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SHoP Architects has partnered with Kids of Kathmandu and Asia Friendship Network to rebuild 50 public schools in areas of Nepal that were devastated by the April 2015 earthquake. The firm has conceived two flexible prototypes that can be adapted to different site conditions and available resources. “The structures are designed to ensure easy assembly with a limited kit of parts comprised of materials readily available in the affected regions,” said the firm. The designs will also be shared online to help other groups and communities build schools without needing to pay for architectural and engineering planning. Both designs feature walls made of locally sourced earth bricks – a strategy that saves on transportation costs. In some cases, the schools will be constructed in remote areas that can only be reached by canoe. Using locally made bricks also engages the community in the building process, and ensures the buildings are better able to endure an earthquake. (source).

 

 

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Rising sea levels and a shortage of development sites are leading to a surge of interest in floating buildings, with proposals ranging from mass housing on London’s canals to entire amphibious cities in China. People will increasingly live and work on water, as planning policies shift away from building flood defences towards accepting that seas and rivers cannot be contained forever, say the architects behind these proposals. Adeyemi, who is founder of Dutch studio NLÉ, has already designed several aquatic buildings in coastal Africa, including a floating school for a Lagos lagoon.  With over a quarter of its land mass lying below sea level, the Netherlands, where Adeyemi is based, leads the world in water management and has developed sophisticated planning policies that encourage water-based living.

“Flooding is likely to increase in frequency, severity and intensity,” Baca co-founder Richard Coutts said, “Intuitively we have been taught to hold water out rather than let it in,” he said. “The Dutch have embraced living with water as they have had no choice.” (source).

 

 

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Estonian studio Salto Architects have completed a temporary summer theatre in Tallinn made of black spray-painted straw bales. The Straw Theatre is built on top of the former Skoone bastion. At the beginning of the 20th century, the bastion worked as a public garden, and during the Soviet era it was more or less restricted recreational area for the Soviet navy with a wooden summer theatre and a park on top. With the summer theatre having burnt down and the Soviet troops gone, for the last 20 years the bastion has remained a closed and neglected spot in the centre of town. In such a context, the Straw Theatre is an attempt to acknowledge and temporarily reactivate the location, doing all this with equally due respect to all historical layers of the site. The Straw Theatre is a unique occasion where straw has been used for a large public building and adjusted to a refined architectural form. For reinforcement purposes, the straw walls have been secured with trusses, which is a type of construction previously unused. As the building is temporary, it has not been insulated as normal straw construction would require but has been kept open to experience the raw tactile qualities of the material and accentuate the symbolic level of the life cycle of this sustainable material. (source).

 

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Architecture studio Kilo has pitched a traditional Moroccan camel and goat wool tent in front of Jean Nouvel‘s Institut du Monde Arabe building in Paris. The studio covered the large rectangular tent with over 650 square metres of camel and goat wool, woven into long strips by members of a female cooperative in the Sahara Desert. The texture and curving form contrasts against the smooth facade, which is patterned with geometric designs typically used in Arabic architecture and on tiles. Beneath the woollen ceiling, the museum has attempted to recreate a souk-like atmosphere where works by Moroccan designers and craftspeople are displayed and sold.

“The rhythm and scale of the tent’s silhouette renders a topographic dimension to the structure, which pays homage to the nomadic traditions of southern Morocco,” said the architects. (source).

 

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According to Slow Food, Herzog & de Meuron offer an alternative to the “pompous and unsustainable structures that would only distract visitors from the real purpose of the event”. The designers’ Slow Food Pavilion comprises three simple wooden sheds, all of which offer shelter but due to their open sides are also exposed to the elements. These frame a triangular courtyard furnished with large planting boxes, each containing rows of vegetables and herbs.

The first contains an exhibition inviting visitors to learn about different foods, and the second contains tasting counters. The third is a space for talks and seminars. According to Herzog & de Meuron, the long and narrow structures were inspired by the traditional farmhouses of Italy’s historic Lombardy region. Once the Expo is over, they will be disassembled and transported to a selection of Italian schools, where they will be rebuilt and used as garden sheds. (source).

 

 

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The Vlotwateringbrug by NEXT Architects spans the Vlotwatering river in Monster, a town in the Dutch province of South Holland. Three specific elements of the bridge were designed for the bats – on the north side, an abutment accommodates winter roosting, while the deck and the brick balustrade include openings to facilitate summer roosting. The architects hope that a large colony of various species will be encouraged to grow around the bridge.

The bridge forms part of a 21-hectare waterway project called the Poelzone that aims to turn the banks of the river between ‘s-Gravenzande, Naaldwijk and Monster into a public recreation zone as well as create new habitats for indigenous wildlife. (source).

 

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This beach house by Ruhl Walker Architects is raised above the landscape, helping it to have a minimal impact on the fragile coastal ecosystem. Encompassing 2,800 square feet (260 square metres), the House of Shifting Sands sits on a sloped waterfront site in the small Massachusetts town of Wellfleet, located in the hook-shaped peninsula known as Cape Cod. The home is surrounded by miles of undeveloped land and scrub pines. Ruhl Walker Architects was charged with creating a building that honoured environmental concerns expressed by the client, the town’s conservation commission and the US National Park Service. This prompted the team to plan a building that “appears to float out of and above its shifting, sandy site”. The house was designed to be provide all of its own energy. Power is supplied via solar panel arrays located on the roofs of the main house and studio. There are also high-efficiency air-to-air heat exchangers and energy-recovery ventilators. (source).

 

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Olafur Eliasson explores duration and the ever-changing environment of the city in his latest installation of The collectivity project. His participatory project brings over two tons of white Lego bricks to New York’s High Line in an effort to reimagine the cityscape.  Starting with Lego brick structures of skyscrapers built by firms that include OMA New York and Renzo Piano, who built the newly opened Whitney Museum of American Art that now sits at the southern tip of the High Line, the installation invites the public to use the initial buildings as a point of departure to build and rebuild the structures in their own image, considering the spaces they live, work, and play. (source).

 

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To deal with the lack of fresh water in Dubai and other Arabian nations, Italian architectural firm Studiomobile created the Seawater Vertical Farm to cool and humidify greenhouses. This innovative concept produces adequate humidity to convert seawater into fresh water, necessary for irrigation. Here’s how it works: 1)The air going into the greenhouse is first cooled and humidified by seawater, which is trickled over the first evaporator. This provides a fresh and humid climate for the crops. 2) As the air leaves the growing area it passes through the second evaporator which has seawater flowing over it. During this phase, humid air runs into the warm dry air of the ceiling. This makes the air much hotter and more humid. 3) The warm and humid air condense when in contact with plastic tubes that are pumped with cool sea water in the central chimney. Drops of fresh water appear on the surface of the condenser, ready to be collected in a tank and used to water the crops. (source).

 

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The Wat Pa Maha Chedio Kaew temple, in Thailand’s Sisaket province (roughly 370 miles northeast of Bangkok), is made of about 1.5 million recycled glass bottles. True to its nickname, “Wat Lan Kuad” or “Temple of Million Bottles” features glass bottles throughout – even the toilets. Bottle caps are also integrated as decorative mosaic murals.The bottle-collection-turned-building started in 1984, when the monks used them to decorate their shelters, which inspired people to donate more bottles. Aside from being sustainable, bottle bricks don’t fade, let natural light into the space and are surprisingly easy to maintain. (source).