Floods are among the most common and destructive natural disasters. They affected more than 2 billion people worldwide between 1987 and 2017, according to the World Health Organization. As floods keep increasing in frequency and intensity due to climate change, flood-proof architecture is becoming an issue of growing importance.
Buildings and construction are responsible for 39 percent of the carbon emissions in the world. Operational emissions, meaning the energy required to heat, cool, or light a building, account for 28 percent of overall emissions.
Over the last decades, natural disasters have been growing in strength and frequency as a result of climate change. The number of weather-related disasters has tripled over the previous 30 years. Furthermore, among the 20,000 earthquakes that shake the world every year, about 16 are in the magnitude of seven or higher.
Around a billion people worldwide live in slums, informal settlements typically populated by the urban poor. These residents represent a third of the global urban population and drive over 90 percent of its growth. By 2030, there'll be two billion slum dwellers, residing primarily in Asian and African countries.
While buildings fulfill the most basic human needs like shelter and security, architecture impacts the emotional state of any person who interacts with it. Whether it's intended or not, a building can provoke a range of emotions such as belonging, awe, fear, or hope.
"I don't believe architecture has to speak too much. It should remain silent and let nature in the guise of sunlight and wind," said celebrated Japanese architect Tadao Ando. The four following architectural projects in sensitive habitats align precisely with Tadao Ando's vision. They show that a different world is possible, in terms of both architecture and habitat conservation.
Cutting carbon emissions and pollution is only one side of sustainability - although they tend to get the most attention. Sustainability is really about development and growth in an eco-friendly and socially equitable manner. Thanks to smart technologies from the fourth industrial revolution - or Industry 4.0 - sectors like construction and manufacturing can now truly enter a sustainable era.
From the Arabian peninsula to the Southern United States, more than a billion people live in desert regions and experience extreme temperatures. These desert communities see very little rainfall, and regular dust storms.
Thousands of university campuses have been remaining eerily empty following the COVID-19 outbreak. However, with or without a pandemic, summers tend to be the least hectic time of the year for university campuses around the world.
Buildings are to blame, in part, for today's staggering rates of global warming. As they constitute a whopping 39 percent of the worldwide carbon emissions, it's not possible to stop the catastrophic temperature rise without making buildings greener. Luckily, the proliferation of net-zero energy construction is doing exactly that, turning this environmental liability into an opportunity.
Building Information Modeling (BIM), which has been evolving for the last five decades, won many praises for how much it cuts costs and time in the process of construction. However, in addition to more efficient projects, BIM can step in to save the most crucial resource of any industry: Human lives and health.
Cities gave birth to civilization as we know it, according to many historians and archeologists. Since the first cities in Mesopotamia came to be thousands of years ago, the growth of global urbanization has been unstoppable. By 2050, more than two-thirds of the world's population will reside in cities, a jump from today's 55 percent.