they are everywhere: in a roll of toilet paper, in the packaging of the college diploma, in fireworks, and in the tissue and paper industries. And now, more and more, they can be found in unusual places, such as on the walls of houses and buildings. The material is part of modern life and is being produced for a multitude of industrial applications and consumer products. The vast majority are used as structural cores in winding operations. Immediately after manufacturing, paper, film or textiles are rolled directly onto cardboard tubes resulting in a stable roll that is easily stored and transported.

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Expanded polystyrene (EPS) is a plastic material widely used for thermal insulation (and in some cases, acoustics) in building envelopes.

So is it possible to recycle it and apply it again in other construction processes? Yes, EPS can be crushed and compacted to be used in the manufacture of new plastic products. But it can also be recycled and live again in the construction of architectural and urban projects in the form of paints and coatings.

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The increasing use of air conditioning is causing many cities to hit record energy consumption levels during brutally hot summer months. In populous countries like India, China, Indonesia, Brazil, and Mexico, large urban centers function like ovens: buildings absorb heat that is re-released back into the environment, further increasing the local temperature. More heat outside means more air conditioning inside, which not only raises energy consumption, but also increases the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

With this vicious cycle in mind, a paint was created to protect buildings and urban structures from excessive solar radiation, diminishing the effect of the urban heat island. The innovation came from the partnership of UNStudio, a Dutch architectural firm, and Monopol Color, a Swiss paint specialist. The dark-colored materials that are used to construct the buildings in our cities are one of the main causes of heat accumulation in urban areas. While darker materials absorb up to 95% of the sun’s rays and release them straight back into the atmosphere, this value can be reduced to 25% with a normal white surface. Now, with ‘The Coolest White’, it is possible to reduce absorption and emission to 12%.

When we think of energy from renewable sources, the first that probably come to mind are solar and wind. And decentralizing power generation is something that has inspired engineers and inventors from all over the world.

So what about turning the mechanical energy generated when people walk into electrical energy? It can be done thanks to technology developed by Laurence Kemball-Cook,founder of Pavegen. Using platforms inserted within sidewalks Pavegen converts steps into electric power (while also generating data and even rewards). But before you go out there feeling like Michael Jackson in Billie Jean, you should understand how this system works.

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