Australia’s commitments to cut emissions are on a collision course with urban growth. We need a much more comprehensive strategy to make the transition to a sustainable built environment.
In recent years, Detroit has demolished thousands of abandoned homes annually.
AP Photo/Carlos Osorio
By the time a building is abandoned and falls into disrepair, its community is already suffering. Michigan scholars suggest it’s time to plan for structures’ end of life before they even go up.
Wittelsbacherplatz, June 2018, Munich, Germany.
Image: Christian Tietz
Business scholars have found that our physical environment can influence us in a variety of surprising ways – including by prompting us to engage in riskier behavior depending on elevation.
A boobook enjoys its vantage point, courtesy of humans.
Simon Cherriman
Buildings are central to creating more sustainable cities, and green ratings are often used to assess how well a building measures up against this goal. But the current system has serious flaws.
Looking through semitransparent cells – one day these could be big enough to make windows.
UNSW
Solar windows would need to trap enough light to generate power, while letting through enough to keep buildings light. Thankfully, newly developed semitransparent cells offer to do just that.
In Los Angeles, the architecture firm KTGY is repurposing shipping containers to build a transitional apartment complex for the homeless.
KTGY
Three innovative projects set to be completed this year are geared toward strengthening communities that have been left out of the economic recovery.
The old Pratt Street power plant in Baltimore in the US is now home to commercial uses. But the heritage preservation is compromised by advertising that is not sympathetic to the building style and design.
Wikimedia Commons
When talking about heritage, we need to be clear about our definitions and our objectives for each building. Then we can work on achieving the optimum balance of heritage and sustainability.
The Paul Klee Centre in Bern, Switzerland, looks great, but where are the people?
Richard Gomez Angel/Unsplash
By putting the users of buildings – people – at the centre of the process of designing buildings and infrastructure, we can create healthier, more human-centred spaces.
Could the new invention spell the end of rooftop fans?
Christophe Finot/Wikimedia Commons
The invention of silver and plastic-clad roof panels that can cool themselves down even under the Sun’s full glare promise to make air conditioning much more energy-efficient.
The none-structural storm damage: ceiling failure due to water ingress into roof cavity.
Water moves into Australian homes during severe tropical storms like Cyclone Debbie. But no definitive housing codes, standards or guidelines exist to stem the flow of unwanted storm water.
With the addition of minarets, Hagia Sophia was converted from a Christian basilica to an Islamic mosque.
Candace Richards
Adaptive reuse and recycling of heritage architecture may be all the rage, but are not new. Making new buildings from old has a long history in the ancient world.
In many cities, the only direction to go is up.
'Skyscrapers' via www.shutterstock.com
George Washington had Mount Vernon. Thomas Jefferson had Monticello. Now Trump has his eponymous tower. Can it stimulate a more creative, sustainable approach to building skyscrapers?
The building in Braunau Am Inn, Austria, where Hitler was born.
AP Photo
Professor of Civil, Environmental & Ecological Engineering, Director of the Healthy Plumbing Consortium and Center for Plumbing Safety, Purdue University