Now active in over 30 countries around the world, French startup Iconem is working to preserve global architectural and urban heritage one photograph at a time. Leveraging complex modeling algorithms, drone technology, cloud computing, and, increasingly, artificial intelligence (AI), the firm has documented major sites like Palmyra and Leptis Magna, producing digital versions of at-risk sites at

A partnership between the state-owned Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE), the London-based architecture and technology firm PLP Labs (the research spinoff of PLP Architecture), and LogistikCentrum have released a new study and report proposing a new direction for public transit. Called NuMo, for New Urban Mobility, the proposed technology allows for highly efficient, electric-powered home-to-destination

“What if you could download and print a house for half the cost?” reads the lede for the Vulcan II, a 3D printer with a name suited for sci-fi space exploration, on the website of Austin-based company ICON. Now the company has put this claim to the test, building what it says is the first

A seemingly simple, six-story apartment complex is going up in Zurich, Switzerland, and is putting to the test a number of new technologies that showcase a more sustainable approach to new construction. The project, Hohlstrasse 100, is designed by Dietrich Schwarz Architekten and is rising next to an existing, two-story commercial space that’s also being renovated

Toronto is known for many great things. Its weather isn’t one of them. For the city’s architecture the question is: how can public, urban space be usable and comfortable throughout the year? The architecture collective PARTISANS thinks it might have an answer. Referencing the “maze of awnings…and glass arcades” that defined Toronto streets in the

Located in Lyons, Oregon, Freres Lumber has been in business for nearly a century. After starting out producing standard lumber projects, the company moved into wood veneers some 60 years ago and in 1998 purchased a plywood plant. Now, it’s made another step: getting U.S. and Canadian patents on its mass plywood panel (MPP), the

This past year was a big one for Morpholio, whose app Trace was named an Apple “App of the Day” and a top app in education, design, and drawing. Now, with iOS 12’s updated augmented reality (AR) functionality, the company is pushing the iPad’s architectural sketching abilities further, and closer to (almost) real space. The app

London’s Fitzrovia neighborhood is a bit of an architectural collage. There are 18th- and 19th-century brick homes interspersed with 20th-century concrete housing blocks and, at its far east end, John Nash’s All Souls Church. The London firm Bureau de Change was asked to create a building sandwiched between two of the many simple brick buildings

ETH Zürich’s high-tech showhome opened its doors this past week. The three-story DFAB HOUSE has been built on the NEST modular building platform, an Empa– and Eawag–led site of cutting-edge research and experimentation in architecture, engineering, and construction located in Dübendorf, Switzerland. The 2,150-square-foot house, a collaboration with university researchers and industry leaders, is designed

There have been a number of projects to digitize culture as of late. More and more museums are putting their collections online, and there are, of course, the many projects of Google Arts & Culture, including the company’s recent experiments 3-D printing historic sites. Now, all of the United Kingdom‘s publicly-owned sculptures that have been made

The soon-to-be-built Robot Science Museum in Seoul, South Korea, will be a robotics exhibition itself. The museum, to be designed by Turkish firm Melike Altınışık Architects (MAA), will be built by robots when construction begins next year. In this way, the construction of the building itself will be the museum’s “first exhibition,” according to principal

“The way we cool our buildings right now is totally wrong,” said Indian architect Monish Siripurapu in a video produced the United Nations’ Environment program. The words are bleak, but arguably true; the electricity and hydrofluorocarbons  most modern cooling systems demand ironically warm the planet overall while they cool our conditioned spaces. On top of that, with global temperatures

Bacteria often evoke a destructive image, with connotations of decay and illness. But like all living communities, as much as they consume, they also create (or, perhaps more accurately, excrete). And it’s this creative power that London-based architectural researcher Bastian Beyer is harnessing in his “Column Project.” With designer Daniel Suarez, Beyer has created solid, structural forms from

  3-D printing in architecture is growing—literally. Once limited to models and small pieces, the technology has recently been adapted to large-scale projects, like the world’s largest 3-D-printed concrete bridge in Shanghai, a stainless steel bridge in the Netherlands, and walls for U.S. military barracks. An Austin-based company has even begun selling plans for 3-D-printed

This past fall, artist Lee Simmons unveiled a massive 50-foot intervention in London’s Marylebone neighborhood, completed over a four-year collaboration with Bath, U.K.–based Format Engineers. Titled Quadrilinear, the project is an assemblage of five layers of laser-cut steel that climb four stories through a private clinic designed by ESA Architects. Simmons worked with the architects,

Global construction continues to steam ahead, even while seemingly mundane building materials (like sand) become rarer and more precious, and construction industry’s carbon dioxide emissions contribute to global climate change. The building industry seems to be demanding new solutions, but scalable alternatives remain scarce. Enter the Block Research Group at ETH Zurich. The group, which is

As a new generation of freshly minted architects, engineers, and construction professionals enter the field, one company is trying to get ahead of the curve with a social network for people who “shape our cities.” Named Ticco, after the nearly 10,000-year-old Norwegian tree Old Tjikko, the social network is designed for Gen Z and Millennial AEC

Buzz around robotics in architecture has been steadily building for some time now, though it’s only in the last few years that the technology has seen much real-world action. However, robotic construction technology is seemingly one step closer to the commercial market as Australian company FBR has unveiled plans to bring its robotic bricklaying arm,

Bendable concrete is one step closer to hitting the market. Bendable concrete or Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) were originally developed in the 1990s by Victor C. Li at the University of Michigan, whose research was in part inspired by how animals like abalone produce the inner nacre of their shells. However, cost, supply chain concerns,

Smart cities, such as that planned by Sidewalk Labs in Toronto, are coming under increasing fire for their potential misuse of data gathered from their residents. Now, technology company Radio Physics Solutions (RPS) is working with Seattle-based Vulcan Inc. to install and demonstrate a scanning system across a public plaza capable of detecting concealed weapons from nearly

Move over Minecraft—a new video game is letting aspiring gallery designers build their own art worlds. In the massively multiplayer online (MMO) game Occupy White Walls (OWW), players can build their own galleries, raise in-game cash by ticketing other players for entry, and expand their art collection using an algorithm that learns what type of art the player enjoys. OWW’s developers

Although Pittsburgh unsuccessfully bid for Amazon HQ2 (perhaps more of a blessing than a curse), the city recently broke ground on an ambitious 195-acre development adjacent to the Pittsburgh International Airport dubbed the “Innovation Campus.” While the proximity of the Innovation Campus to the airport and a spaghetti junction of interstate highways provides a wealth of logistical

Virtual reality is often an individual experience, with one user shaping and traversing a preprogrammed digital realm. But what if complete strangers could gather together within the virtual realm to construct an architectural edifice? Project Correl is an experiment by the Zaha Hadid Virtual Reality Group(ZHVR) in what it describes as “multi-presence virtual reality,” where users can

The ongoing threat of climate change and hazardous air quality in urban environments continue to foster sustainable elements within architectural design, ranging from the installation of photovoltaic panels to rainwater harvesting mechanisms. But what if a facade curtain could directly capture CO2? Responding to this challenge, London-based practice ecoLogicStudio, led by Claudio Pasquero and Marco Poletto, unveiled Photo.Synth.Etica at Dublin’s Climate Innovation Summit 2018. The large-scale

Since the problem was originally identified in 2016, San Francisco’s Millennium Tower has been slowly but surely sinking and tilting westward towards the adjacent Mission Street. While Handel Architects, DeSimone Consulting Engineers, and the developer Millennium Partners contend that the execution and design of the project were sound, with the current structural issues stemming from the construction of the similarly defective Transbay

Concrete is a ubiquitous building material, applied to the bulk of contemporary construction projects. While the sedimentary aggregate is commonly used due to its impressive compressive strength, it remains a brittle material subject to damage or failure during extreme environmental events such as earthquakes. In response to this inherent weakness, a team of researchers based out

Not content with monopolizing the home sharing market, Airbnb will soon start designing and selling their own affordable houses. Yesterday, Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia announced that the tech company would begin recruiting architects, engineers, industrial designers, roboticists, and more to join their housing prototype initiative Backyard. More than just a design exercise, Airbnb is looking to create sustainable,

In Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest city, a consortium of architects, engineers, and manufacturers are advancing the capabilities of concrete construction formwork and advanced design. This effort culminated in a recently unveiled 19-ton prototype dubbed Experiment R. The project, led by the Aarhus School of Architecture, Odico Formwork Robotics, Aarhus Tech, concrete manufacturer Hi-Con, and Søren Jensen Consulting Engineers, tackles the waste associated with

Smart City Expo World Congress, held this year in Barcelona, is an annual architectural, engineering, and technology exhibition dedicated to creating a better future for cities worldwide through social collaboration and urban innovation. Among the projects that were unveiled at this November’s event was CityIQ’s proposal to install 4,200 sensor nodes throughout San Diego, California, a major tech