Excavation is usually a bane for real estate developers. To make way for new buildings, truckloads of excavated waste are removed from site in a noisy, time-consuming and gas-guzzling process. Exploring a more sustainable solution, the California-based company Watershed Materials have developed an onsite pop-up plant which repurposes excavated material right at the job site to create concrete masonry units (CMUs) used in the development. By eliminating truck traffic, reusing waste and reducing imported materials, the result is a win for the environment.
Sustainability: The Latest Architecture and News
This Onsite Pop-up Plant Turns Excavation Waste into Building Material
As.Architecture-Studio and VHA Architects Unveil Green University Campus Plan in Vietnam
As.Architecture-Studio and VHA Architects have unveiled their plans for the urban design and architecture of a new campus at the University of Science and Technology of Hanoi (USTH) in Vietnam. Located 30 kilometers east of Hanoi City, the new campus is designed to be a “New Model University,” and will feature facilities for administration, teaching, research, housing, student activities, services, and infrastructure.
Through its position around and across existing lakes, the project aims to offer researchers and students a living area structured by landscape. “The presence of water, along with the tropical architecture of the buildings and their specific technologies, will embody the unique character of the USTH being a Vietnamese University leading in sustainability and renewable energy.”
Why Current Sustainability Metrics Are Short-Changing Non-Western Cities
This article was originally published in Metropolis Magazine as "When It Comes to Sustainability, We're Ranking Our Cities Wrong."
A recent article published in Nature makes a bold claim: we're analyzing our cities completely wrong. Professors David Wachsmuth, Aldana Cohen, and Hillary Angelo argue that, for too long, we have defined sustainability too narrowly, only looking at environmental impact on a neighborhood or city scale rather than a regional or global scale. As a result, we have measured our cities in ways that are inherently biased towards wealthy cities, and completely ignored the negative impacts our so-called "sustainable," post-industrial cities have on the rest of the world.Metropolis editor Vanessa Quirk spoke with Professor Wachsmuth to learn more about the unintended knock-on effects of going "green," the importance of consumption-based carbon counting, and why policy-makers should be more attentive to the effects of "environmental gentrification."
Form4 Architecture Breaks Ground on Sustainable Technology Park with Sweeping Curves
Form4 Architecture’s project, Innovation Curve Technology Park, has been honored by the Green Good Design Awards presented by The European Centre for Architecture, Art, Design, and Urban Studies, in collaboration with The Chicago Athenaeum’s Museum for Architecture and Design.
The project, which recently broke ground in Palo Alto, California, “celebrates the creative process of invention” through its sweeping metal curves, which represent the highs and lows of exploratory research and development. The tall, two-story curves “rise to represent the crescendo of the creative spark and pragmatic analysis of ideas, and descend to transition into long, horizontal bands symbolizing the implementation phase of invention.”
Inspired by the Concept of Blooming Flowers MOB Architects' Residential Project is Shortlisted for the 2016 WAF
MOB Architects’ project Liaisons has been shortlisted for the 2016 World Architecture Festival in the Future Projects \ Residential category and has won the Residential category for the 2016 AR MIPIM Future Projects Awards.
Designed for the MOLEWA (Mount Lu World of Architecture) competition, Liaisons is a residential project in Ruichang, China near the “Flower Ocean Garden,” one of the world’s largest flower theme parks.
Inspired by the concept of blooming, the project centers on introducing a flourishing essence to the neighborhood by analyzing floral and vegetal properties in pixels and converting them into patterns, which are applied in arrangements and spatial organization principles.
Innovative Self-Sustaining Village Model Could Be the Future of Semi-Urban Living
An innovative new housing model dubbed ReGen Villages (short for regenerative) has been developed in response to some of the world's most pressing environmental, social and economic issues. Helmed by Dutch holding firm ReGen Villages B.V. and Copenhagen-based architecture firm EFFEKT, the new model facilitates off-the-grid, self-sustaining communal neighborhoods that can be deployed across the globe. The first project site will be in Almere, the Netherlands, with work starting this year.
Form4 Architecture's Sustainable "Sea Song" Wins Multiple Awards
Form4 Architecture has won first place at the International Design Awards for its project, Sea Song, which additionally was honored by the Green Good Design Awards presented by The European Centre for Architecture, Art, Design, and Urban Studies, in collaboration with The Chicago Athenaeum’s Museum for Architecture and Design.
Repurposed Material Creates Distinct Felt Tile Patterns that Provide Sound Control
Architecture Research Office and FilzFelt have teamed up to create ARO Block, a series of modular acoustic tiles that provide sound control in a customizable, easy-to-install system. Generated from remnant material of FilzFelt’s CNC cut products, which are often times small, ARO Block not only creates distinct felt tile patterns but also prevents leftover fabric from going to waste.
How to Integrate the 12 Principles of Permaculture into an Architectural Project
In 1978, Australian ecologists David Holmgren and Bill Mollison coined the concept of permaculture as a systematic method for the first time. For Mollison, "permaculture is the philosophy of working with, rather than against, nature, after long and thoughtful observation." [1] Meanwhile, Holmgren defines the term as "consciously designed landscapes that simulate or mimic the patterns and relationships observed in natural ecosystems." [2]
In 2002, Holmgren published the book "Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability," in which he defines 12 design principles that serve as a guide for creating sustainable systems. These principles can be applied to everyday processes to humanize them, enhance efficiency, and ensure mankind's long-term survival."
What if we apply them to the design process of an architectural project?
Architensions Shortlisted for Civic Center Design Using Local Vegetation in Sydney, Australia
New-York-based studio Architensions has released the design for its shortlisted project, Rising Ryde, for the Ryde Civic Center in Sydney, Australia. In an effort to embrace local communities and contexts, the project is conceived as a hill-shaped building covered in local vegetation and it aims to prioritize people through its complex system of social connections and interactions with nature.
AA School of Architecture Designs Adaptable Structural Plastic 3D Printing Method
The AA School of Architecture’s DRL Masters Program has developed a thesis project, entitled Growing Systems, which explores adaptable building systems using methods of robotic fabrication and generative special printing within the context of housing.
Centered on a new method of structural 3D vertical extrusion, the project combines the precision of prefabricated elements with the adaptability of on-site fabrication, in response to the flux and dynamism of cities. The method becomes a system of elasticity that can accommodate site parameters, as well as future adjustments.
Miami’s Porsche Design Tower: A Bland Monument of Hubris in the Face of Climate Catastrophe
Florida is a state in denial. Miami is in the midst of one of the largest building booms in the region's history. Dense crane canopies pepper the city's skyline as they soar over forthcoming white, gold, and aqua clad "high end" residential and hotel towers. This massive stream of investment dollars is downright paradoxical considering the impending calamity that surrounds Southern Florida: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts that the sea level could likely increase almost 35 inches (0.89 meters) by mid-century. If current trends continue, that number is anticipated to rise to up to 80 inches (2.0 meters) by the year 2100, threatening the habitability of the entire metro area.
Given that harrowing scenario, Miami is either refusing to acknowledge the inevitable, or desperately trying to become relevant enough to be saved—not that saving the city is actually feasible. The region sits on extremely porous limestone which pretty much rules out the option of a Netherlands style sea wall. If the Atlantic couldn’t make any horizontal inroads, the rising tide would simply bubble up from below. Miami’s pancake topography doesn’t stand a chance.
Lyons and m3architecture Selected to Design Sustainable Futures Building at the University of Queensland, Australia
Firms Lyons and m3architecture have been selected to design the Sustainable Futures Building at the St Lucia campus of the University of Queensland.
The new building will house the School of Chemical Engineering, and is intended to amplify the University’s profile as a hub of chemical engineering leadership in Australia, the Asia-Pacific region, and a global stage.
These Everyday Household Items Convert Light Into Energy
London-based design firm Caventou has designed a series of “stained glass” everyday objects that turn daylight into electricity, even indoors.
Integrated with solar cells, Current Table and Current Window are both independent, intelligent power sources that function normally as household items.
Margot Krasojevic Proposes Trolleybus Garden that Generates Electricity From the Movement of Vehicles
Far from the common dismissal of Margot Krasojevic’s work as (in her own words) “parametric futurist crap,” her work has always revolved around concepts of sustainability. As she explained to ArchDaily last year, she aims to focus on the ways that sustainable technology “will affect not just an architectural language but create a cross disciplinary dialogue and superimpose a typology in light of the ever-evolving technological era.” For the second project in a series of three proposals for the city of Belgrade Serbia, the architect is proposing a “Trolleybus Garden” that functions as a waiting shelter and park while simultaneously harnessing kinetic movement to produce electricity.
Hou de Sousa Completes Construction on Raise/Raze and Sticks
Hou de Sousa (Nancy Hou and Josh de Sousa) has completed construction on Raise/Raze and Sticks, two competition winners for temporary installations in Washington, DC and New York, respectively.
Through Raise/Raze, the firm reused plastic balls from Snarkitecture’s “The Beach” at the National Building Museum to create an installation in DC’s Dupont Underground, a contemporary arts and culture space repurposed from an abandoned trolley station. Raise/Raze opened on April 30, and closed on June 1.
Located at the Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens, New York, Sticks is a multi-purpose pavilion space made of standard dimension lumber and accented with scrap wood found on-site. The pavilion opened on July 9, and will close December 31.