Construction Industry: The Latest Architecture and News

The Second Studio (formerly The Midnight Charette) is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features different creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions.

A variety of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes are interviews, while others are tips for fellow designers, reviews of buildings and other projects, or casual explorations of everyday life and design. The Second Studio is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.

This week David and Marina discuss the typical architecture and building process, covering the phases and steps in most building/construction projects—what can be expected during each step, why the different phases exist, their typical processes, the documents completed at the end of each phase, and the outcome of each phase.

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

Exploring the question of slavery in Architecture, the building materials and the construction industry, Michael J. Crosbie interviews Sharon Prince, the women behind Design for Freedom, discussing the initiative's report "on the pervasive use of slavery in the design and construction industry, and how design professionals can respond".

Architects don’t make buildings. Architects make drawings of buildings. But of course, someone has to make the building. The construction industry is one of the largest economic sectors and we all interact with the built environment on a daily basis, but the actual work of getting a building from drawing to structure has barely evolved over the decades. While the rest of the world has moved into Industry 4.0, the construction sector has not kept pace. Architecture has begun to embrace some digitalization. After all, not many of us work with mylar on drafting tables anymore. So with the architecture industry’s everlasting link to the construction industry, will the latter pick up some new technological tricks by association? And when it does, how will that change the role of the architect?

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a term used to identify the manufacturing processes performed by 3D printing through layer-by-layer construction. In addition to avoiding the generation of waste through the use of precise geometries and exact quantities of material, these controlled processes can be much faster than traditional ones, since they don't require tools or other instruments.

Additive Manufacturing is done based on a digital model. The process begins with a CAD design or three-dimensional scan and then translates that shape into an object divided into sections, allowing it to be printed. Its use has extended from industrial design to the replica of archaeological objects to the manufacture of artificial human organs and tissues, among many others.