Construction

Connected city streets mean healthier residents and communities Authors Chris Barrington-Leigh Associate professor, Health and Social Policy and the School of Environment, McGill University Adam Millard-Ball Associate professor, Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, cities around the world are rediscovering the value of walkable and bikeable streets. From Oakland, Calif., to Amman, Jordan, cities have restricted driving on certain streets in order to create space for socially distanced physical activity. Other cities, like Bogotá and Berlin, have scrambled to convert car and parking lanes into bike lanes in response to the precipitous drop...

Mental blocks: how better design of acute mental health units could aid recovery Authors Gabrielle Jenkin Director Suicide and Mental Health Research Group University of Otago Wellington, University of Otago Elizabeth Kathleen Morton Student researcher in mental health and neuroscience, King's College London Jacqueline McIntosh Senior Lecturer in Architecture, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington It is a niche kind of membership that lets you in behind the doors of an acute mental health facility. Unless you work there or are admitted as an inpatient, these publicly funded private spaces that house people at their most vulnerable are really...

Three reasons concrete doesn’t live up to its environmental claims Author Alice Moncaster Senior Lecturer in Engineering, The Open University Up to 8% of all global anthropogenic human-made emissions are due to just one material, cement. And our use of it is rising. The cement and concrete industry is encouraging this use, for example, by claiming that using concrete will reduce the “whole life” carbon emissions from buildings. The absence of regulations to measure this has allowed such claims to play an important role in persuading designers and specifiers to use certain products. However, research conducted by my colleagues and...

Road to nowhere: why the suburban cul-de-sac is an urban planning dead end Author Timothy Welch Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning, University of Auckland The cul-de-sac is a suburban trap. It’s virtually useless as a road, doesn’t support public transport, cycling or walking, and doesn’t work well as a play or gathering place. Its literal translation from the French is “bottom of a sack” – which sounds a lot less glamorous, you’ll agree. And yet we persist with them. The calls for more housing that resonate across many urban societies almost always include plans to repurpose broad swathes of agricultural land...

House under the hill in Nashtarood, Iran by mrk office / Mohammad Reza Kohzadi Project name: House under the hill Architecture firm: mrk office Location: Nashtarud, Tonekabon County, Mazandaran Province, Iran Tools used: AutoCAD, Rhinoceros 3D, SketchUp, Lumion, Adobe Photoshop Principal architect: Mohammad Reza Kohzadi Design team: Mohammad Reza Kohzadi, Mohammad Aghajani Collaborators: Visualization: Built area: 327 m² Site area: 5304 m² Design year: Completion year: 2021 Client: Private Status: Under Construction Typology: Residential › House mrk office: In this project, due to the special position of the site in terms of topography and surrounding landscape, it has been tried...