After years of study and prototyping, the Block Research Group at ETH Zurich, in collaboration with partners from the construction industry, has completed a double-curved, self-supporting concrete roof for the HiLo unit of Swiss research institutions Empa and Eawag's NEST (Next Evolution in Sustainable Building Technologies) building in Dübendorf, Switzerland. The concrete shell was realized using an innovative, lightweight, flexible formwork system comprises a steel cable net spanning a perimeter support frame and a polymer textile shuttering. The steel net was tensioned using control algorithms to ensure the intended funicular form would be achieved once the concrete’s dead load was added. The polymer fabric was placed over the cable net, sprayed with lightweight concrete, topped with rigid insulation boards, and then sprayed again with concrete. “The expressive shell structure demonstrates how high (Hi) performance can be achieved with low (Lo) embodied emissions by combining efficient concrete structures with novel fabrication and construction methods,” according to ETH Zurich's news brief. [ETH Zurich]
Google is planning to expand its footprint in Silicon Valley by constructing new, mixed-use communities to the tune of $20 billion. Though the company has numerous well-known architecture firms on board and endless creative talent among its own employees, the design proposals “leave little to complain about, other than we would expect something more creative and daring from a company so innovative and wealthy,” writes ARCHITECT contributor Aaron Betsky in his latest column. [ARCHITECT]
Working in collaboration with leaders in the AEC industry, Generate has developed Tallhouse, “an adaptable catalog of integrated design systems for carbon-conscious, high-density urban housing, focused on the structural use of mass timber,” according to the Boston-based technology company’s press release. Designed for buildings 8 to 18 stories in height, the Tallhouse catalog offers four structural options, which use varying combinations of cross-laminated timber, steel, and light-gauge metal—and presents the corresponding embodied carbon.
Each system is designed as a “replicable kit of parts” that can be adapted to site-specific conditions and factors in transportation and product logistics. Generate is also developing a digital platform to streamline Tallhouse’s design, manufacturing, and assembly; increase transparency on the different design options; raise carbon awareness; and invite innovation by others. “By replacing—or hybridizing—conventional construction materials with timber, the Tallhouse will help offset near-term emissions by greatly reducing emissions from the manufacture of materials, while storing carbon in the timber structure over the lifetime of buildings,” the press release states. The Tallhouse team is currently construction 1 million square feet nationwide using this system. [Generate]
Pedestrians in the Huangpu district of Shanghai last month might have been startled by a five-story building keeping apace. The 85-year-old Lagena Primary School turned 21 degrees and ambled 203 feet to its new location using 185 mobile supports, or robotic “legs,” according to a CNN article. Developed by the company Shanghai Evolution Shift, the legs were divided into two groups that “alternately rise up and down, imitating the human stride.” After workers dug up and truncated the building’s pillars, they installed the mobile supports, which then rose to take the load of the building. Sensors attached to the supports help guide the building forward, project supervisor Lan Wuji told CNN. A new commercial and office complex will occupy the school’s former site. “Relocation is not the first choice, but better than demolition,” Lan said in the article. [CNN; video: South China Morning Post]
CannonDesign architectural photographer Laura Peters loved capturing people interacting with each other and with the built environment in her art. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. In this photo essay, Peters documents how she has adjusted her approach and technique in the new reality. [ARCHITECT]
Researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have discovered a correlation between COVID-19 mortality rates and long-term exposure to air pollution. Despite limitations in the availability and quality of COVID-19 data, the team was able to perform an ecological regression analysis and found a positive relationship between county-level COVID-19 death rates and exposure to PM2.5 (fine, inhalable particulate matter that are 2.5 micrometers and smaller). [ScienceAdvances]
App developer Layer has introduced Drawing View, a tool that takes redlines marked up on PDFs viewed through its namesake app automatically into Autodesk Revit. “We hear time and time again from architects that they are tired of doing redundant administrative tasks after a site visit,” Layer founder and CEO Zach Soflin, AIA, said in a company press release. “Drawing View will make it even easier to record changes visually in the field and instantly view those redlines in Revit.” [ARCHITECT]
