Construction

Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), which lays claim to being the largest shipbuilding company in the world, says it has developed a miniature welding robot that can be easily transported by a worker and affixed to a ship using magnets. The small, portable robot is expected to increase worker productivity two to threefold.  Read More

With Klik, Australian companies Elenberg Fraser and Unitised Building have come up with a prefabricated modular building system they claim is equally suited to knocking up a quick skyscraper as it is a modern, designer house. It makes sense, then, that the product is pitched at developers, architects and would-be homeowners, and that the multiple choice procurement procedure is identical for each. If you can tick a box, you can design a Klik building, more or less.  Read More

Ordinarily seen as a waste product, the husks of sunflower seeds could be used to make concrete, according to research out of Turkey. Not only are the husks a sustainable source of aggregate, it's claimed that the resulting concrete is more resistant to cracking during post-freeze thaws.  Read More

Architecture studio 3Gatti has taken inspiration from colorful parasols carried during Shanghai’s hot summer months to design a new facade for the 2010 Shanghai Expo’s Madrid Pavilion. The new screen for the re-purposed office and retail block will feature steel umbrellas that can be individually opened and closed and used to manage interior light levels.  Read More

The American Institute of Architects announced its top ten green buildings in the US for 2013 on Monday (Earth Day, uncoincidentally). It's a diverse list, containing a cheese factory, senior citizens' apartments, school buildings, and a smattering of LEED certificates. There's only one net zero building on the list, though it's worth remembering that it's much easier to build a net zero home than it is a net zero office or factory. Step inside for a short profile of each of the buildings, or head straight to the gallery for the architectural eye candy.  Read More

The world of architecture figuratively doffed its cap to Earth Day on Monday with the opening of the Bullitt Center in Seattle. The Bullitt Center aims to meet the rigorous Living Building Design Challenge, which looks beyond design criteria and scrutinizes a building's green credentials, including energy self-sufficiency, over the course of a year in use. But more significantly, its developers claim that the Bullitt Center is the greenest commercial building in the world.  Read More

Plans are afoot to build a high tech mini-city outside the city of Paris, France. Like all good grandstanding architectural schemes, the task of designing a 0.8-sq km (0.3-sq mile) retail, leisure and culture park was put to a competition. This was won by a team including Bjarke Ingels Group (aka BIG) which has outlined its vision for a mixed use, green-roofed development dubbed EuropaCity, which looks something akin to a crashed, overgrown UFO.  Read More

It is surely now but a matter of time before we are reporting on the completion of the first 3D-printed house, or at least something purported to be such a thing. Amsterdam-based DUS Architects is the latest company to show its hand, and has developed its own 3D printer, the KamerMaker (literally, RoomMaker), with the intention of 3D printing a house before the end of the year.  Read More

Over the weekend, Northern Europe’s largest aquarium opened to the public eight kilometers (five miles) outside of Copenhagen in Oresund, Denmark. The Blue Planet aquarium features over 20,000 fish and other aquatic animals all housed within 53 aquariums containing a total of approximately seven million liters (1.85 million gallons) of water.  Read More