Tearing down old things to make room for new things is an American tradition. It makes sense in some ways. After all, better building materials mean better buildings, right? Not if you like beautiful old buildings. There is, however, a compromise.
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The Department of Agriculture doesn’t usually meddle in architecture, but this week at an event at the White House, it announced an unusual project: A $1 million competition for high-rise buildings built out of wood—and another million that will go to educating architects about it.
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It’s not a bad idea to measure a room before you go out and buy a bunch of new furniture. And if you’ve got an iPhone, that becomes less of an ordeal because you can trade your tape measure for this slick app called RoomScan. It automatically generates floorplans by simply tapping your phone on every wall.
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These days, we think of tall buildings as profitable, if predictable, tools of real estate. But at one time, skyscrapers were as technologically exciting as the Space Race. The eVolo Skyscraper Competition, now in its ninth year, aims to recapture some of that excitement.
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Continuing our inadvertent Snøhetta theme today, the Norwegian architecture firm has also proposed this fuselage-like metro station for downtown Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The outer skin of the building—a long tube enclosing a station on the city’s Metro-C line—would be surfaced with ceramic tiles "developed in cooperation with local artists." This joins other large-scale rail projects
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Living in the desert is no piece of cake. So to imagine a glittering city in the desert is to imagine something awesome and fantastical—and maybe a touch of crazy. Like architect Stephane Malka’s, "The Green Machine," a mobile city on caterpillar treads that farms the desert as it walks.
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Weehawken 16-year-old Justin Casquejo pulled a fast one on the guards at One World Trade Center on Sunday, reaching the spire of the 1,776-foot-tall tower around 4AM and hanging out for at least two hours. Some people’s rebellious teenage phases are just cooler than others.
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This serpent-like hotel, coiled around the glacial outcroppings of Norway’s gorgeous Lofoten Islands north of the Arctic Circle, has been proposed by the architecture firm Snøhetta. The building’s central loop will enclose a courtyard, offering a "spectacular view and the feeling of being ‘in the middle’ of the elements," according to the architects. [Dezeen]
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It’s been almost five years since Gizmodo first reported on the Thirty Meter Telescope
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In 2010, Treehugger founder Graham Hill shrugged off his possessions, designing a high-tech microdwelling that would house all his needs in a single, small room. Now this sweet little transformer of an apartment is on the market. The price? $995,000.
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