The test facility in Miami helps building designers prevent future storm damage. With the warming climate intensifying hurricanes, engineers are planning a new one with 200 mph winds and storm surge.
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Articles on Building design
Displaying 1 - 20 of 21 articles
It’s time to rethink these physical environments with peoples’ fundamental human needs at the heart of design.
New research has found that low-rise urban environments are more space and carbon efficient than high-rise buildings which have a drastically higher carbon impact.
99% of people below the floors where the planes struck the twin towers evacuated successfully, although their journey was fraught with danger. Their stories have influenced today’s skyscraper designs.
The World Trade Center buildings were built to withstand wind loads more than 30 times the aircrafts’ weight.
Construction experts explain the various factors that likely came into play, leading to the collapse of a building which had reportedly been sinking for some time.
Our buildings and cities were not designed to handle a pandemic. But countries around the world are coming up with design ideas, some high-tech and some more basic, to reduce the infection risks.
Many older women are in desperate need of affordable housing where they can age in place securely, with dignity and as part of a community. The siheyuan model offers ways to meet these needs.
People love to connect with nature and that’s possible with vertical gardens on high-rise developments. But gardens need a gardener to keep things under control.
Super-spreader events typically have the ‘three Vs" in common: indoor venues, poor ventilation and vocalisation. But many buildings frequented by the public lack ventilation or the means to monitor it.
Most aged care homes are designed to be naturally ventilated. But when windows are closed to keep out the cold, poor ventilation appears to be common – and that’s a problem for infection control.
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.
Algorithms can now work out the best ways to lay out rooms, construct buildings and even change them over time to meet user needs.
COVID-19 is creating overwhelming needs for intensive care and testing facilities. An Australian team is developing purpose-built units that can be shipped and erected quickly, easily and cheaply.
Earth-covered houses are not only highly fire-resistant, but sustainable features such as off-grid power and water supplies could also be life-saving in a bushfire.
The problems of demolishing high-rise buildings in busy cities point to the need to prepare for unbuilding at the time of building. We’d then be much better placed to recycle building materials.
Ensuring a building will be safe against fire requires careful consideration from not only fire engineers, but also from builders, architects and building owners.
Planning controls in Melbourne were eased 20 years ago, with mixed results, and new limits are now in place. Will other cities that have eased height limits, like Adelaide, avoid the same mistakes?
Fires and building failures highlighted serious gaps in Australian building regulations. But recent revisions and recommendations still fall short of preparing our buildings for climate change.
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.
Top contributors
-
Lecturer in Architecture, Practice and Design, Swinburne University of Technology
-
Bruce Milthorpe is a Friend of The Conversation.
Emeritus Professor, Faculty of Science, University of Technology Sydney
-
Adjunct professor at the University of Adelaide, University of Technology Sydney
-
Senior Lecturer in Construction, RMIT University
-
Vice-Chancellor's Senior Research Fellow, RMIT University
-
Senior Lecturer - Energy, Queensland University of Technology
-
Scientia Professor and CEO, Co-operative Research Centre for Low Carbon Living, UNSW Sydney
-
Senior Lecturer, School of Property, Construction and Project Management, RMIT University
-
Professor, Head of School, School of Architecture, University of Technology Sydney
-
Professor of Sustainability Science, Edinburgh Napier University
-
Lecturer, Monash University, Monash University
-
Head of Art and Design, University of Hertfordshire
-
Honorary Professor, The University of Queensland
-
Lecturer In Construction, Deakin University
-
Senior Lecturer in Construction, Deakin University
