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

Can Artist Theaster Gates Help Bridge a Town-Gown Divide?

The Atlantic’s CityLab Ι April 5, 2019  The newly renovated Keller Center, home to the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy on Chicago’s South Side, is crafted from a 1963 building designed by the architect of New York’s Radio City Music Hall and D.C.’s Kennedy Center, Edward Durell Stone. On the outside is a… Continue reading Can Artist Theaster Gates Help Bridge a Town-Gown Divide?

With Haus Gables, Architect Jennifer Bonner Celebrates and Critiques the American Single-Family House

Photo by Tim Hursley.

Metropolis Magazine Ι March 2019  There’s an irresistible meta-critique at the heart of architect Jennifer Bonner’s Haus Gables in Atlanta, asking: What if you blurred the lines between real architecture and the media and methods used to simulate it, namely drawings and models? A professor at Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) with a practice of… Continue reading With Haus Gables, Architect Jennifer Bonner Celebrates and Critiques the American Single-Family House

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

At this Montreal school, big sounds come in small packages

Doggerel Ι November 14, 2017  The design for La Musique Aux Enfants began with one key question: “How can we make a basement sound more like a concert hall?” said Willem Boning, an acoustic consultant with Arup. The brainchild of Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal director Kent Nagano, the Musique Aux Enfants program is a collaborative initiative… Continue reading At this Montreal school, big sounds come in small packages

Fire Tests Enable New Timber Typologies

Doggerel Ι August 23, 2017 After a long time lost in the woods, architects and engineers are rediscovering timber. Wood has been a default building material for millennia. Historically, one of the easiest and most effective ways to keep buildings standing upright was to fell large trees and shape them into load-bearing beams and columns. This… Continue reading Fire Tests Enable New Timber Typologies

Making the case for wooden buildings

Doggerel Ι April 21, 2017 Walk into the cavernous atrium of the National Building Museum a few blocks north of DC’s National Mall, and you’ll find a piece of wood whose scale rivals the 75-foot-tall, 8-foot-diameter masonry columns it sits next to. This 64-foot-tall plank, which the curators of the current exhibit Timber City have dubbed… Continue reading Making the case for wooden buildings