Sustainability: The Latest Architecture and News

In today’s world “going green” has become a top priority in our society, and sustainable buildings and design are at the forefront of this green revolution. While many designers are focusing on passive and active energy systems, the reuse of recycled materials is beginning to stand out as an innovative, highly effective, and artistic expression of sustainable design. Reusing materials from existing on site and nearby site elements such as trees, structures, and paving is becoming a trend in the built environment, however more unorthodox materials such as soda cans and tires are being discovered as recyclable building materials. Materials and projects featured after the break.

The University of Queensland’s (UQ) School of Architecture has proven again that the creative skills developed in its design studios are truly award winning. Graduating from UQ’s Master of Architecture program in 2010, Rick Hill and Josh Spillane, along with 3D graphic artist Leon McBride, recently submitted one of three winning designs in an international competition to redesign the Parramatta foreshore in New South Wales. Mr Hill said that the Ideas on Edge competition coordinated by the Parramatta City Council provided the perfect opportunity to put the skills they learnt in the masters design studio to the test.

c. Colomès + f. Nomdedeu architectes with Michael Rousseau architecte and Adrian Maston have studied the evolution of cities and urban environments and have produced this research as to how one might design and create a sustainable urban development. This concept is based on a living condition that balances the urban environment with an agricultural environment.

Read on for more on this research after the break.

The Rotterdam based design team STAR strategies + architecture has shared with us their recent project, O’ Mighty Green, a critical piece about Green – washing and especially about the abuse of “Green” in architecture. Additional images and text can be seen after the break.

Back in February we shared with you that part of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address focused on highlighting future plans for making American businesses more energy efficient. The Better Buildings Initiative (BBI) that the President proposed would invest in innovative clean energy technologies, aiming to increase energy efficiency in commercial by 20 percent in the next ten years.

Rotterdam based KuiperCompagnons has recently won first prize in the design competition for the sustainable office building Agung Sedayu Center in Jakarta. Further images of their winning design as well as a description from the architects can be seen after the break.

Chilean architects, dRN Architects has submitted to ArchDaily their recent submission for the Beton Hala Waterfront project in central Belgrade, Serbia. Additional images of the proposal as well as a lengthy description of the work can be found after the break.

No.8 Wire is a paper architecture explorative analysis of the house, relative to the landscape of central Otago. As the title declares, the aesthetic is a bold foray of built form placed in conversance to the surroundings. The historic use of No.8 wire has entered into the cultural lexicon of many countries, especially the New Zealand concept of resourcefulness and creativity; best described as New Zealander’s ingenuity and adaptability.

Designed by Jonathan Gibb, the concept of No.8 Wire and its associated ideals of adaptability have been used to give emphasis to the juxtaposition of a house within the expanse of a landscape. The intimacy and concept of what constitutes a home has been simply portrayed by use of the gable end, used as an indoctrinating device to express the essence of suburbia’s aesthetic, a figure and ‘sign’ of what may constitute a home. Abstracted and re-formed into a self sustaining entity, self referential through mirroring, offset and re-expressed as a didactic expression of space.

The New Zealand team from Victoria University of Wellington is the first-ever finalist from the Southern Hemisphere in the US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon. The team is led by students from Victoria’s School of Architecture and is made up of students from a range of disciplines across the university. New Zealand is the first country in the world to see the light each day, this gave the house its name— First Light.

Hosted by Design By Many, the Passive House for New Orleans competition challenged designers to design a single-family dwelling that is sustainable in the broadest sense of the term: affordable to build and purchase, long-lasting, with minimal impact on the local environment, and affordable to heat and cool throughout the life of the building.

The winning proposal, designed by sustainable.TO, is based on the vernacular shotgun typology. The affordable, low-energy, single-family low cost, low energy house will help to revitalize the existing neighborhood of the Lower Ninth Ward. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The International Living Future Institute launched the Living City Design Competition in 2010, seeking designs for our cities in the year 2035. map-lab’s submission was ResilienCity. ResilienCity seeks to set the vision for the future of Boston’s Innovation District, a new neighborhood built on grey field and brownfield sites that will provide residences and workplaces for over 300,000 people.

We have reached the tipping point where we need to think of the whole, not the self. We have arrived at a time when we need to stop behaving selfishly and begin to explore how we can all come together as a community to create environments that are culturally enriching, healthier, and equitable. We come back to nature to do this. Additional images of map-lab’s submission and a continuing narrative can be seen after the break.

Architects with diverse and interesting green projects in North America will present their work, illustrating best practices for achieving high performance design with exceptional aesthetic and sustainability standards. The panelists will discuss three projects – small, medium, and large — to share how sustainability concerns were integral to the design process. Topics to be covered include selecting appropriate materials and technology, deciding on energy saving strategies, balancing aesthetics with performance, meeting and managing client expectations, achieving eco-friendly buildings on time and within budget, utilizing building information modeling (BIM), and applying post-occupancy lessons learned.