Wendy Miller, Queensland University of Technology; Dale Steinhardt, Queensland University of Technology et Karen Manley, Queensland University of Technology
Memories of school demountables might cause some people to sneer at prefabricated buildings. But they can be stylish too, not to mention offering a possible way to ease the housing affordability problem.
Separating illegal phoenix activity from legitimate insolvencies is complicated.
Flickr/fdecomite
Rammed earth has been used for centuries, for buildings that have stood the test of time, including China’s Great Wall. It’s also cheap and environmentally friendly, so why aren’t modern architects embracing it?
Straw is cheap, good for the environment and an excellent insulator. So why don’t we see more straw houses? Unless we suddenly stop eating bread or cereal it’ll keep being produced anyway, and the excess…
Some US bridges are currently living out their twilight years.
Bob Jagendorf
There are about 600,000 bridges in the United States, and about one in four is classified as functionally obsolete or structurally deficient. This doesn’t mean they’re in danger of imminent collapse; they…
The new Royal Adelaide Hospital, due for completion in 2016, is being built using BIM.
RoboSparrow/Flickr
It is often argued that Australia’s construction sector productivity is lower than most other developed countries, such as the US. While there are many factors involved, Australia’s overall productivity…
Growing a solution to the growing problem of urban warming.
Alison Hancock/Shutterstock
It’s getting hot in the city, and our overheated cities are only going to get hotter still as more people pile in and development and energy use intensifies. But planting away the problem could be a surprisingly…
In the late 1950s, more than a decade after the war and not long after the rock and roll explosion, Britain embarked on a house-building programme the like of which we have never seen before or since…
Six-star green projects like Melbourne’s Pixel Building are largely confined to Australia’s city centres.
Supplied
Australia is allegedly in the midst of a “green building revolution”, powered by the awarding of ratings to developers who build sustainable buildings. But this brave new world is only a reality in the…
Prefab housing is an industry that shares many assembly methods with car manufacturing.
Code_martial/Flickr
Unless you have been living under a rock, you couldn’t help but hear the dying wail of manufacturing here in Australia. Car manufacturing and food manufacturing being the most recent victims. There’s no…
The Abbott government isn’t the first to take aim at corruption in the construction industry.
Alan Porritt/AAP
In light of the upcoming Royal Commission into trade union corruption, it’s worth asking if the recommendations of the two previous Commissions into the construction industry, together with other state…
A protester makes her feelings clear about the pink batts scheme in 2010.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
The political fallout over the ill-fated Home Insulation Program continues, with former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard now having been summoned to appear before the Abbott government’s royal…