Category: Construction

Little boxes, little boxes

10 June, 2009 (10:33) | Africa, Configuration, Construction, Embryo house, Innovations, Research, Self-built Housing | No comments

If we want to make housing affordable, shouldn’t we be looking at inexpensive construction materials?  That’s the premise of a short Climate Progress article, Shipping containers provide affordable housing, from the Center for American Progress’s “It’s Easy Being Green” series.
 
There’s an emerging and innovative solution to the environmental, economic, and housing concerns we face around [...]

The risk of complicated structures

2 September, 2008 (10:30) | Architecture, Configuration, Construction, Engineering, Humor, Maintenance | No comments

A while back, I posted in Dreamers versus Plumbers about the comprehensive failure of the climate-control system at Harvard’s Otto Hall.  The building is being demolished only seventeen years after its completion, because the ultra-sophisticated humidity-management system was too space-age for its own good. 
 

“Missed it by that much.”
 
As I wrote in that post:
 
Architects should [...]