Timber trusses are wooden structural frameworks used to support roofs or other heavy structures. Fabricated from a series of triangles linked by a ridge beam and purlins, wooden trusses are structurally advantageous due to their high strength-to-weight ratios and corresponding ability to support long spans. However, these structural components can also be used for aesthetic ends, and when left exposed, can complexify, beautify, and open an interior space.
Architecture News
The Beauty of Exposed Wooden Trusses
'Landslide 2020' Spotlights Women-Designed Landscapes and the Threats That They Face
The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) has released its 2020 edition of Landslide, an annual in-depth report produced by the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that profiles—and raises awareness of—a geographically diverse number of at-risk American parks, gardens, horticultural features, working landscapes, and “and other places that collectively embody our shared landscape heritage.”
High-Rise Living: 7 Houses Under 65m² in Rooftops and Attics
When it comes to attics, we often imagine underused spaces in homes and buildings, such as warehouses or rooms that are exclusively used to shelter infrastructure systems. However, reflecting on the reuse of traditional attics in 19th-century Parisian buildings as housing, which is happening nowadays, one realizes that these spaces can be reinvented and, with a little creativity, they can provide impressive living spaces.
What is Sustainability Anyway?
“Sustainability is like teenage sex. Everybody says they’re doing it, very few people are actually doing it. Those who are doing it, are doing it badly," once Joseph Romm said.
It is evident that there are many misconceptions about what sustainable architecture really is. Some define it as building with recycled materials, others believe it is all about integrating green elements into the architecture, and some mount solar panels onto their roof and label the project “green”.
Dominique Perrault Wins Competition to Design the New Roof on Suzanne Lenglen Tennis Court
Dominique Perrault Architecture has won the competition to design the new retractable roofing of the Suzanne Lenglen Tennis Court. Bringing additional value to the “French Open” site, the “architectural intervention not only creates a roof but also proposes a large-scale architectural ensemble whose silhouette dialogues both with the surrounding landscape and the architecture of the existing building”.
BIG and ICON Imagine Project Olympus, a Space-Based Construction System Developed with NASA
BIG has partnered up with ICON, a developer of advanced construction technologies, and with SEArch+ (Space Exploration Architecture) to imagine humanity’s home in another world. Working with NASA, the collaboration seeks to develop a “space-based construction system that could support future exploration of the Moon”.
FCBStudios Designs New Lumina Village for Stretford in Manchester
Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios has received approval for Lumina Village, a redevelopment of the former Kellogg's site in Stretford (Manchester, United Kingdom). Approved by the Trafford Council's planning committee, the mixed-use design takes its name from lumens as a nod to the site’s history and the future of the neighborhood. The focal point of the new community will be a green space surrounded by local businesses and contemporary workspaces.
How to Balance Creativity and Constructibility? Design Assist Smartly Links Owners, Architects, and Contractors
Every project begins with a design, and ends with an attractive and functional building. What happens between these two end points is where it gets interesting - and challenging. The construction process is complicated. It means meeting and exceeding expectations in design, affordability and constructibility. It means overcoming hurdles and facilitating smooth transitions from design to engineering to construction. And for complex projects with more unusual features and elements, the risk factors increase exponentially.
Chapman Taylor Designs Masterplan for the World Horticultural Expo in Poland's Third-Largest City
Chapman Taylor has unveiled a masterplan for an 80-hectare World Horticultural EXPO in Łódź, Poland’s third-largest city. Also known as Green EXPO, the international exhibition devoted to the use of greenery and landscaping in urban environments will be located in the heart of the city center, in proximity to the main railway station, and surrounded by the urban fabric.
MVRDV Reveals Glass Mural, an Office and Retail Building in Detroit’s Active Food Hub
MVRDV was commissioned the design of Glass Mural, a new 3,716-square-meter office and retail building with a custom glass façade that integrates colorful murals by artists DENIAL and Sheefy McFly. Located in Detroit’s Eastern Market neighborhood, the project will be MVRDV’s third mixed-use project in the United States and first in the Midwest.
SOM Transforms Chicago's 100-Year-Old Cook County Hospital
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill have transformed the historic Beaux-Arts Cook County Hospital in Chicago. Designed to help anchor the neighborhood's resurgence, the project team worked to preserve, restore, and adapt the former hospital building as the first phase of a proposed $1 billion redevelopment plan. The proposal aims to revitalizes the surrounding Illinois Medical District and provide new amenities to the area.
The 5 Points of Modern Architecture in Contemporary Projects
In 1926, Le Corbusier developed the five points that would become the foundations for modern architecture. Once materialized in 1929 in the iconic Villa Savoye project, Le Corbusier's principles - pilotis, free design of the ground plan, free design of the facade, horizontal window, and roof garden - have been extensively explored in modern architecture and continue to influence the most diverse contemporary architectural projects to this day.
The five points became a kind of guideline for the New Architecture, as Corbusier used to call it. Even after decades, new technologies, materials, and demands of society have continued to update those architectural solutions, announced almost a century ago as the basis for a new architecture.
BIG Designs AI CITY, an Innovation Campus Hosting Headquarters of Tech Firm in Chongqing, China
BIG has unveiled its design for AI CITY, the future home for Terminus Group, a smart service provider. Imagined as the new center of innovation for China, the project will be dedicated to "artificial intelligence, robotics, networking, and big data”. Located in Chongqing, in southwest China, known as the “mountain city”, the project is set within the Chongqing Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone.
New York's Open Restaurants Program for Outside Dining to Be Made Permanent
Part of New York’s Recovery Agenda, to keep the city safe and healthy, the Open Restaurants program established in June of this year was extended year-round, to be made permanent. In fact, Mayor de Blasio has allowed restaurants to use heating and enclosures, and expand seating to adjacent properties with neighbors’ consent. This extension will also apply to Open Streets: Restaurants, “which currently offers restaurants expanded space on 85 car-free streets citywide on certain days”.
Snøhetta Unveils New Cheongju City Hall in South Korea
Snøhetta has won the international architecture competition to design the new city hall in Cheongju, South Korea. Working with local partner Tomoon Architects and Engineers, the team proposes new connections to the urban context to promote a sense of shared ownership for citizens and visitors alike. The design aims to create an open, inclusive city hall for Cheongju that will serve as a symbol of collaboration and civic engagement.
From Urban Issues to Multi-Unit Housing: 4 Young Practices in Europe
New Generations is a European platform that analyses the most innovative emerging practices at the European level, providing a new space for the exchange of knowledge and confrontation, theory, and production. Since 2013, New Generations has involved more than 300 practices in a diverse program of cultural activities, such as festivals, exhibitions, open calls, video-interviews, workshops, and experimental formats.
ODA Designs Largest Affordable Housing Project in NYC
ODA-Designed Hunter’s Point South, the newest development by TF Cornerstone, and the largest affordable housing project in NYC has launched its housing lottery. The master-planned, mixed-use and mixed-income community, park, school, and playground, situated along the East River in Long Island City, Queens, the first of its kind to hit the market since COVID-19, brings 1,194 rental units and a new park to Long Island City waterfront.
Schmidt Hammer Lassen's Mixed-Use K8 Tower in Norway Moves Forward
The sustainable mixed-use K8 tower, designed by Schmidt Hammer Lassen moves forward with final approval from the Stavanger City Council in Norway. The proposal aims to encourage future urban developments in the city and generates a new benchmark for sustainable and creative work environments.