Stunning New Terminal at Shenzen Bao’an International Airport
Mahesh Basantani in Inhabitat
It’s not often that we get to talk about airports but there is a lot happening in the aviation industry. One landmark development is the proposed construction of a new terminal at Shenzen Bao’an International Airport in China. Positioned as a gateway to China and designed by architects Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas, the terminal will no doubt be a sleek transit destination. What has captured our attention is the incredible double skin canopy intended to let patterned natural light into the space, and significantly reduce energy consumption.
Nation's Largest Single-Building Solar Energy Project Planned for Atlantic City
Preston D K in Jetson Green
Atlantic City Convention Center has just signed a 20-year agreement with Pepco Energy Services to have a 2.36 megawatt solar roof installed on the building. When completed by the end of this year, the project is projected to be the largest single-building solar energy project in the United States. That's 13,321 photovoltaic panels covering roughly two-thirds of the building AND a savings of roughly $4.4 million in electricity costs over the 20-year deal. Under the terms of the agreement between the convention center and Pepco, Pepco will pay for the installation and the convention center will then purchase electricity generated from Pepco.
A Floating Room and Broken Architecture: The Work of Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset
Jimmy Stamp in Life Without Buildings
Suspended from two black balloons, a sparse white room floats to the top of a repurposed Berlin train station. I’ve been haunted by this image—or rather the resulting imagined implications of it—since a trip to Berlin almost 5 years ago. It was, of course, an art installation in the German Capital’s Hamburger Bahnoff, by an artist whose name has eluded me until today. Via Le Territoire Des Sens, I’ve learned that the work, Elevated Gallery / Powerless Structures, Fig. 146, was created by Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset.
Montreal’s missing beaches
Christopher DeWolf in Spacing Montreal
Nathalie Collard has a column in today’s La Presse lamenting the lack of access Montrealers have to their waterways. “Les Montréalais habitent une île, mais n’ont pratiquement pas accès à l’eau. C’est aberrant,” she writes. It’s true: despite being surrounded by water, including a variety of lakes, basins, channels, rapids and one of North America’s great rivers, Montreal is one of the least water-accessible cities I know. Whatever local instinct we once had to head to the water has been quashed by pollution, industry and highways.
Low Impact Living: Green Prefab — Everyone’s into Modular Homes
Low Impact Living in Green Options
Editor’s note: Modular (or prefabricated) housing is hot, and our friends at Low Impact Living have the lowdown on some of the companies driving this trend. This post was originally published on Thursday, June 12, 2008. It seems everyone is “going modular” these days with the rapid growth in the movement of green prefab design and construction. The buzz in modular construction is causing a rush of new designs, innovative products, and advanced modular systems being introduced. The goal of prefab is still the same as minimizing waste while maximizing efficiency. To learn more about prefab design and what makes it a compelling form of green building, please click here. No longer are the days when just calling yourself a prefab company is considered environmentally progressive.
ROM rooftop garden preview
Matthew Hague in Spacing Toronto • understanding the urban landscape
This morning I had the opportunity to preview the Royal Ontario Museum’s new rooftop garden, known as Liza’s Garden in memory of philanthropist and business person Elizabeth Samuel. Sitting on-top of the original 1914 wing of the building, the garden was designed to be a focal point from inside the ROM’s exclusive C5 restaurant (at the top of the newly opened Michael Lee Chin Crystal). Designed by Toronto-based firm PLANT Architect Inc., winners of the competition to design Nathan Phillips Square in March, 2007, with Gardens in the Sky, Green Roof Consultant, the garden is a 9 500 square-foot composition of trees, tilted planting beds, and shallow reflecting pools.
Novel SolarDuct Creates Electricity and Heat Energy
Preston D K in Jetson Green
Conserval Engineering just announced the release of their newest product, SolarDuct PV/T, which is a rooftop solar PV system that goes beyond generating renewable energy from on-site solar power. With the SolarDuct PV/T system, solar panels are mounted on an metal collector panels that channel excess heat from the solar array into the building's HVAC system. As a result, this system, which is part photovoltaic and part thermal, can generate electricity and put heat to use when heat is needed in the building. Conserval Engineering estimates that its SolarDuct PV/T system can reach a total operating efficiency of over 50%, thereby reducing the ROI time frame on the entire investment. With a faster payback, companies might just be more inclined to invest in a SolarDuct rooftop system, even without favorable state and local incentives.
Dale Chihuly, New San Francisco Treat
mediabistro.com: UnBeige
People tend to get giddy around the fantastical glass works of Dale Chihuly (perhaps this is why casinos can't seem to get enough of him), so expect Bay Area denizens to be unusually upbeat this summer. Saturday marked the opening of San Francisco's first major exhibition of the artist's work, and it's a big one. On view at the de Young Museum through September 28, the show encompasses 11 galleries of new and archival works spanning the last four decades. The artist calls it "the most ambitious show I've created to date." Besides chandeliers with such evocative titles as "Orange Hornet and Eelgrass," the show features a recreation of Chihuly's 1972 white milk-glass and neon installation as well as a 56-foot-long mille fiori garden of glass forms that only look like they're growing.
Luxurious Dining & Decor at Lucier
Brian Libby in Portland Architecture
At the south end of Riverplace along the Willamette, beside the new Strand Standard condos, sits the new Lucier restaurant, a very high-end dining establishment with a sizable investment in its architecture and interiors. I visited Lucier last week as part of a press lunch. Hopefully it won't seem like I'm writing this post in exchange for the complimentary striped bass carpaccio with slivered foie gras, which was one of about ten different small plates we had over a four hour meal.
Juan Herreros (from former Abalos & Herreros) won the 2nd place on the international competition for the new builings of the CEA Cadarache Research Center. Long buildings reduce the impact of the construction in order to keep the forest density.
From the architect´s description:
The project consists of five pieces of architecture located in a forest rich in biological activity. We have con-
cluded of our visit to the site, that the best option is to inhabit the forest without exceeding their height, making architecture as a new species that respects, protects and enhances the forest, until create a new balanced system in which buildings and trees are sharing rights and obligations. With this we will not competing with the size nor the presence of a large reactor or reduce the value of the ecosystem of a wooded garden at the foot of the buildings.
Our deployment strategy is compromised to build without altering the conditions of the forest, to inhabit the forest without violence creating a symbiotic architecture with its microclimate and its density. To do so, we are disclaiming to open large breaks on the continuity of natural cycles and are proposing to build linear buildings of optimum and constant width that occupies corridors from which have been lifted only the required trees, allowing the maximum proximity of the remaining facades. The original density of the forest will always be present and architecture appears filtered through the foliage.
International Private Competition: Second Place
Client: C.E.A.
Architect: Juan Herreros Arquitectos
Project Director: Juan Herreros Guerra, Jens Richter
Collaborators: Verónica Meléndez, Paola Simone Structure: INTECSA-INARSA S.A, INGENIERIE STUDIO S.A.S Sustainability: CENER (Florencio Manteca) Graphics: Jens Richter Constructed Area: 23,410 sqm
Hopefully you're eating good, hanging out with friends and family, and enjoying this day that we celebrate. Keep it real, keep it careful, and we'll be back with you as always tomorrow morning.
Architects: 3LHD
Location: Zagreb, Croatia
Project team: Saša Begović, Marko Dabrović, Silvije Novak, Tatjana Grozdanić Begović, Irena Mažer, Marin Mikelić
Collaborators: Paula Kukuljica, Lucija Staničić, Marija Babojelić
Project: 2004
Construction: 2005-2007
Site area: 687 sqm
Gross floor area: 396 sqm
Footprint: 159 sqm
This family house for a couple with children is located in the green residential part of the city of Zagreb. The former family house was built in the 1950s on a steep hill slope and did not fully use all the advantages of the site nor did it meet the requirements of contemporary living standards. The beautiful view to the city and large garden was not valued appropriately.
On both sides the site is bordered by a street and a high building. These contextual facts determined the concept and the shape of the new project. The “L” layout with closed fronts “protect” the house from the street and the neighbouring building. At the same time the garden has been redesigned with all the main rooms in the house oriented towards it.
The living room, dining room and kitchen form a unique space and together with a swimming pool are built into the ground. In this way, being at the same level and separated from each other by a glass wall they bring the garden into the house. The house entrance is above, at street level, together with garage, storages, closet-space and studio. The family area is above the entrance space along with the living and dining rooms.
The materials used for the façades correspond to the spatial organisation of facilities. The living and dining spaces are separated by glass walls which completely open the living space to the outside; on the other hand, the bedroom walls are alternatively panelled by wooden boards.
Forget the fact that I lived in Japan and absolutely love its culture, I didn't know that Toyota had a homes unit. And they've been in the business of making homes for over twenty years! The company adapts automobile manufacturing technology to build stylish, earthquake-resistant homes for sale within Japan. The Toyota Homes unit accounts for only .5% of the company's $262 billion in annual sales, and Toyota would like to beef that up a little bit. Plus, with the roll-out of the plug-in hybrid beginning in 2010 (remember all that discussion here about solar homes and plug-in hybrids replacing gas stations?), Toyota would like to do more with their environmentally-friendly, prefabricated homes.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Toyota Homes are built from six or more modules in under 45 days. They have a conservative home model called the Smart Stage that sells for $200k. It's about a 1000 sf, two-story home. There's also a more expensive, custom-built 2600 sf home that sells for around $800k. Toyota Homes are strong and guaranteed for about 60 years, which is twice the average lifespan of a home in Japan.
As you might imagine, homeowners are also Toyota car owners.
The company sold 5000 homes in 2006 and 4600 homes in 2007 (due to the housing slump). But what's interesting about that number is that it shows how effectively homes can be manufactured using the same techniques that are used in the auto industry. And the Toyota Homes unit is profitable, too. That's some pretty incredible scale, if you ask me.
Plus, imagine the purposeful relationship of a plug-in Prius, Toyota Home with solar panels, and technology that charges the car during off-peak hours. If you can do this, you're not only going to stick it to the oil man, but you're going to stick it to the coal man, too. I like those odds.
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