What Will Architecture Design Look Like After COVID-19? Flexible and Resilient

Autodesk’s Redshift Ι Aug. 20, 2020 Five months into the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s clear that building for virus resilience and flexibility will be a fundamental element of architecture design going forward. A series of American Institute of Architects (AIA) reports (detailing schools, offices, retail, senior living, and health-care environments) offer a short-term, thorough examination of… Continue reading What Will Architecture Design Look Like After COVID-19? Flexible and Resilient

5 Insights as Architects Lead Hospital Conversion for COVID-19 Response

Autodesk’s Redshift Ι April 21, 2020 In February 2020, Molly Scanlon—a licensed architect and environmental health scientist—started noticing curious videos of modular hospitals in Wuhan, China, for patients who had contracted a mysterious new virus. The hospitals were austere and institutional, bordering on factory-like, with wide, segmented bays. Prefabricated components were trucked on-site and slotted… Continue reading 5 Insights as Architects Lead Hospital Conversion for COVID-19 Response

Fazlur Khan Converged Engineering and Architecture at the Top of the World

Autodesk’s Redshift Ι April 7, 2020 Fazlur Khan’s achievements as a structural engineer will forever be tied to Chicago’s Sears Tower (now called the Willis Tower), the tallest building in the world for a quarter century. But that long reign wasn’t stunt-architecture: The building, completed in 1973, represented a synthesis among structural possibilities, aesthetic exploration,… Continue reading Fazlur Khan Converged Engineering and Architecture at the Top of the World

Curves and CO2 Reduction Coexist in Chicago’s Colossal Concrete Installation

Autodesk’s Redshift Ι Jan. 28, 2020 Musing on the spiritual and formal predilections of the building materials he used so masterfully, architect Louis Kahn once famously said: “You say to brick, ‘What do you want, brick?’ And brick says to you, ‘I like an arch.’ And you say to brick, ‘Look, I want one, too,… Continue reading Curves and CO2 Reduction Coexist in Chicago’s Colossal Concrete Installation

A Floating Lab Aims to Promote a Healthy Marine Habitat in the San Francisco Bay

Autodesk’s Redshift Ι Aug. 29, 2019 From a distance, you could be forgiven for thinking the Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab installation is merely a boat. The vessel is actually a product of the California College of the Arts (CCA) Architectural Ecologies Lab. It’s seaworthy, with a fiberglass hull and oblong shape, but meant for a… Continue reading A Floating Lab Aims to Promote a Healthy Marine Habitat in the San Francisco Bay

Bamboo Transcends the Tropics for Carbon-Negative Construction

Autodesk’s Redshift Ι Aug. 7, 2019 It can be argued either way: Bamboo is a building material that’s criminally underused in construction or one destined to remain a quirky, regional curio. Long ignored beyond the developing world, bamboo (a grass, not a tree) has the compressive strength of concrete and the tensile strength of steel. Unlike… Continue reading Bamboo Transcends the Tropics for Carbon-Negative Construction

New Composite Building Materials Are Redefining Modernism at Exhibit Columbus

Redshift Ι July 2, 2018  Since the advent of modernism, architects have dreamed of the perfect material to unify structure and surface. Steel beams and glass windows were the 20th century’s solution, combining the elements holding up buildings and the elements covering buildings into one tidy duo. This century, academic researchers are throwing out this… Continue reading New Composite Building Materials Are Redefining Modernism at Exhibit Columbus

To Fix Its Aging Infrastructure, the US Could Learn a Thing or Two From Chicago

Autodesk’s Redshift Ι May 16, 2019  In its latest report card, released in 2017, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave US infrastructure a D+. Two years on, this rating still stands—and in the seven times the association has assessed the nation’s infrastructure since the 1980s, scores have steadily declined. By infrastructure type, the best… Continue reading To Fix Its Aging Infrastructure, the US Could Learn a Thing or Two From Chicago

Inventive Design Turns a Gantry Into a Low-Cost “Vertical Village” for Creatives

Autodesk’s Redshift Ι Oct. 18. 2018 In East London, The Trampery on the Gantry is doubling down on the “creative” aspect of creative reuse. Part of the massive broadcast center used during the 2012 Olympic Games, the former HVAC gantry structure has been retrofitted by architecture firm Hawkins\Brown as an arts and media innovation hub. The… Continue reading Inventive Design Turns a Gantry Into a Low-Cost “Vertical Village” for Creatives

Could Modular Wood Stadium Construction Be a Game Changer?

Redshift Ι June 19, 2018 Imagine a sports stadium that could expand and contract with its fan base and team’s fortunes, one that could pick up and move to greener (and more lucrative) pastures. Given team owners’ history of playing fans against each other, making stadiums more mobile isn’t likely to give pennant-wavers a sense of… Continue reading Could Modular Wood Stadium Construction Be a Game Changer?