TED talk on building with clay and ...community

Once again, a very inspiring TED talk, now by Diébédo Francis Kéré, who was educated as an architect and looked for a way that his community in Burkina Faso could benefit from his education.

Building with bamboo

Simon Velez, Colombian architect, Marcelo Villegas, engineer, Oscar Hidalgo, architect, they all discovered the opportunities of bamboo as a building material.
As Simon Velez says in the video below: 'We should combine mineral materials, such as concrete, with vegetal materials, such as bamboo. We are too much carnivorous architects and should be more vegetarian architects."

Simon Velez and Marcelo Villegas also concentrate on other materials such as straw bales, poured earth and on simplified structures.

Other examples of bamboo construction can be found at Chiangmai Life Construction.

Sustainable by design 2050

Sustainable by design 2050 is an initiative of the International Union of Architects. It is a website that serves as online exhibition and database for sustainable architecture. It aims at increasing the awareness and knowledge among architects on sustainable design strategies.
Apart from information about innovative sustainable architectural projects all over the world, you also find some 50 short films on responsable architecture.

Architecture for Humanity

For all designers, professional or still student, contribute to building a more sustainable future by sharing your design through Architecture for Humanity.
Cameron Sinclair, the founder of Architecture for Humanity, gave an inspiring TED talk on open source architecture, his way to contribute to a better world.

Bio-inspired building designs

One of the most beautiful and intriguing buildings I saw at the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai was the British pavilion, called the Seed Cathedral. Unfortunately it was closed the day I visited the expo.
Only now, after watching the TED talk of Thomas Heatherwick on 'Building the Seed Cathedral', I learnt to know that it was a bio-inspired building, capturing hundreds of seeds.

Some other very nice examples of bio-inspired design can be found in his TED talk (do not quit the talk on his rather funny first work he is showing at the beginning of his talk, because the most interesting examples come more at the end).

A building made of water: sensing and actuating architecture

As architect Carlo Ratti tells in his TED talk on 'Architecture that senses and responds' the physical world turned into a digital one during the last decade, but now the digital world is turning again into the physical one, as the omnipresent digital data can be used to create our physical environment. Many examples can be found on the website of his MIT SENSEable City Lab and in the TED talk.

Digital Water Pavilion, Zaragoza (source: Inhabitat)

One of the most beautiful examples of sensing and actuating architecture is the Digital Water Pavilion, built in Zaragoza. It really is a building made of water. How it works is shown in the TED talk. Wonderful to see how it even can disappear!

Architectural membrane with aerogel

Birdair, a company specialized in tensile architecture, developed an insulated translucent membrane roofing system (Tensotherm) with a material based on aerogel to be used in architectural membranes. The aerogel is applied between two layers of glass fibers/PTFE. The material is very light and can be used as thermal and acoustical insulation. One of the advantages is also that it is translucent and therefore can reduce the energy consumption for artifical lighting.

Biomimicry in architecture

A TED talk by Michael Pawylyn on biomimicry in architecture: using nature's genius in architecture
Michael Pawlyn: Using nature's genius in architecture Video on TED.com

Interview with architect Steven Holl

Inhabitat interviewed architect Steven Holl on the importance of sustainability in his architectural design.

Interview with architect and C2C author William McDonough

Inhabitat did an interview with the green architect and founder and co-author of Cradle to cradle William McDonough on his approach to sustainable design.

A portable multi-purpose dwelling

The Yeta Log cabin designed by Lab Zero is a portable multi-purpose dwelling that can be set in any location where a shelter is needed.