Tag: architecture

AI Construction

Construction.

It is one of the largest markets in the world and looks ripe for disruption from advancing information technology and machine learning. Consider:

  • Only 3% of a construction site is active.
  • Construction productivity has declined for 30 years in many markets.
  • Large construction projects are 80% over budget and 20 months late
  • $10t spent per year and growing as a % of global GDP.

Until ALICE, a key component missing within the construction technology was the agility to create alternate execution plans quickly, which is arguably the most essential piece to improving project success factors

Car-free NYC

The huge subsidy of free parking in NYC needs to stop. article is nicely visual to make the point how the city could look like instead.

2021-11-12: Curbed as a very nice breakdown of various topics like garbage, delivery, safety etc.

we tried to imagine what a comprehensive transformation would produce on a generic Manhattan block, to the extent that one exists. We chose Third Avenue between East 33rd and 34th Streets because of its concentration of terriblenesses and virtues. It is congested, dense, torn up, noisy, and lively. Lined by towers and tenements, plied by trucks and fed by tunnels, it’s a short walk from offices, hospitals, and trains. Yet we also embraced its frenzy. Our goal was not to impose the serenity of a provincial Dutch city or to streamline the block into anodyne efficiency. New York without friction wouldn’t be New York.

COVID-19 & Architecture

The pedestrian streets were overdue, a counter to the dominance of cars. “It’s a ridiculous situation that so much of urban space is given up to the stupid boxes standing around most of the time.” The upheaval makes it easier to imagine dramatic changes. “When you have a momentary lapsing of the status quo, it allows everyone to see that something’s possible.”

Urban Air Mobility

MVRDV is developing a plan for the future of Urban Air Mobility (UAM). The investigation tackles the integration of “flying vehicles” into our urban environments and envisions a comprehensive mobility concept. Addressing major questions like “How will these flying vehicles impact our urban environments? And how could they be leveraged to improve our cities?” MVRDV and Airbus are exploring the possibility of reconnecting territories through an accessible-for-all system. Avoiding the negative impact that comes with the introduction of new transportation modes into cities, the study imagines both short-term and long-term scenarios, in order to dodge any detrimental impacts from this disruptive technology.

Napoleon’s Rome

There were plans for the emperor and the King of Rome to visit the city and they wanted to welcome them into a modern imperial capital with wide boulevards, green spaces and grand buildings. Prominent Roman architects like Giuseppe Valadier and Giuseppe Camporese and French ones like Louis-Martin Berthault and Guy de Gisors were commissioned to design urban renewal projects — parks, bridges, new monuments, securing the banks of the Tiber to prevent flooding — and just outside of the city, new cemeteries to comply with Napoleon’s 1804 edict prohibiting burials within city walls