2016 Smart Fabrics Summit Videos
May 26th, 2017
Watch videos from the 2016 Smart Fabrics Summit on the website of the International Trade Administration Office of Textiles and Apparel. Part 1- Opening Remarks; Globe Demonstration; Challenges in Manufacturing Smart Fabrics Panel Part 2- First Line Technology Demonstration; Federal Research and Development in Smart Fabrics Panel; Part 3- DuPont Demonstration; Intellectual Property Rights for […]
Bucky Fuller’s Biosphere celebrates 50 years
May 1st, 2017
Constructed as the epitome of the future and the central featured pavilion at Montreal’s Expo 67, R. Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome is now 50 years old. Known as the Biosphere, the structure was the hit of the 1967 World’s Fair. Enclosed with trapezoidal acrylic inserts in the metal open-lattice structure and backed by a system […]
Danes plant a knitted round tower in a Portugal square
May 1st, 2017
Practicing architects and students at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (RDAF) Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation created an experimental structure to highlight a World Cultural Heritage Site in Guimaraes, Portugal. Hybrid Tower is made of glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) rods in combination with a custom CNC-knit textile. The concept structure is […]
What a web they weave—Uni Stutt’s robots string carbon & glass fibers overhead
May 1st, 2017
Researchers and students are finding inspiration in the webs that moths spin. The collaborators are from the University of Stuttgart’s Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE). The researchers and student have applied their efforts toward stretching the possibilities in digital construction with the aid of robotics and […]
U.K. journal pays tribute to Zaha Hadid
May 1st, 2017
British architecture magazine, The Architect’s Journal, has produced a 27-minute video to commemorate the work of Zaha Hadid, the iconoclastic Iraqi-born architect who died in early 2016. The video captures the breadth and width of Hadid’s work, from her first drawings and paintings produced while she was a student at England’s premiere training ground, the […]
Catching water in a colorful way
May 1st, 2017
Fabric funnels create an award-winning shade-water pavilion in New Orleans Students at the Tulane School of Architecture (TSA), New Orleans, La., have created the distinctive Hollygrove Shade-Water Pavilion that fulfills both aesthetic and practical requirements. The project, created through the Albert and Tina Small Center for Collaborative Design (SCCD), provides a neighborhood gathering place while […]
Fabric houses explored as future sustainable options
May 1st, 2017
Fabric homes could well have a place in future urban settings. To explore this possibility, one such dwelling, the Breathe House, has been created as a prototype for a future living environment called “MINI Living–Breathe.” Created by Brooklyn, N.Y., architects SO-IL, the prototype was created as a sustainable response to ever-shrinking homes and limited resources […]
Airbeam festive tent
May 1st, 2017
As the old joke goes: How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice! Or you can get there by creating an air-supported tent designed for Carnegie Hall’s roof, as Pvilion and its collaborative partners recently did to much acclaim. This inflatable event space incorporates a technology originally developed for military applications, that of high-pressure fabric […]
New Zealand day care gets a new shade canopy
May 1st, 2017
The tradition of childcare facilities in New Zealand goes back a fair number of years, in fact to the 1880s. In Auckland, there are a number of childcare operations that, although not from the 19th century, do claim a history dated to the early 1950s. Case in point is the Torbay Kindergarten, a branch facility […]