Beat Box: 30 apartments in 48 containers to transform the Danish neighborhood of Musicon, adjacent to the famous Roskilde Festival area. Designed by Arkitema Architects and constructed by Container Living, Beat Box is an integral part of Roskilde’s goal to revamp Musicon over the next 15 years by adding 1,000 jobs and 1,000 homes.
Researchers from the university of British Columbia have developed a new fiber-reinforced concrete treatment that can “dramatically [enhance] the earthquake resistance of seismically vulnerable [structures].”
Called EDCC (eco-friendly ductile cementitious composite), the material is engineered at the molecular level to react similarly to steel – with high strength, ductility and malleability. When sprayed onto the surface of traditionally poured interior concrete walls, it reinforces against seismic intensities as high as the magnitude 9.0-9.1 earthquake that hit Tohoku, Japan in 2011.
Finally, a brutalist map of New York City, thanks to London-based publisher, Blue Crow Media. The Concrete New York Map marks the tenth map in the architectural guide series, highlighting over fifty of The City’s finest concrete buildings.
Not often thought of as a brutalist capitol, the concrete jungle is filled with remarkable buildings by Breuer, Pei, Rudolph, Saarinen, Wright, alongside lesser-known works, mapped out, photographed, and paired with a description of the building. The map is edited by Allison Meier, and adorned with Jason Woods’ photography and is the perfect pocket guide for any architect or brutalism lover.
This article was originally published by KatariMag, a blog that explores the history of contemporary culture in its most sophisticated and fresh expression. Follow their Instagram and read more of their articles here.
Brutalist architecture responds to a specific moment in history. As WWII was coming to an end, a new form of State was rising from the ashes, along with a global order that would include and increase the relevance of peripheral nations. Brutalist architecture was born as a response to the ideas of the robust nations that would lead the masses. Critic Michael Lewis said, "brutalism is the vernacular expression of the welfare state."
Architects and coffee go hand in hand. The aesthetic of the espresso maker has become a mundane part of the morning ritual. The designers at Montaag are changing that with the release of AnZa a show-stopping espresso maker made of concrete. After four years of prototyping and testing, the espresso maker is equipped with high-tech functionality for important things, like remotely brewing your cup as an incentive to get out of bed.
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Standing like a concrete mountain amid a wood, the jagged concrete volume of the Neviges Mariendom [“Cathedral of Saint Mary of Neviges”] towers over its surroundings. Built on a popular pilgrimage site in western Germany, the Mariendom is only the latest iteration of a monastery that has drawn countless visitors and pilgrims from across the world for centuries. Unlike its medieval and Baroque predecessors, however, the unabashedly Modernist Mariendom reflects a significant shift in the outlook of its creators: a new way of thinking for both the people of post-war Germany and the wider Catholic Church.
After the Gomos#1 prototype and the exhibition at the Venice Biennale, SUMMARY studio unveils a new project using its modular building system.
Due to its ability to be shaped into complex forms and the diversity of textures that it can offer, concrete is one of the favorite materials of many architects, who appreciate its capacity to help them realize their designs. For this reason, for this week's Photos of the Week we have selected 20 images that highlight the beauty and expressiveness of this material. Read on to see a selection of renowned photographers such as Brigida González, Bruno Candiotto, Élena Marini Silvestri, and Raphael Olivier.
This article was originally published by Autodesk's Redshift publication as "Realizing Architectural Dreams Through Design-Assist and Precast Concrete."
Ancient Romans mixed lime and volcanic rock to form a mortar, a precursor to modern reinforced concrete. This made engineering marvels like Rome’s Colosseum possible—still standing more than 2,000 years after its construction.
Today, this versatile material is evolving further: Precast concrete, which is formed and cured in factories before being installed onsite, is bringing about a new wave of architecture that streamlines the building process while reaching toward big, complex ideas.
Held annually, the CEMEX Building Award honors the best architecture and construction both in Mexico and abroad. Yesterday the cement company announced the finalist projects located in Mexico, and in categories ranging from social housing to infrastructure. Each project will be evaluated by a jury convened by CEMEX; the qualities to be evaluated include integrated sustainability, architectural design, structure and innovation in the construction process.
Below see the full list of finalist projects located in Mexico.
More than 2000 years ago, the Roman Empire invented a unique marine concrete that allowed for the construction of enormous, durable structures – even underwater. Incredibly, the exact chemical properties of this concrete mixture have eluded scientists to this day – but now, researchers from the University of Utah believe they may have finally cracked the code.
According to the findings in the journal American Mineralogist, the secret lies in the chemical properties of two of the mixture’s components: lime and volcanic ash, which contained a rare mineral known as aluminium tobermorite. When exposed to sea water, the substance would crystallize in the lime while curing. Rather than be eroded by the water, its presence actually gave the material additional strength.
What makes the color black so enticing for architects? Projects made in black concrete are both striking and complex in their design and are gaining widespread appeal in contemporary projects, both public and private. What we don’t know is just how hard it is to create black concrete in the first place. We spoke with Attilio Panzeri & Partners who have mastered the craft - and here’s what we learned:
One of architecture’s most delightful anomalies is the diversity of solutions generated by any given site. From hypothetical university projects by architecture students to professional international design competition entries, the differing perspectives, stances, and experiences brought to rest on one site by several design teams can wield a bounty of contrasting ideas.
Recently, we reported on Nestinbox, a proposal by Swedish architecture firm Manofactory to attach a series of simple, functional houses to a cliff face in Stockholm, addressing the demands of increased populations and land prices in cities across the world. Now, the cliffs of Stockholm have been the subject of an entirely different, though just as evocative concept by Swedish firm UMA. Rather than private housing, UMA proposes the Stockholm Infinity Pool, a public pool 1km along the Sodermalm cliffs of Sweden’s capital.
During his frequent travels to Seoul, Hong Kong- and Singapore-based photographer Raphael Olivier noticed a new trend taking the South Korean capital: a crop of geometric, concrete buildings of all genres. He calls the new style Neo-Brutalism, after the modernist movement that proliferated in the late 1950s to 1970s, in which raw concrete was meant to express a truth and honesty. Olivier's observation led him to capture the phenomenon in a personal photo series—a photographic treasure trove of these projects which, when taken as a whole, uncovers a cross-section of this trend in the city's architecture.
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