Jim Hallock, from Colorado Earth, led two Compressed Earth Block Workshops at the Materials Lab on Thursday, March 28th. Compressed Earth Blocks (CEBs) are unfired earth masonry units made from inorganic subsoil, clay, and aggregate, formed into blocks through compression with a mechanical press and joined with standard bricklaying techniques. Stabilizers such as cement or lime are sometimes added to increase strength and water resistance.
Students gathered in the Materials Lab to learn about Rockwool, a sustainable form of stone wool insulation made by spinning minerals from molten rock and recycled metal slag. The result is a durable material that resembles cotton-candy and can be further processed into blanket or board products. The material can be recycled multiple times, though currently closed-loop recycling is only available in Europe.
On Friday, March 8, the Center for American Architecture and Design will host Allan Shearer as part of the Friday Lunch Forum series.
The aim of the series is for faculty, staff, and students to meet in an informal atmosphere to debate topics and to share ideas about history, practice, theory, and new directions for architecture. Recordings of each forum will be posted as they become available.
Architecture is not neutral; it either hurts or heals. Architecture has the power to project its values far beyond the building’s walls and into the lives, the consciousness, of communities and people. To acknowledge that architecture has this kind of agency and power is to acknowledge that buildings, and the industry that erects them, are as accountable for social injustices as they are critical levers to improving the lives of the people who use them.
Description
The Materials Lab hosted Dmitri Julius and Jason Ford, Director of Sales and Operations and the VP of Software Engineering, of ICON Build for a Lunch 'n Learn presentation. "ICON is an Austin-based construction technologies company dedicated to revolutionizing homebuilding and making dignified housing the standard for people throughout the world.
Joan Busquets is an architect, urban planner and chair professor of Urban Planning and Design at the GSD, Harvard University since 2002. Before he was professor at School of Architecture in Barcelona UPC - ETSAB. Founderof LUB Barcelona’s Urban Laboratory). He served as Head of Urban Planning for the Barcelona City Council during the formative years, from 1983 to 1989, and in the preparations for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, including the New Downtowns for the City program and the improvement process for existing neighbourhoods.
On Friday, February 22, the Center for American Architecture and Design will host Martin Haettasch as part of the Friday Lunch Forum series for a discussion entitled "A Home is not a House".
Roughly every other Friday during the fall and spring semesters, the Center hosts the Friday Lunch Forum Series. The aim of the series is for faculty, staff, and students to meet in an informal atmosphere to debate topics and to share ideas about history, practice, theory, and new directions for architecture. Recordings of each forum will be posted as they become available.
Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock will reflect about how Berlin became a laboratory, a venue for all kinds of creative experimentation and political discourses, a city where art and short-term action happens to test, inspire, and build momentum, where public art activities create overlays and transform the urban environment.