The concept of 3D printed houses is nothing new. But as a result of a Freeform Home Design Challenge hosted by a Tennessee-based startup Branch Technology, Curve Appeal, the world’s first Freeform 3D printed house might soon be coming to a suburb near you.

Designed by the competition’s winner – WATG’s Chicago-based Urban Architecture Studio that includes Daniel Caven, Chris Hurst, Miguel Alvarez and Brent Watanabe, this 800-square-foot single-family home will be built in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

According to Branch Technology Founder, Platt Boyd, “Curve Appeal is a very thoughtful approach to the design of our first house. It responds well to the site conditions, magnifies the possibilities of cellular fabrication and pushes the envelope of what is possible while still utilizing more economical methods for conventional building systems integration.”

The design of the house consists of two main components: an interior core and exterior skin. The open and light filled interior living spaces protect occupants from the elements via passive strategies while connecting them to the exterior spaces and nature itself. The exterior skin is derived from simple yet careful calculated archways that ultimately blends with the site leaving an organic presence.

Imagine a city where you can freely roam the streets without the fear of getting hit by a car?

In Barcelona, they seem to have found the solution with Superblocks. Superblocks (superilles in Catalan), a concept developed by Salvador Rueda, director of the Urban Ecology Agency of Barcelona.

What is a Superblock?

According to Rueda, a Superblock is defined by a grid of nine blocks where the main mobility happens on the roads around the outside the Superblock, and the roads within the Superblock are for local transit only. The one-way system inside the Superblock makes it impossible to cut through to the other side of the Superblock. That gives neighbours access to their garages and parking spaces but keeps the Superblock clear of through traffic.

Pretty cool, right?

The superblocks aim to address the following purposes:

• More sustainable mobility
• Revitalization of public spaces
• Promotion of biodiversity and urban green
• Promotion of urban social fabric and social cohesion
• Promoting self-sufficiency in the use of resources
• Integration of governance processes

Superblock might just be the key to reclaim public space that people lost over the last century. Hopefully we can make it happen in Australia too.

 

Imagine if you could grow food with 97% less water and no chemicals?

That’s exactly what Local Roots Farms, a California based company is doing. They have created TerraFarms that can turn any produce into local produce, anywhere.  The TerraFarms are even safer than outdoor operations. By controlling the environment Local Roots, eliminate the plants’ exposure to harmful chemicals, harmful bacteria and other pathogens.

Traditional farming and TerraFarming are almost the same. They use the exact same seeds, exact same minerals and nutrients, and exact same light wavelengths to activate photosynthesis. The main differences are that the light is provided by LED lights instead of the sun and they have removed soil so that plants can directly access dissolved nutrients in the water (what they use anyways!)

In contrast to conventional farms, evaporation and soil seepage do not remove water from the TerraFarms. As the water runs through the farm, any water that’s not taken up by plant roots is recaptured, re-filtered, and recirculated into the system.

What do you reckon? Would you eat food grown by a TerraFarm?

Researchers from the University of British Columbia, under the leadership of Professor Nemkumar Banthia, developed a brand-new type of concrete, which can be sprayed onto walls, and will successfully protect buildings from being damaged in the event of even major quakes. This is possible thanks to a fibre-reinforced design which allows the concrete to bend, rather than fracture when it is violently shaken.

Known as eco-friendly ductile cementitious composite (EDCC), the concrete contains polymer-based fibres. These give it a strong-yet-malleable quality not unlike steel, which tends to flex under pressure instead of crumbling like traditional concrete.

“By replacing nearly 70 percent of cement with flyash, an industrial byproduct, we can reduce the amount of cement used,” said Banthia.  “This is quite an urgent requirement as one tonne of cement production releases almost a tonne of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and the cement industry produces close to seven percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.”

“This UBC-developed technology has far-reaching impact and could save the lives of not only British Columbians but citizens throughout the world,” said Advanced Education, Skills and Training Minister Melanie Mark. “The earthquake-resistant concrete is a great example of how applied research at our public universities is developing the next generation of agents of change. The innovation and entrepreneurship being advanced at all of our post-secondary institutions is leading to cutting-edge technologies and helping to create a dynamic, modern B.C. economy that benefits all of us.”

The research was funded by the UBC-hosted Canada-India Research Centre of Excellence IC-IMPACTS, which promotes research collaboration between Canada and India. IC-IMPACTS will make EDCC available to retrofit a school in Roorkee in Uttarakhand, a highly seismic area in northern India.

The Great Green Wall is an African-led project with an epic ambition: to grow an 8,000km natural wonder of the world across the entire width of Africa. Its goal is to provide food, jobs and a future for the millions of people who live in a region on the frontline of climate change.

A fantastical and almost impossible-sounding initiative, it was first conceived in 2005 by the former President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, as a way to create an ecological barrier against the expanding Sahara desert – ultimately, to contain it. It has since evolved into a more ambitious pan-African movement, which aims to provide food, agriculture jobs and security for millions of people across the region. The partner countries are Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Chad, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, The Gambia and Tunisia. The “wall” will cross these countries and it will be grown from the ground up, from trees and vegetation that will help to offset carbon dioxide emissions and restore land degradation.

The project will be supported by the World Bank, the African Union, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the UK Royal Botanical Gardens, which have together pledged $3 billion in addition to technical expertise.

A key partner in the initiative, the Head of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), Monique Barbut, says, ‘The Great Green Wall is a symbol of hope not just for Africa, but for the whole world. It shows us that, by working with rather than against our natural environment, we can grow solutions to humanity’s greatest challenges, like climate change and migration.’

Once completed, this colossal feat of human endeavour will be the largest living structure on the planet – three times the length of the Great Barrier Reef.

We could not possibly imagine a world without dams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, aquaculture, and navigability.  Here are five of the world’s oldest dams which are still in use today.

Kallanai Dam (Grand Anicut)

The Kallanai Dam was built during the second century AD by Karikalan, a king of southern India’s old Chola Dynasty and is also one of the oldest irrigation systems in the world that is still in use. The purpose of the dam was to divert the waters of the Kaveri across the fertile Thanjavur delta region for irrigation via canals.

Sayama-ike Dam

The Sayama-ike Dam was constructed about 1,400 years ago by the order of the Emperor of the time, who said, “There is a shortage of water in Sayama area, which is likely to pose an obstacle to farming. Dig more ponds to promote agricultural development”. This event is recorded in the oldest history book in Japan. The Sayamaike Dam, which is the oldest artificial reservoir in Japan, and whose irrigation system has been used for a very long time, has been rehabilitated and modernized repeatedly since its operation. It is still in use as an agricultural water system.

Proserpina Dam, Spain

The Proserpina Dam is a Roman gravity dam in Badajoz (province), Extremadura, Spain, dating to the 1st or 2nd century AD. It was built as part of the infrastructure which supplied the city of Emerita Augusta with water.  After the fall of the Roman Empire, the aqueduct leading to the city fell into decay, but the earth dam with retaining wall is still in use.

Lake Homs Dam, Syria

The Lake Homs Dam, also known as Quatinah Barrage, is a Roman-built dam near the city of Homs, Syria, which is in use to this day. Contrary to an older hypothesis which tentatively linked the origins of the dam to Egyptian ruler Sethi (1319–1304 BC), the structure dates to 284 AD when it was built by the Roman emperor Diocletian (284–305 AD) for irrigation purposes. With a capacity of 90 million m³, it is considered the largest Roman reservoir in the Near East and may have even been the largest artificial reservoir constructed up to that time. Remarkably, the reservoir has suffered very little silting since. With a capacity of 90 million m³, it is considered the largest Roman reservoir in the Near East and may have even been the largest artificial reservoir constructed up to that time. Remarkably, the reservoir has suffered very little silting since.

Sadd-e Kobar Dam, Iran

The Sadd-e Kobar Dam on the Kobar River in a 10th-century dam in Iran Built of limestone and clay. It’s a gravity dam that holds back the water entirely by its own weight. It provides protection against floods and supplies water for irrigation purpose.

Most people are familiar with concrete but not with shotcrete. Shotcrete is a method of spraying a wet mix of concrete onto a frame of steel reinforcement. This reinforcement can be steel rods, steel fibres, or a steel mesh depending on the design detail. A high-pressure hose is guided over the structure to form an even layer and then shaped to the desired form.

Shotcrete, was originally called “Gunite” when Carl Akeley designed a doubled chambered cement gun in 1910. His apparatus pneumatically applied a sand-cement mixture at a high velocity to the intended surface. Other trademarks were soon developed known as Guncrete, Pneucrete, Blastcrete, Blocrete, Jetcrete etc. all referring to pneumatically applied concrete. Today Gunite equates to dry-mix process shotcrete while the term “shotcrete” usually describes the wet-mix shotcrete process. At point of application, both are typically referred to as shotcrete.

In 1920, this innovative process first spread to Europe, India and South Africa before finding its way to the American west coast and South America, despite the geographical proximity. This may be the explanation for the term “gunite” (Spanish: “gunita”), stemming from this earlier period, still being used a lot in Spain, whereas South American countries prefer the term “sprayed concrete” (Spanish: “hormigón/concreto proyectado/lanzado”), as well as “shotcrete” stemming from a later period of development.

Shotcrete can be applied by two distinct application techniques, the dry-mix process and the wet-mix process.

1. Dry-mix shotcrete – The cementitious material and aggregate are thoroughly mixed and either bagged in a dry condition or mixed and delivered directly to the gun. The mixture is normally fed to a pneumatically operated gun which delivers a continuous flow of material through the delivery hose to the nozzle. The interior of the nozzle is fitted with a water ring which uniformly injects water into the mixture as it is being discharged from the nozzle and propelled against the receiving surface.
2. Wet-mix shotcrete – The cementitious material, aggregate, water, and admixtures are thoroughly mixed as would be done for conventional concrete. The mixed material is fed to the delivery equipment, such as a concrete pump, which propels the mixture through the delivery hose by positive displacement or by compressed air. Additional air is added at the nozzle to increase the nozzle discharge velocity.

Have you ever wondered how the humble but ever enduring concrete came about? In this post, we find out its history.

Early Use of Concrete

The first concrete-like structures were built by the Nabataea traders or Bedouins who occupied and controlled a series of oases and developed a small empire in the regions of southern Syria and northern Jordan in around 6500 BC. They later discovered the advantages of hydraulic lime — that is, cement that hardens underwater — and by 700 BC, they were building kilns to supply mortar for the construction of rubble-wall houses, concrete floors, and underground waterproof cisterns. The cisterns were kept secret and were one of the reasons the Nabataea were able to thrive in the desert. By about 5600 BC along the Danube River in the area of the former country of Yugoslavia, homes were built using a type of concrete for floors.

Egypt

Around 3000 BC, the ancient Egyptians used mud mixed with straw to form bricks. Mud with straw is more similar to adobe than concrete. However, they also used gypsum and lime mortars in building the pyramids, although most of us think of mortar and concrete as two different materials. The Great Pyramid at Giza required about 500,000 tons of mortar, which was used as a bedding material for the casing stones that formed the visible surface of the finished pyramid.

China

About this same time, the northern Chinese used a form of cement in boat-building and in building the Great Wall. Spectrometer testing has confirmed that a key ingredient in the mortar used in the Great Wall and other ancient Chinese structures was glutenous, sticky rice. Some of these structures have withstood the test of time and have resisted even modern efforts at demolition.

Rome

By 600 BC, the Greeks had discovered a natural pozzolan material that developed hydraulic properties when mixed with lime, but the Greeks were nowhere near as prolific in building with concrete as the Romans. By 200 BC, the Romans were building very successfully using concrete, but it wasn’t like the concrete we use today. It was not a plastic, flowing material poured into forms, but more like cemented rubble. The Romans built most of their structures by stacking stones of different sizes and hand-filling the spaces between the stones with mortar. The Colosseum was completed 1,937 years ago, and it stands today as one of the enduring symbols of the Roman Empire—and more literally as a testament to the endurance of Roman concrete.

The Pantheon

Built by Rome’s Emperor Hadrian and completed in 125 AD, the Pantheon has the largest un-reinforced concrete dome ever built. The dome is 142 feet in diameter and has a 27-foot hole, called an oculus, at its peak, which is 142 feet above the floor. It was built in place, probably by starting above the outside walls and building up increasingly thin layers while working toward the centre.

Middle Ages

After the Roman Empire, the use of burned lime and pozzolana was greatly reduced until the technique was all but forgotten between 500 and the 14th century. From the 14th century to the mid-18th century, the use of cement gradually returned. The Canal du Midi was built using concrete in 1670.

Industrial era

It wasn’t until 1793 that the technology took a big leap forward when John Smeaton discovered a more modern method for producing hydraulic lime for cement. He used limestone containing clay that was fired until it turned into clinker, which was then ground it into powder. He used this material in the historic rebuilding of the Eddystone Lighthouse in Cornwall, England.

Finally, in 1824, an Englishman named Joseph Aspdin invented Portland cement by burning finely ground chalk and clay in a kiln until the carbon dioxide was removed. It was named “Portland” cement because it resembled the high-quality building stones found in Portland, England. It’s widely believed that Aspdin was the first to heat alumina and silica materials to the point of vitrification, resulting in fusion. During vitrification, materials become glass-like. Aspdin refined his method by carefully proportioning limestone and clay, pulverizing them, and then burning the mixture into clinker, which was then ground into finished cement.

Australia.

We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil;
Our home is girt by sea;
Our land abounds in nature’s gifts
Of beauty rich and rare;

We are a beautiful and diverse country, no doubt about that.  And we have some of the world’s most magnificent engineering wonders to match that. Here are six of them.

 

Sydney Opera House

When people think of Australia, chances are they are envisioning the Sydney Opera House. With its unique shell-like roof structure, it is one of the 20th century’s most famous and distinctive buildings.  The facility features a modern expressionist design, with a series of large precast concrete “shells”, each composed of sections of a sphere of 75.2 metres (246 ft 8.6 in) radius, forming the roofs of the structure, set on a monumental podium. The building covers 1.8 hectares of land and is 183 m  long and 120 m wide at its widest point. It is supported on 588 concrete piers sunk as much as 25 m below sea level.

 

Sydney Harbour Bridge

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is one of Australia’s most well known and photographed landmarks. It is the world’s largest (but not the longest) steel arch bridge with the top of the bridge standing 134 metres above the harbour. It is fondly known by the locals as the ‘Coathanger’ because of its arch-based design.

 

Snowy Mountains Scheme

The Snowy Mountains Scheme is the largest public works engineering scheme ever undertaken in Australia. The scheme is nationally significant for its engineering success and as a symbol of Australian achievement. The Snowy Mountains Scheme was placed on the National Heritage List on 14 October 2016.

 

Kalgoorlie Super Pit

The Super Pit, was Australia’s largest open cut gold mine until 2016 when it was surpassed by the Newmont Boddington gold mine also in Western Australia. The Super Pit is located off the Goldfields Highway on the south-east edge of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. The pit is oblong in shape and is approximately 3.5 kilometres long, 1.5 kilometres wide and 570 metres deep. At these dimensions, it is large enough to be seen from space.

Adelaide to Darwin Railway

The Adelaide–Darwin railway is a south-north transcontinental railway in between the cities of Adelaide, South Australia and Darwin, Northern Territory. Between 2000-2004 the line was extended from Alice Springs to Darwin as a Build, Own, Operate and Transfer back (BOOT) project by the AustralAsia Rail Corporation. This replaced the former narrow gauge line from Darwin to Larrimah and the narrow gauge/standard gauge Central Australia Railway from Port Augusta to Alice Springs which used a different route up to 200 km to the east. The railway has withstood many uniquely territorian disasters – floods and cyclones washing trains off the tracks, fast-growing tropical vegetation blocking the line and numerous accidents with road trains.
But despite all those setbacks the line has endured through the decade.

Collins-class Submarine

The Collins class takes its name from Australian Vice Admiral John Augustine Collins; all six submarines are named after significant Royal Australian Navy (RAN) personnel who distinguished themselves in action during World War II.  The Collins Class project was established in 1982 to provide six new Australian built submarines for the RAN. The Collins Class submarines are the second largest non-nuclear powered submarines in the world. Regarded as the best large conventional diesel-powered submarine in the world, the Collins Class are packed with high level technological and performance capability.

Green building (also known as green construction or sustainable building) refers to both a structure and the application of processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building’s life-cycle: from planning to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation, and demolition. This requires close cooperation of the contractor, the architects, the engineers, and the client at all project stages. The Green Building practice expands and complements the classical building design concerns of economy, utility, durability, and comfort.

Here are ten of the world’s greenest buildings.

Apple Park, Silicon Valley USA

The Apple Park campus will house 13,000 Apple employees, the equivalent of 35 fully-filled Boeing 747s. In keeping with Apple’s environmental credentials, it will be an impressively green building, with a focus on sustainability. It also boasts a $75 million gym for employees, and a carefully engineered design intended to create serendipitous interactions between Apple employees.

 

Shanghai Tower, Shanghai China

The mixed-use skyscraper is one of the greenest commercial towers in the world today. The design of the tower’s glass facade, which completes a 120° twist as it rises, is intended to reduce wind loads on the building by 24 percent while one-third of its interior is public green space. The building is also powered by wind turbines and is built with a high percentage of recycled materials.

 

Council House 2, Melbourne Australia

Council House 2 (CH2) was Australia’s first building to be awarded a six-star green star design rating. Since its completion in 2006, CH2 has changed the landscape of its local area and inspired developers and designers across Australia and the world.

 

One Angel Square, Manchester, UK

An office building located in Manchester, One Angel Square achieved the highest recorded BREEAM score for a large building, making it one of the most sustainable large buildings in the world. The building has a used water recycling system and rainwater harvesting as well as passive solar building design. One Angel Square’s sustainable cogeneration heat and power plant also uses bio-fuel and waste cooking oil.

 

Manitoba Hydro Place, Winnipeg, Canada

Located in Winnipeg, Manitoba Hydro Place makes use of “passive design and natural ventilation” to make it one of North America’s most energy-efficient office buildings. The building has a geothermal system to heat and cool the building, roof gardens and triple-glazed windows. Thanks to these features, over 60 percent of energy savings have been made.

 

Bahrain World Trade Centre, Bahrain

A 240-metre-high, 50-floor, twin tower complex, Bahrain’s World Trade Centre’s most prominent green feature are the three skybridges which each hold a 225kW wind turbine, totalling to 675 kW of wind power capacity. The wind turbines are expected to provide 11 percent to 15 percent of the towers’ total power consumption, the equivalent of providing the lighting for about 300 homes. They are expected to operate 50 percent of the time on an average day.

 

One Bryant Park, New York City, USA

Bryant Park was the first high-rise building to be given LEED Platinum certification, with the Bank of America Tower, in Manhattan, being one of the world’s greenest skyscrapers. As well as having CO2 monitors, waterless urinals and LED lighting, the building also has its own generation plant that produces 4.6 megawatts of clean, sustainable energy.

 

Qatar National Convention Centre, Doha, Qatar

The Centre was built according to US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) Gold certification standards. This takes a holistic building approach to sustainability and covers design, construction and operations. The design of the building makes the maximum use of natural light through the intelligent design of its skylights. This, together with superior insulation, reduces energy use. QNCC is designed to be approximately 32 percent more efficient compared to a similarly designed building and is fitted with over 3,500m² of solar panels providing 12.5% of the Centre’s energy needs. In 2015, QNCC was honoured to win the Best Conserving Building Award 2015 in the Hospitality sector at the Qatar Tarsheed Awards.

 

The Change Initiative Building, Dubai, UAE

The Change Initiative Building is a 4,000-square-metre shop that provides sustainable solutions in Dubai. The building has 26 technologies including solar panels and heat-reflective paint on its roof that provides 40 per cent of the building’s energy requirements. TCI’s outer structure has insulation three times more than that of a normal building while most of the materials used for the building’s interiors are recycled.

 

 Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE

Located at Masdar City, the institute has been behind the engineering plans of the City and is at the centre of research and development activities. The institute’s building, developed in cooperation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, uses 51 percent less electricity and 54 percent less potable water than traditional buildings in the UAE and is fitted with a metering system that constantly observes power consumption.