Architectural Technology - Articles - Page 25

Conference examines a single material's properties and its inherent ironies

November 15, 2007

If there were a prize for the project most often mentioned during the conference “Engineered Transparency: Glass in Architecture and Structural Engineering,” it would go to the Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art, in Ohio, designed by SANAA [RECORD, January 2007, page 79]. The first to present the building was the Tokyo-based firm’s principal, Kazuyo Sejima, in her keynote address on September 26 for the two-day event at Columbia University, in New York City. Photography: ' Christian Richters The apparent simplicity of Toledo’s Glass Pavilion belies its complexity. Several of the subsequent 30 speakers, including architects, consultants, and

A structural riff in Norway: Snøhetta’s Tubaloon band shell

David Sokol

October 19, 2007

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Now hear this. For a giant, cochlear band shell called Tubaloon, which hovered over Norway’s annual Kongsberg Jazz Festival this past summer, the designers of Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta caught an echo from architectural history. Project architect Joshua Teas says his team drew inspiration for Tubaloon from the curving walls and warped twists of the steel-cable-supported Philips Pavilion, which Le Corbusier and Iannis Xenakis created for Brussel’s World Expo of 1958. Photography: © Bjørn Owe Holmberg But to realize the homage, Snøhetta riffed on an innovative engineering concept developed in 2000 by Swiss engineer Mauro Pedretti. Called Tensairity, Pedretti’s proprietary

Book Reviews: Sustaining the conversation on sustainable design

Russell Fortmeyer

October 19, 2007

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Sustainable Design: Ecology, Architecture, and Planning, by Daniel E. Williams, FAIA. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2007, 304 pages, $75. High-Performance Building, by Vidar Lerum. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2007, 304 pages, $70. The Designer’s Atlas of Sustainability, by Ann Thorpe. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2007, 225 pages, $29.95. We seem to have two camps emerging in the nascent field of sustainable design: an informed one that remains sensitive to the high aims of architecture, ecology, and site, and then one we might call “design services 2.0,” a kind of appliqué of green technologies onto

A structural riff in Norway: Snøhetta’s Tubaloon band shell

David Sokol

October 19, 2007

No Comments

Now hear this. For a giant, cochlear band shell called Tubaloon, which hovered over Norway’s annual Kongsberg Jazz Festival this past summer, the designers of Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta caught an echo from architectural history. Project architect Joshua Teas says his team drew inspiration for Tubaloon from the curving walls and warped twists of the steel-cable-supported Philips Pavilion, which Le Corbusier and Iannis Xenakis created for Brussel’s World Expo of 1958. Photography: © Bjørn Owe Holmberg But to realize the homage, Snøhetta riffed on an innovative engineering concept developed in 2000 by Swiss engineer Mauro Pedretti. Called Tensairity, Pedretti’s proprietary

For Smart Materials, Change Is Good

Our tradition of classifying materials in given categories has tended to obscure the potential for unconventional materials to transform architecture.

Michelle Addington

September 19, 2007

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We presume that the link between intention in design and the materials we choose is deterministic: The right collection of materials will yield the desired effects both aesthetically and performatively.

Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park

Former brownfield site reinvented as a connection between the city and the water’s edge.

Joann Gonchar, FAIA

July 19, 2007

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To create Seattle’s new Olympic Sculpture Park, lead designers Weiss/Manfredi have fittingly sculpted the earth.

A Temple to Transparency Rises in Athens

A technically challenging and long-anticipated Museum devoted to the display of ancient artifacts nears completion at the foot of Greece’s most sacred mount

Joann Gonchar, FAIA

June 19, 2007

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A technically challenging and long-anticipated Museum devoted to the display of ancient artifacts nears completion at the foot of Greece’s most sacred mount At of the foot of the Acropolis in Athens, a politically charged and technically complex project first envisioned more than two decades ago is finally nearing completion.

Heliostats Tap Sunlight for Lighting Outdoor and Indoor Spaces

Michael Dumiak

May 19, 2007

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A sunny morning at the new Haus der Forschung in Vienna brings more than another day’s work.

Green program developers embrace life-cycle assessments to gauge building performance

Joann Gonchar, FAIA

May 19, 2007

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Efforts to make life-cycle assessment (LCA) an integral part of sustainable design practices are beginning to bear fruit. Since late 2004, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has been working to incorporate the methodology into its widely used building-rating system, LEED, and has committed to producing a detailed plan for integration by November 2007. The two-year-old not-for-profit organization, Green Building Initiative (GBI), has already created a climate change calculator primarily intended for use with its own rating system, Green Globes. But the organization also plans to release a stand-alone version of the software, without charge, to other green-building organizations, trade

A Super-Small House Achieves an Ideal State of Design Integration

Michael Dumiak

April 19, 2007

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Richard Horden looks to a lustrous time in design with his Micro Compact, 10-foot-square houses— a time when it was actually a pleasure to fly in an airplane.