Mountainous and high-altitude regions are considered to be among the most fragile ecosystems on Earth. From melting glaciers to land erosion, these environments face mounting threats from climate change, making it imperative to reimagine how architecture and its supporting infrastructure are designed for such places.
Contrary to common belief, artificial islands have a lengthy historical background in many regions worldwide. This heritage dates back to the reclaimed islands in Ancient Egypt, the hundreds of Stilt crannogs found in Scottish and Irish lakes and waterways, and the ceremonial islands constructed during the Aztec Empire. By definition, an artificial island is an island that has been constructed by humans rather than formed through natural processes. Artificial islands can be built for many different reasons, and these reasons are only increasing as the world faces the looming issue of space scarcity.
In the past, these islands were intended for ceremonial or agricultural purposes, often verging on solutions for urban space. More recently, the islands have been built to mitigate overcrowding, reclaim land, provide new urban expansions, and meet infrastructure and industrial needs. Artificial islands also have certain strategic advantages and economic gains and can lead to geopolitical benefits. However, these types of projects come at a significant cost to our ecosystem, harming the environment in severe and vast ways.
Working within the restrictions of a limited carbon footprint can be one of the hardest – but also most rewarding – parts of a modern architect’s role. Whether to suit a large multinational corporation’s sustainability report, to achieve LEED status or similar for a commercial developer, or to build an eco-home for a climate-conscious private client – or even one who just wants to spend less on energy, it’s imperative to keep up-to-date with the latest carbon-neutral and low-carbon building practices and materials.
Whether looking at a project’s structural beginnings, its high-grade finishes, or thinking more holistically about its entire lifetime, there are huge gains to be made with sustainable substitutes and alternatives to traditional materials and techniques.
Don Davis (American, born 1952). Stanford torus interior view. 1975. Acrylic on board, 17 × 22″ (43.1 × 55.9 cm). Commissioned by NASA for Richard D. Johnson and Charles Holbrow, eds., Space Settlements: A Design Study (Washington, DC: NASA Scientific and Technical Information Office, 1977). Illustration never used. Collection Don Davis. Image Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art New York has announced the opening of an exhibition focused on the first realized and unrealized projects that address ecological and environmental concerns. Featuring works by architects who practiced mainly in the United States from the 1930s through the 1990s, the exhibition titled “Emerging Ecologies: Architecture and the Rise of Environmentalism” is on view from September 17, 2023, through January 20, 2024. The over 150 works showcased reveal the rise of the environmental movement through the lens of architectural practice and thought.
Landscape architecture is having a moment. The latest proof: last week, the US Department of Homeland Security decided to accredit the field with its prestigious STEM designation. As part of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educational disciplines that fall under this category, landscape architecture students can now spend an additional 24 months seeking employment and training post-graduation in the United States after an initial period of a year granted to all graduates. The title also promises more prestige, higher entry salaries, and additional career flexibility. Torey Carter-Conneen, CEO of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), calls the development a significant advancement for 'landscape architecture education and practice, and that is great for America and the global community.'
The news corresponds to a growing emphasis on landscape architecture as a pivotal practice around the globe in recent years – one that is closely connected to notions of public health, environmental design, biophilia, sustainability, and re-wilding. It also underlines the intimate relationship between technology and the discipline. Landscape proposals increasingly rely on advanced science and technology to predict how ecological interventions might alter an existing terrain and determine what measures will yield the highest benefit for both humans and nature. The contemporary ideal of wild meadows and biodiverse forests may exist free from external influence, but the path to get there requires assistance.
Timber is a natural, renewable material, easy to fabricate, and with low-carbon emissions. As a construction material, however, when put under enough directional force along its grain, sawn timber is structurally unstable, so deemed unsuitable under higher loads. In comparison, the manufacture of cross-laminated timber (CLT) involves simply gluing multiple layers of timber together at right angles. By crossing the direction of the grains, CLT achieves a far higher level of structural rigidity along both axes. CLT boards start with a minimum of three layers but can be strengthened further with the addition of more. Simply put, due to the complex physics involved in the perpendicular lamination, the strength of CLT board is similar to that of reinforced concrete, and has proven performance under seismic forces.
So what’s new? Wood’s been around for long enough now, and we’ve been using it as a building material for centuries. Surely this isn’t the first time someone’s realized it gets stronger the more you use it? Well… as you’d expect, the changing popularity of cross-laminated timber in construction does coincide with a greater understanding and focus on environmental causes, but the relationship hasn’t always been positive.
Environmental Activism by Design, a monograph by architects and educators Coleman Coker and Sarah Gamble, challenges designers to actively engage the environmental crisis through their work, while articulating an optimistic, tangible means to pursue community good and environmental justice through design activism and engagement. The authors assert that in addition to greener buildings, cheaper housing, and technological fixes, we must rethink pedagogy and praxis so that every single architecture graduate can define equity and transform the profession.
Nestled in the heart of the jungle, in the village of Francisco Uh May resides the AZULIK residence, within the same compound as the AZULIK UH MAY, a cultural center for the arts. Heavily influenced by the natural forms of nature itself, Roth’s home takes a biomorphic approach to design, challenging architectural conventions and presenting a harmonious relationship with nature.
The Master Plan of the Radiant City. Image Courtesy of LE CORBUSIER FOUNDATION
Throughout history, religious reformers and visionary starchitects have attempted to envision the future of our cities: from the Venetian model city of Palmanova to the multi-story housing complex for 5,000 people drafted by Italian architect Paolo Soleri, from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City to Le Corbusier’s Radiant City, numerous masterplans have been crafted to illustrate some of the most unprecedented ambitions.
Courtesy of Department of Parks and Recreation - Draft Master Plan
Every natural disaster has an "aftershock" in which we realize the fragility of our planet and the vulnerability of what we have built and created. We realize the threat to our lifestyles and the flaws in our design choices. The response to Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 was no different than the response to every other hurricane, earthquake, tornado , tsunami or monsoon that has wrought devastation in different parts of the world. We recognize our impact on the climate and promise to address how our development has caused severe disruptions in the planet's self-regulating processes. We acknowledge how outdated our systems of design have become in light of these damaging weather patterns and promise to change the way we design cities, coastlines and parks. We gradually learn from our mistakes and attempt to redress them with smarter choices for more sustainable and resilient design. Most importantly, we realize that we must learn from how natural processes self-regulate and apply these conditions to the way in which we design and build our urban spaces.
Since Hurricane Sandy, early considerations of environmentalists, planners and designers have entered the colloquiol vocabulary of politicians in addressing the issues of the United States' North Atlantic Coast. There are many issues that need to be tackled in regards to environmental development and urban design. One of the most prominent forces of Hurricane Sandy was the storm surge that pushed an enormous amount of ocean salt water far inland, flooding whole neighborhoods in New Jersey, submerging most of Manhattan's southern half, destroying coastal homes along Long Island, and the Rockaways and sweeping away parts of Staten Island. Yet, despite the tremendous damage, there was a lot that we learned from the areas that resisted the hurricane's forces and within those areas are the applications that we must address for the rehabilitation and future development of these vulnerable conditions. Ironically, one of the answers lies within Fresh Kills - Staten Island's out-of-commission landfill - the largest landfill in the United States until it was shutdown in 2001. Find out how after the break.
Fresh Kills Landfill was opened in 1947 along the western coast of Staten Island as a temporary solution for New York City's waste just in time to accommodate an exponential rise in consumption in the post-World War II United States. Three years later, and the landfill continued to operate until it became the principal landfill for New York City, collecting the solid waste from all five boroughs in the "age of disposability". It is no wonder then, that the temporary solution swiftly became a 50-year one.
Approaching zero-waste is a matter of changing the way our culture thinks about use and reuse. It's not an impossible task, and San Francisco is leading the march to establish a feasible means of enacting public policy, structuring programs and educating the public on what it means to be "zero-waste". With a goal set for 2020, SF hopes to keep 100% of its waste out of landfills. Mayor Ed Lee estimates that the leading waste management company "Recology" is diverting nearly 80% of trash from landfills to be recycled or turned into compost. This begins with a public policy that sets a standard and gains traction as citizens embrace the goals of the city. Support programs reinforce these guidelines that eventually become habits and a cultural response to treating our environment.
Read on after the break for more on San Francisco's road to "zero-waste".
