Materials & ProductsExclusive Articles, from ArchDaily

According to data from CRED (Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters) and UNISDR (UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction), in a report released in 2016, the number of disasters related to the climate change has duplicated in the last forty years. The need for temporary shelters for homeless people is, as well as an effect of the climate crisis, is also one of the consequences of the disorderly growth of cities, which leads to a significant part of the world population living in vulnerable conditions due to disasters.

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Translucent polycarbonate panels boast unique and striking aesthetics while simultaneously maintaining efficient functionality. They can add depth and color to a façade and may adapt to meet a wide range of performance requirements, from temperature resistance to impact resistance to UV protection and more. Rodeca, a leading company in the polycarbonate panel industry, offers high-quality products with high customizability vis-à-vis colors, transparency levels, treatments, profiles, sizes, joint systems, and more. Below is a detailed list of these many options, accompanied by diagrams and installation steps. We also discuss several case studies where polycarbonate facades have been used to great success, taking full advantage of the options available alongside the intrinsic aesthetic qualities of the translucent panels to complement and elevate their designs.

Often, when people think of buildings, they default to imagining rectangular structures—or at the very least, structures with orthogonal floor plans and hard angles, certainly not buildings with circular plans. The rarity of the circular plan comes in part from the fact that poor design choices can lead to wasted space and awkward interior arrangements, especially if furniture and appliances are rectangular in shape. However, strongly designed circular planes can have a dramatic effect, generating extraordinary spatial configurations that meet a variety of aesthetic and functional needs, while challenging the material specification process. Below, we list 18 buildings with circular plans, considering their varying strategies of design.

People have fundamental needs that must be met in order to survive, which include: oxygen, water, food, sleep, and shelter. They also have secondary requirements, one of which is daylight. When thinking about how buildings can keep people healthy, it is important to remember that daylighting is essential to wellness, in fact, human circadian rhythms are dependent on it.

Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh used the impasto technique extensively in their paintings. Both applied thick layers of oil paint over the canvas, usually one shade at a time, and it was up to the viewer's brain to mix the colors and create the desired effects. When dry, the paint forms reliefs and textures on the canvas, evoking a sense of movement. Even without being able to touch the screen, the texture of the brushstrokes gives a three-dimensionality to the painting, something that can only be fully observed by seeing the artwork live, looking at it from more than one angle and actually experiencing it.

The first Shikinen Sengu was held in the year 690, in the city of Ise, Mie Prefecture, Japan. It consists of a set of ceremonies lasting up to 8 years, beginning with the ritual of cutting down trees for the construction of the new Ise Shrine and concluding with the moving of the sacred mirror (a symbol of Amaterasu-Omikami) to the new shrine by Jingu priests. Every 20 years, a new divine palace with exactly the same dimensions as the current one is built on a lot adjacent to the main sanctuary. Shikinen Sengu is linked to the Shinto belief in the periodic death and renewal of the universe, while being a way of passing on the ancient wood construction techniques from generation to generation.

It is believed that copper was the first metal to be found by men and used in the manufacture of tools and weapons. This occurred in the last period of prehistory, more than 10,000 years ago, in the so-called Metal Age, when groups, until then nomadic, started to become sedentary, developing agriculture and starting the first urban settlements. Copper has since been used in diverse ways. Used for decorative objects, jewelry, automotive parts, electrical systems, and even for dental amalgams, the material has had huge demand. In architecture, copper coatings are greatly appreciated for their aesthetics and durability. But a factor worth mentioning is that copper can be recycled infinitely, practically without losing its properties.

When water runs down the drain or we flush it down the toilet, we usually don't care where it ends up. This is because with adequate basic sanitation, wastewater shouldn't be a concern. Yet, although humanity has already taken man to space and plans to colonize Mars, it continues to fail to provide basic living conditions for a large part of its population. A comprehensive study estimates that 48% of global wastewater production is released into the environment untreated. The UN, in turn, presents a much less encouraging figure, citing that 80% of the world's sewage is released without treatment. But returning to the question of the title, there are basically two destinations for sewage if it is not being released directly into the natural environment: it can be treated locally through septic tanks, or connected to a sewage treatment plant through the sewage network, eventually returning to nature after a series of treatment processes.

Briefly, structural masonry is a construction system in which the walls of the building perform a structural function, using masonry units arranged in a way that is self-supporting and load-bearing. The walls will evenly distribute the load to the foundation and later into the ground.

In this week's reprint from Metropolis, Amanda Schneider, president of ThinkLab, the research division of SANDOW, explores how "designers can help create healthy, safe interiors with thoughtful surface and filtration selections". Asking how we can have sanitized surfaces, without having to deep clean them regularly, the author discusses the materiality of healthy safe interiors.

Curved shapes have always sparked architects' fascination for evoking nature's beauty, fluidity, dynamism, and complexity. To replicate these shapes, however, is no easy task. From their two- or three-dimensional representation to their execution in their final materials, this represents an enormous difficulty, which requires technical expertise and a great amount of knowledge to achieve strong results. Thinking of new ways to produce organic shapes from natural materials is even more complicated.

Caius Sergius Orata is credited, by Vitruvius, with inventing the hypocaust. The word, from the Latin hypocaustum, in a literal translation, means access from below. The hypocaust is a raised floor system on ceramic piles where, at one end, a furnace—where firewood is burned uninterruptedly—provides heat to the underground space, which rises through walls constructed of perforated bricks. Hypocausts heated, through the floor, some of the most opulent buildings of the Roman Empire (including some residences) and, above all, the famous Public Baths.

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A frameless window is exactly how it is described – a seamless glazing option that has no obvious frame around the perimeter. As a new design phenomenon, frameless glass panels are used for balconies, shower screens, glass doors, and bespoke conservatory windows, creating a ‘wall of glass’ effect, which is a hallmark of contemporary architectural design. Seamless glazing has a range of advantages, the first being the supreme stylistic feature it can create, letting the optimum amount of light into a room and provide a chic contemporary element to a building. Aside from the aesthetic appeal, frameless windows are simple and super-fast to install so homeowners can enjoy minimum disruption and lower installation fees.