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

An Activist Architecture Stirs in Chicago

The Atlantic’s CityLab Ι Oct. 9. 2019 Perhaps the most compelling installation in this year’s Chicago Architecture Biennial doesn’t feature a single architectural model, rendering, or image of buildings (or of anything else). It’s a series of short blocks of text, probing the Chicago police’s killing of Harith Augustus on the city’s South Side in July of last… Continue reading An Activist Architecture Stirs in Chicago

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

Architectural Upcycling Builds Earth’s Better Future Out of Trash

Redshift Ι Aug. 1, 2017 Contemporary designers are recycling waste materials into useable and well-crafted objects, and it’s easy to get the impression that this burgeoning realm of fabrication is destined only for the craft fair. A quick survey of Blaine Brownell’s new guide Transmaterial Next: A Catalog of Materials That Redefine Our Future turns up… Continue reading Architectural Upcycling Builds Earth’s Better Future Out of Trash