#sustainability in construction

[jamaicahomescom]

Is design innovation the price of a client-focused construction industry?

Much has been written about customer contribution to innovation however, far less has been given to the potentially hindering innovation. This paper argues that strong client leadership may have negative consequences for innovation, Introduction The view that the customer should play a key role in the innovation process is deeply embedded in management thinking (Reich et al., 1996; Dahlsten,…

[nnctales]

Polyurea Concrete Blocks: Revolutionizing Construction with Durability and Versatility

Introduction In the world of construction, innovation is a constant driving force, enabling builders to create structures that are more durable, sustainable, and efficient. One such innovation that has gained significant attention is the use of polyurea concrete blocks. These blocks, with their unique properties and versatility, are transforming the construction industry. This article delves into…

[reasonsforhope]

"Chicago’s 82-story Aqua Tower appears to flutter with the wind. Its unusual, undulating facade has made it one of the most unique features of Chicago’s skyline, distinct from the many right-angled glass towers that surround it.

In designing it, the architect Jeanne Gang thought not only about how humans would see it, dancing against the sky, but also how it would look to the birds who fly past. The irregularity of the building’s face allows birds to see it more clearly and avoid fatal collisions. “It’s kind of designed to work for both humans and birds,” she said.

As many as 1 billion birds in the US die in building collisions each year. And Chicago, which sits along the Mississippi Flyway, one of the four major north-south migration routes, is among the riskiest places for birds. This year, at least 1,000 birds died in one day from colliding with a single glass-covered building. In New York, which lies along the Atlantic Flyway, hundreds of species traverse the skyline and tens of thousands die each year.

As awareness grows of the dangers posed by glistening towers and bright lights, architects are starting to reimagine city skylines to design buildings that are both aesthetically daring and bird-safe.

Pictured: Chicago's Aqua Tower was designed with birds in mind.

Some are experimenting with new types of patterned or coated glass that birds can see. Others are rethinking glass towers entirely, experimenting with exteriors that use wood, concrete or steel rods. Blurring lines between the indoors and outdoors, some architects are creating green roofs and facades, inviting birds to nest within the building.

“Many people think about bird-friendly design as yet another limitation on buildings, yet another requirement,” said Dan Piselli, director of sustainability at the New York-based architecture firm FXCollaborative. “But there are so many design-forward buildings that perfectly exemplify that this doesn’t have to limit your design, your freedom.”

How modern buildings put birds in danger

For Deborah Laurel, principal in the firm Prendergast Laurel Architects, the realization came a couple of decades ago. She was up for an award for her firm’s renovation of the Staten Island Children’s Museum when the museum’s director mentioned to her that a number of birds had been crashing into the new addition. “I was horrified,” she said.

She embarked on a frenzy of research to learn more about bird collisions. After several years of investigation, she found there was little in the way of practical tips for architects, and she teamed up with the conservation group NYC Audubon, to develop a bird-safe building guide.

The issue, she discovered, was that technological and architectural advancements over the last half-century had in some ways transformed New York City – and most other US skylines and suburbs – into death traps for birds...

At certain times of day, tall glass towers almost blend into the sky. At other times, windows appear so pristinely clear that they are imperceptible to birds, who might try to fly though them. During the day, trees and greenery reflected on shiny building facades can trick birds, whereas at night, brightly lit buildings can confuse and bewilder them...

Pictured: A green roof on the Javits Convention Center serves as a sanctuary for birds.

The changes that could save avian lives

About a decade ago, Piselli’s firm worked on a half-billion-dollar renovation of New York’s Jacob K Javits Convention Center, a gleaming glass-clad space frame structure that was killing 4,000-5,000 birds a year. “The building was this black Death Star in the urban landscape,” Piselli said.

To make it more bird friendly, FXCollaborative (which was then called FXFowle) reduced the amount of glass and replaced the rest of it with fritted glass, which has a ceramic pattern baked into it. Tiny, textured dots on the glass are barely perceptible to people – but birds can see them. The fritted glass can also help reduce heat from the sun, keeping the building cooler and lowering air conditioning costs. “This became kind of the poster child for bird-friendly design in the last decade,” Piselli said.

The renovation also included a green roof, monitored by the NYC Audubon. The roof now serves as a sanctuary for several species of birds, including a colony of herring gulls. Living roofs have since become popular in New York and other major cities, in an inversion of the decades-long practice of fortifying buildings with anti-bird spikes. In the Netherlands, the facade of the World Wildlife Fund headquarters, a futuristic structure that looks like an undulating blob of mercury, contains nest boxes and spaces for birds and bats to live.

The use of fritted glass has also become more common as a way to save the birds and energy.

Earlier this year, Azadeh Omidfar Sawyer, an assistant professor in building technology in the Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture, working with student researchers, used open-source software to help designers create bespoke, bird-friendly glass patterns. A book of 50 patterns that Sawyer published recently includes intricate geometric lattices and abstract arrays of lines and blobs. “Any architect can pick up this book and choose a pattern they like, or they can customize it,” she said.

Pictured: The fritted glass used in Studio Gang’s expansion of Kresge College at the University of California, Santa Cruz, depicts the animals in the local ecosystem.

Builders have also been experimenting with UV-printed patterns, which are invisible to humans but perceptible to most birds. At night, conservationists and architects are encouraging buildings turn off lights, especially during migration season, when the bright glow of a city skyline can disorient birds.

And architects are increasingly integrating screens or grates that provide shade as well as visibility for birds. The 52-floor New York Times building, for example, uses fritted glass clad with ceramic rods. The spacing between the rods increases toward the top of the building, to give the impression that the building is dissolving into the sky.

Gang’s work has incorporated structures that can also serve as blinds for birders, or perches from which to observe nature. A theater she designed in Glencoe, Illinois, for example, is surrounded by a walking path made of a wood lattice, where visitors can feel like they’re up in the canopy of trees.

Pictured: The Writers Theatre, designed by Studio Gang, includes a walking path encased in wood lattice.

Rejecting the idea of the iridescent, entirely mirrored-glass building, “where you can’t tell the difference between the habitat and the sky”, Gang aims for the opposite. “I always tried to make the buildings more visible with light and shadow and geometry, to have more of a solid presence,” she said.

Gang has been experimenting with adding bird feeders around her own home in an effort to reduce collisions with windows, and she encourages other homeowners to do the same.

“I’ve found that birds slow down and stop at feeders instead of trying to fly through the glass,” she said.

While high-rise buildings and massive urban projects receive the most attention, homes and low-rise buildings account for most bird collision deaths. “The huge challenge is that glass is everywhere.” said Christine Sheppard, who directs the glass collisions program at the American Bird Conservancy (ABC). “It’s hard to know what I know and not cringe when I look at it.”

Tips for improving your own home include using stained glass or patterned decals that can help birds see a window, she said. ABC has compiled a list of window treatments and materials, ranked by how bird-safe they are.

Whether they’re large or small, the challenge of designing buildings that are safe for birds can be “liberating”, said Gang, who has become an avid birdwatcher and now carries a pair of binoculars on her morning jogs. “It gives you another dimension to try to imagine.”"

-via The Guardian, December 27, 2023

[doghart]

i’m catching up on tsv, i think something that eskew prod does extremely well is using horror absurdism to capture the absurd horror of capitalism. it’s clear in eskew too, but i think it’s especially fantastic in the silt verses. the casualness with which sacrifice is discussed. how red lobster has a god that has and continues to take human sacrifice, and so do cereal companies, cops, and the grueling start up that has a “fun room”. it captures EXTREMELY well how it feels to live under capitalism, that you’re constantly bombarded with horrible things, discussed cheerily in a nice tone. the way it’s simultaneously numbing, hysterical, and horrifying. i think i was especially fond of how in ep 39, protest against sacrifice was taken as radical, a propostorus, idealistic thing that’s just so SILLY it’s not even worth considering, something that feels very real to revolutionary organizing/protest irl. i also liked how despite the face, when everything gets down to it, when everything is about profit, all people come down to are bodies. all capitalism is a gaping maw, and it eats the poor and marginalized first, but doesn’t STOP eating just there. the very literalized version of this, where the profit wheel (and all that includes— war mongering, the prison industrial complex, wage labor, etc) is given a very real literal set of teeth, but the body count is the same. so the electric company has a god, and so it takes humans sacrifice. do real electric companies not have a very real human cost? overworked and underpaid labors looking to make rent, or well off comfortable employees no less likely to get the axe under profit margins, or the blood shed when colonizing in the first place, in clearing the space for the electric company to move in. is that not also a very real human sacrifice? the commercial aimed at elderly people talking about “back in my day, we would just talk about all this human sacrifice and find a compromise :)” is so bleakly hysterical, but is that not very accurate? that you can put a good face on it, but in the end what it comes down to is that you’re being sold the chance to be human fodder? that there is no glory or honor on a battlefield or in working yourself to death, just mud and shit and bodies to throw at problems. idk! i’m rambling but it’s a deeply engaging podcast.

[novelistparty]

ratios are neat. what's a ratio that you like? I'll go first: heat capacity, which is energy / degrees Celsius. If a building has a high heat capacity, it means it takes a lot of energy to increase its temperature. A building with a high heat capacity will be cooler indoors when the outside temperature is high. It's a neat ratio because it tells us why the shitty 5-over-1 buildings in Seattle are like ovens in the summer. They are constructed of less expensive materials that have lower heat capacity, and originally intended for there to be air-conditioning in each unit, but since it is "temperate" Seattle they removed all A/C vents or ports to further lower construction costs, thus passing on the financial burden of existing in an ever-warming world directly to individuals. (materials with higher heat capacity are generally heavier and thicker and thus more expensive)

[probablyasocialecologist]

Building at great height requires a massive amount more material than a typical high-rise. The upper storeys of super- and megatall buildings – which often include hundreds of metres of unoccupiable ‘vanity’ height – are buffeted by ferocious wind loads, with any sway at all introducing enormous destabilising forces into the structure below. They are home to hefty services that raise water, coolant, people and air to great heights, and these heights must be offset by deep underground foundations. ‘If you’ve ever seen any Revit models [of London high-rises, there is pretty much as much concrete in those foundations as there is above ground,’ says Natasha Watson, an engineer at Buro Happold who leads the firm’s efforts to measure and reduce embodied carbon in its projects. Even in areas  with firmer ground than London, Watson explains, the awe-inspiring physics of skyscrapers has a huge material cost.

In an industry that is chronically lacking in transparency around its ecological, social and labour impact, it is difficult to find good data on the carbon footprint of skyscrapers. But the assessments that are available bear out the physics. Watson and her colleagues’ modelling shows that the efficiency of structural material usage, by floor area, drops above just three storeys. According to a 2015 study commissioned by the CTBUH, the whole life emissions of both energy use and materials for a 120m concrete and steel structure are nearly five times higher than those of its 60m equivalent. Who knows what the cost becomes at 600m? 

It is not yet possible to avoid this cost by using less ecologically destructive materials. Although some 100m-tall timber buildings are beginning to appear, they are nowhere near the 600m ‘megatall’ mark. According to Watson, finding a sufficient volume and quality of reused steel and concrete structural components for such a large, high-performance building would also likely be challenging.

Even at city level, the huge carbon cost of skyscrapers fails to outweigh any potential benefits that they might achieve from restraining urban sprawl. A study in npj Urban Sustainability in 2021 showed that the most carbon-efficient way for cities to grow is by developing densely built low-rise environments. The carbon cost of taller buildings is greater than carbon savings from restricted land use. This means that high-density low-rise cities such as Paris are more carbon-efficient than high-density high-rise cities such as New York. 

[solarpunkbusiness]

Sustainable bamboo collaboration with Indigenous Orang Asli in Malaysia for design and innovation

“We have ambitious goals this year, but we want to consolidate over 4,000 hectares of forestry assets and create two Bamboo Villages,” explains Loo. Each bamboo forestry asset, or a bamboo village unit, will span 2,000 hectares and create a regenerative economy for the 210 Orang Asli families in the area. This includes sustainable economic activities such as planting, harvesting and selling bamboo.

One village’s monthly yield alone provides enough raw bamboo to pull 100,000 metric tonnes of CO2 from the air annually. This year, Sead plans to establish bamboo villages in Kampung Kepayang and Sungai Siput where bamboo grows around the villages. The bamboo is harvested by trained Orang Asli villagers, and Sead purchases it to be applied in building projects, and for other uses.

Sead will soon launch processing plants where Malaysian communities can participate in converting bamboo into versatile mass timber. Countries leading the world’s decarbonisation targets urgently need sustainable alternatives to scarce timber to achieve their net zero goals.

For Loo, Sead’s broader vision is straightforward: demonstrate that strong communities and sustainable materials can develop harmoniously. He believes that this vision has the potential to soar—just like bamboo.

[ikilledamanforthisurl]

really fun parallels between Minami & Nishida in which one guy who wants most of the fights he gets into generally has a bit of a dodgy win/lose ratio, meanwhile the other who has only ever welcomed one single fight in his life is the more violently competent

[happigreens]

Hopefully soon I will have a very small house built (>700sqft). But i worry i wont have it built to my values inspite of my limited budget, including using sustainable and energy efficient building materials and features.

This article is a bit reassuring of my options if I can afford them, at least a long way down the road.

[cognitivejustice]

Transforming raw materials from the soil into architecture. This is a challenge that many Latin American architects embrace, demonstrating that scarcity can be daunting but also a rich opportunity to unleash creativity.

The use of materials extracted from the local soil serves a dual purpose. In regions with limited industrialization, using locally sourced materials makes economic sense because industrial materials such as concrete and steel are expensive and often require long-distance transportation, adding to their cost.

Environmentally, choosing locally sourced materials from the start of a project reduces transportation needs and carbon emissions, supporting sustainability efforts.

[aworldofpattern]

Forever Knits by Romance Was Born, Australian AW24

'Welcoming winter with our beautifully crafted, sustainable and socially beneficial knitted jumpers.

These have been made by KOCO Knits (Knit One Change One). They teach women in South Indian communities to hand knit, providing education and financial independence to them and their families.

Each jumper is made from 100% dead-stock yarns collected over time, that are then hand tied together to make a unique multicolour pattern... a random mix of wool, mohair, silk and cotton.

There is no machine intervention in the process, meaning no waste and no carbon footprint. Each one is a unique piece made to be with you forever, and made in a way to help our planet live forever.'

[dreamings-free]

so on Monday..

NME 29/4/24 The owners of Manchester’s Co-Op Live are planning to build “the greatest arena in the world” in London.

US entrepreneur Tim Leiweke, the CEO of sports and live entertainment development company Oak View Group – who is behind the Co-Op Live – has outlined plans for a new music venue in the capital. -> full article on nme.com

lol good point

then Wednesday, two days later..

NME 1/5/24 Manchester’s new arena Co-Op Live was forced to cancel a performance by rapper A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie last minute due to a “venue-related technical issue”.

The venue announced just 10 minutes after doors had opened that the show could no longer go ahead due to technical problems. “We kindly ask fans to leave the area. Ticket holders will receive further information in due course,” they said.

-> full article on nme.com

later that same day..

NME 1/5/24 The gigs were postponed following a technical issue that caused A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie's show tonight to be pulled just 10 minutes after doors

[excerpt] A spokesperson for the venue told Manchester Evening News that the technical issue was caused by part of an air conditioning unit falling from the gantry inside the venue during soundcheck. Nobody was injured.

-> full article on nme.com

well, at least there's this new development.. (to make themselves look better :)

NME 1/5/24 The venue initially declined the levy, which would go towards supporting and developing the UK's grassroots venues.

Manchester’s Co-Op Live has agreed to meet with the Music Venue Trust to discuss a £1 ticket levy.

According to the BBC, Mark Davyd (CEO of the Music Venue Trust) said he was to meet with the Co-Op Live once the venue was up and running. The meeting comes amongst the furore with Co-Op Live’s executive director Gary Roden, who suggested some grassroots venues were “poorly run” whilst discussing the case for a £1 ticket levy to preserve them.

-> full article on nme.com

tbc I feel...

[monstersqueen]

anyway

the smitten explains that she won't free herself even if she can slip her chains because she needs us to 'present her with freedom'

whether she drags our corpse or eat us the beast can't live without us accepting it

if she kills us and survive one way or another, she will be there the time after because she can't leave without us. (fun fact but the smitten is right about everything :p)

interesting that the initial explanation of the narrator is not 'if you free her she'll end the world' but 'if you fail [to slay her], it'll be the end of the world'. it's not dependant on her getting out it's dependant on us killing her. somehow this gets turned into 'she'll end the world if she gets free', which is different on 1) it's an action she'll take rather than something that'll just happen and 2) the inciting point is her being free instead of us not killing her.

That's really not an unimportant distinction !

[reasonsforhope]

"While tourists visiting Mexican beaches complain about piles of smelly seaweed, one Mexican gardener reckoned it was something like a gift.

The governments in places like Cancun have been required to clear away as much as 40,000 tons of sargassum seaweed, which smells like rotten eggs, but Omar de Jesús Vazquez Sánchez is steering it away from the landfills and into a kiln, where he makes adobe-like blocks that pass regulation as a building material.

He started SargaBlock to market the bricks, which are being highlighted by the UN Development Program as a stroke of brilliance, and a sustainable solution to a current environmental problem.

His story begins back in 2015 when, like any experienced laborer, he found rich people were stuck with a job they didn’t want to do. In this case, it was cleaning up the sargassum on the beaches of the Riviera Maya.

Omar grew up in poverty, immigrated to the US as a child to become a day laborer, and eventually dropped out of school and became a substance abuser. The American dream never appealed to him as much as a “Mexican dream”—a mix of memories from his childhood and dreams of being a gardener back home, so he moved back.

His time feeling unwanted as an addict and immigrant gave him a unique perspective on the smelly seaweed.

“When you have problems with drugs or alcohol, you’re viewed as a problem for society. No one wants anything to do with you. They look away,” Omar told Christian Science Monitor in a translated interview.

“When sargassum started arriving, it created a similar reaction. Everyone was complaining, I wanted to mold something good out of something everyone saw as bad.”

The ecology and environment offices of Quintana Roo, the legislative area that includes the city of Cancun, approved the SargaBlocks for use, and similar organic-based blocks have been reckoned as being capable of enduring 120 years.

The UN Development Program selected Omar’s work to be featured in their Accelerator Lab global broadcast to alert the world of its value and ingenuity.

There are all kinds of naturally-occurring pollutants or burdens that could be used in construction, and the UNDP hoped that by sharing Omar’s vision of the future of the Caribbean’s sargassum problem, it would inspire others to act in similar ways.

Bricks and cement can be great sources to use up naturally-occurring material that’s dangerous or burdensome—like this Filippino community using the ash from volcanic eruptions to make bricks.

Omar has been fortunate enough to be able to donate 14 “Casas Angelitas,” or homes made of SargaBlock, to families in need, and seems to be exceedingly close to achieving his “Mexican dream.”"

-via Good News Network, 4/24/23

[thoughtlessarse]

Hempcrete is a bio-based building material helping to power the drive to net-zero, but how can a product developed a millennia ago help tackle today's environmental challenges? Euronews Culture gets down and dirty with a material that has Europe’s eco-conscious architects high with excitement. It really doesn’t look like much, but hempcrete is the green building material that’s got eco-savvy homeowners and architects excited by its potential to be a sustainable alternative to environmentally expensive bricks and concrete. It is made using a carefully calibrated mixture of hemp shiv – the dried inner core of the hemp plant – mixed with lime and water. But although hempcrete seems like a very modern building material, it has a history stretching back over 1,500 years. Hemp plaster from the sixth century still lines the walls of the UNESCO-designated Ellora Caves in India, and hemp mortar has been discovered in ancient Merovingian bridge abutments in France – which is fitting, as France was at the forefront of the 1980s drive to modernise hempcrete and introduce it to a new generation. [...] Impeccable environmental credentials Despite the challenges, hempcrete’s undeniable environmental credentials have meant it was a case of when, rather than if, it would muscle its way into the mainstream building trade. Liam Donohoe, chief operating officer at UK Hempcrete – a Derbyshire-based company designing and supplying materials to building projects using hempcrete – tells Euronews Culture that sustainability plays a part in every area of the product’s development. “Hemp, unlike conventional crops, doesn’t require a lot of fertilisers or pesticides to protect it as it grows. The type of fibrous hemp usually used in construction is a tall plant that grows quickly and so can be cropped and planted quite close together, naturally suppressing weeds," he says. “I’m not saying it takes no energy to produce hempcrete, it does. But when you compare it to man-made insulation and wall infills, it has an unlimited life span and the primary ingredient is a renewable crop that costs a lot less energy and carbon to produce.”

read complete article

[realcleverscience]

Pretty cool. It may be a bit more of a niche application, but I could see a lot of use for this.