Prior to the summer of 2020 many people and organizations in the architecture/design industry spent time calling attention to the lack of diversity. While we are aware it affects many industries, I can only write and speak with accuracy to what happens in the industry I work in.
How can we be more equitable and inclusive and provide greater opportunities and create an ethos of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace? I offer a few thoughts for consideration.
Being part of the European Façade Network efn, an association of ten research and education entities throughout Europe, I would like to share my experiences of last year’s conferences and research activities with this brief contribution.
Pushing Change: R&D Innovation Processes in Construction Building Products, the second installment of the FTI Dialogues: Suppliers & Contractors Series, took place virtually on Friday, March 26th.
In this Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Richard Powers a series of fables is woven through a narrative populated by an expansive cast of unlikely characters, trees paramount among them; one a giant redwood named Mimas. Redwoods can live for thousands of years and grow to well over 300 feet tall.
Attendee survey results are in for the recent Facade Tectonics Forum: Chicago! with 100% reporting they will attend another event and recommend FTI events to others, and 96% reporting that speakers and presentations met or exceeded expectations.
A design-build class at the University of Louisiana explores the territory of the “tiny-house.” Professor Geoff Gjertson describes the 216 square foot MODESTEhouse and shares his personal experience of living small.
Ivan Lee, a Building Science Consultant at Morrison Hershfield recognizes the importance of mitigating thermal bridging to meet low energy targets for buildings. He points out that many jurisdictions are starting to incorporate thermal bridging into their codes and standards
In architecture, the façade is often the defining aspect of a building’s appearance, establishing the building’s public persona. From an engineering perspective, the façade is an assembly of building components with a critical impact on a range of performative metrics.
We at Zaha Hadid Architects Computation and Design group (ZHACODE) explore the relevance of this resource-effective, experience-rich design and construction paradigm to both large institutional projects with complex geometry and mass-customisation, repeated unit projects with assembly complexities.
This month, our content is focused on how buildings impact people and their well-being. How does their shape, look, and design impact how we function? How are our daily lives, our culture, and our society influenced by the built environment around us?
I’ve heard a little of this from some people and it bugs me! We are going to have the best World Congress event in the history of mankind! The prospect of taking FTI’s signature World Congress event to a digital platform is nothing but opportunity for the Institute. Let me tell you why
Manipulations of glass that have long seemed speculative are becoming possible with combinations of hot or cold bending, thermal or chemical tempering, and lamination.
Building facades for flagship stores play an important role in people’s perception of a brand. Facade system and material selection as well as detailing therefore have to take careful consideration of the image to be conveyed. - Karine Charlebois PE, AIA, LEED AP BD+C
From gothic masonry to the sculptural building facades of today, exposed structural surfaces are often the most defining element of architecture. Increasingly, however, designers sit at a nexus of these aesthetic considerations and performance-driven design.
Welcome to this edition of the SKINS newsletter, which is all about carbon! As guest editor this month, I am representing FTI’s embodied carbon (EC) working group. This issue highlights several important topics relative to embodied and the trade-offs with operational carbon.
Are you resilient? Do you bend to the winds of change or do you resist? Do you bounce back from adversity or is your recovery long, slow, and incomplete? Do you readily adopt lifestyle changes in response to personal health, economic, or environmental challenges, or is your response one of denial?
There have been 26 Conferences on Climate Change sponsored by the United Nations. The most recent conference, COP 26, was held in 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland. With 200 countries in attendance, all eyes were set on achieving the goal of limiting the rise in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The focus of this issue of SKINS is on embodied carbon -- the carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions associated with materials and construction processes throughout the whole lifecycle of a building or infrastructure.