Despite the government spruiking a ‘gas-led economic recovery’, natural gas is clearly on the way out. It’s time for a serious rethink on the way many Australians cook and heat our homes.
A building designed to be easily taken apart so the components can be reused is a model for much less wasteful construction. It reduces resource use and environmental impacts, and can be cheaper too.
Classroom experiments show how the coronavirus can spread and who’s at greatest risk.
Tom Werner via Getty Images
Experiments in college classrooms show how tiny respiratory droplets known as aerosols can spread, even with good ventilation. The risk isn’t the same in every seat.
Eko Atlantic city in Lagos is described as the largest real estate project in Africa and dubbed the “Dubai of Africa”.
Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images
To achieve sustainable, functional buildings, architects in cities like Lagos need to consider local realities.
Schools in Ohio and Pennsylvania have already found Legionella, the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease, in their water systems.
Andrew Whelton/Purdue University
When water stagnates in pipes, harmful metals and bacteria can accumulate and make people sick. Buildings that were shut down for weeks during the pandemic may be at risk.
If more people work from home and shop online, many commercial buildings won’t be needed any longer. What will be needed is affordable housing, and these buildings can be converted to meet this need.
Sberbank Technopark in Russia by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Zaha Hadid Architects
Algorithms can now work out the best ways to lay out rooms, construct buildings and even change them over time to meet user needs.
Artist rendition of the National Western Center, a net-zero campus under construction in Denver to house multiple activities.
City and County of Denver | Mayor’s Office of the National Western Center
Net zero energy buildings produce at least as much energy as they use. Designing whole net zero campuses and communities takes the energy and climate benefits to a higher level.
A sand mine in Nepal. Growing urbanization and its need for concrete is fuelling a global sand crisis.
(Michael Hoffmann)
As sand markets boom, entrepreneurs, organized crime and others are cashing in — leaving widespread environmental damage in their wake.
Discolored water can be caused by heavy metals, such as iron or copper. Iron can also act as a nutrient for organisms to grow in the pipes.
Kyungyeon Ra/Purdue University
Office buildings have been left mostly empty for weeks amid the coronavirus pandemic, leaving standing water in pipes where harmful organisms can grow. What happens when those buildings reopen?
Sunlight, ventilation and relative humidity all affect the microbiome of indoor spaces.
iStock / Getty Images Plus
We spend 90% of our lives indoors, and every building has its own indoor microbiome. Can we learn to manage them in ways that support helpful microbes and suppress harmful ones?
Researchers are turning microbes into microscopic construction crews by altering their DNA to make them produce building materials. The work could lead to more sustainable buildings.
The U.S. Supreme Court building, completed in 1935, is considered a neoclassical masterpiece.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Federal building guidelines say that ‘development of an official style must be avoided’ – which is exactly what a leaked executive order is trying to do.
These birds were killed by flying into a set of surveyed buildings in Washington DC in 2013.
USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab/Flickr
It’s now officially the end of hurricane season, but the rebuilding of the Bahamas continues, slowed by the risks imposed by a history of colonialism and class division.
Compliance with the National Construction Code provides no guarantee that an apartment won’t leak.
Governments and regulators assume compliance with building regulations will restore public confidence. But complying with the National Construction Code won’t fix many common defects.
Professor of Civil, Environmental & Ecological Engineering, Director of the Healthy Plumbing Consortium and Center for Plumbing Safety, Purdue University