An estimated market value of USD 1 trillion in 2022 and expected to jump to a whopping USD 8.4 trillion by 2032, millions of travelers are losing interest in resort tourism and favor smaller, eco-friendly establishments.
Even though cities cover only 3 percent of the earth's surface, they host more than half of its population and produce about three-quarters of global carbon emissions. Here are 5 cities implementing Unique Climate Solutions.
A sustainable hospital is also known as a “green hospital”. The concept grew considerably in the last decades in healthcare to counter the conundrum of public health vs. the environment.
Few human-made construction materials stand the test of time as the good-old, humble brick does. Historians believe bricks are the oldest-known construction materials. Archaeologists uncovered bricks dating back to 7,000 BC in some ancient settlements in present-day Southern Turkey. The ancient craft of brick-making continued during the Middle Ages in Europe, and peaked during the Industrial Revolution in the […]
Over the last decades, sustainability has become one of the most defining forces across all industries, and architecture is no exception. A growing number of architectural firms and practitioners aspire for their buildings to be as green as possible. To do so, they utilize new digital technologies, innovations, and materials — and also tap into their own […]
“Expressive, unapologetic, and ahead of her time in ecological and participative design” are the words that The Architectural Review uses to describe Minneta De Silva — widely considered the first female architect in Sri Lanka and one of the most important figures in South Asian modernist architecture. Minneta De Silva was born in 1918 in Kandy, Sri Lanka, thirty years […]
Smart cities are among our best bets for a livable and prosperous future. By leveraging technology to solve problems, smart cities can improve the quality of life for residents, promote sustainability, increase efficiency, enable better decision-making, create new opportunities, and foster economic growth. Hence, it’s no surprise that smart cities have rapidly spread worldwide. In […]
The greatest injustice of climate change is the fact that those who are most vulnerable to it are the people who contributed the least — such as the indigenous communities around the world. On the other hand, these communities also have the wisdom, experience, and the technologies to construct buildings in a way to minimize the notoriously high environmental impact of […]
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing,” said George Bernard Shaw, the celebrated Irish playwright who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925. Playing is human; likewise, games have been a fundamental tool for human evolution. Throughout history, they helped us to learn, create social bonds, release stress, and […]
The need to secure one’s physical surroundings from risks such as theft, burglary, vandalism, fire incidences, or any other potentially unwanted events or emergencies is one of the universal human needs. Hence, the global physical security market is constantly innovating and adding improved products, and recording stable growth. In 2022, it was valued at USD 117 billion and is […]
When Natalie de Blois (1924-2013) completed her professional degree in architecture at Columbia University in 1944, only a handful of women had a substantial career in architecture in the United States. Starting her career in architecture’s so-called “Mad Men Era“, it comes as no surprise that she was once let go of a job as […]
The concept of an office originates in the 5th-century monasteries, where monks lived to copy, translate, and preserve religious texts. The workspaces in these monasteries were very simple writing rooms, known as “scriptorium” in Latin, which included a table. Chairs weren’t even in the picture until Renaissance. The word “office” comes from a building called the […]
As a material, concrete has been the backbone of the modern construction industry thanks to its versatile and durable nature. It’d be hard to imagine the 20th century without concrete. However, there’s also a rising awareness about concrete’s significant adverse environmental impacts: Cement is the source of about eight percent of global carbon emissions. The construction and demolition of […]
Popular culture doesn’t always portray bats in a favorable light. In many of the stories we consume about bats, they’re spooky and scary animals commonly spotted in the horror genre. When bats populate a scene, it’s usually bad news for the characters. Most recently, the world’s only flying mammal species have been in the limelight […]