Dive into the archives.
- Geoengineering After the Tipping Point
[Eruption of Mount Pinatubo pumped large quantities of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, effectively changing the climate]
The increasing speed that climate change is impacting our globe, coupled with slow transformations of lifestyle and policy to radically reduce GHG emissions, have prompted many climate change scientists to (re)consider Geoengineering, A.K.A planetary climate-engineering, to rapidly cool the [...]
- Particulate Swarms
[Radar image of Sydney during the dust storm of September 2009 - its largest in 70 years.]
Editors Note: File under Glacier / Island / Storm, a studio run by BLDGBLOG at Columbia University GSAPP. Storm edition.
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"It is time / It is time for / It is time for stormy weather" – The Pixies
Storms deal in [...]
- Student Works: Thermarium
Processing Water Overflow
The Thermarium envisions a new beach typology for the Toronto Waterfront. Responding to the lack of swimming at Toronto’s new urban beaches and consistent CSO (combined sewage overflow) closures at surrounding swim areas, we offer new possibilities for water immersion and activity that are enabled, rather than prohibited, by the polluted run-off instigated [...]
- The Spectatorium, 1893
[Steele MacKaye's Spectatorium was intended to re-create the landing of Christopher Columbus, complete with mini-ocean, waves, and an island.]
With seating for 10,000, an eight foot deep concrete tank under the entire stage complete with wave machine and wind machines, railroad ties to aid in the shifting of three dimensional scenery behind a "light curtain," the [...]
- -arium: Weather + Architecture
[Arium: Weather + Architecture]
Is Weather the last vestige of nature in the City?
Do the forces in Weather systems hold the key to the energy crisis?
Is instability and disorder something that can be designed?
Is Weather the nemesis of Architecture or its best friend?
Is Weather becoming the last form of cultural specificity?
Does it all come down to [...]
- Vortex streets
[Alternating eddies of vortex street.]
[The Canary Islands as an eddy-creating obstacle via GSFC/NASA.]
Vortex streets emerge when the right wind and cloud formation encounters the right kind of obstacle. Theodore von Kármán, a fluid dynamicist, observed and documented this phenomenon. Swirling rings sequence along a street-like corridor trail beyond the obstacle. Each ring stems from an [...]
- Student Works: Smart-Ark
[10 living, breathing, sweating towers form a line of defense in a fragile estuary. All images by Nicholas Szczepaniak.]
Acting as a defense barrier, these 10 massive towers form a line in the Blackwater Estuary in Essex, UK. They are the vision of Nicholas Szczepaniak, a recent graduate of Westminster, and the winner of the RIBA [...]
- Reservoir Effect
[Great Lakes region: Lake effect snow operates in alternating bands of rising warm air and clear bands of falling cold air. Taken December 5, 2000 image using NASA's SeaWiFS satellite.]
In a recent drive back from Syracuse to Toronto, I was struck by the inevitable presence of snow in Buffalo. No snow before Buffalo, or [...]
