sustainable Archives

Taking a Look at Non-extractive Architecture

Posted on December 11, 2023December 20, 2023 by Hunter

In our journey towards a more sustainable future, architecture plays a pivotal role. At Optima®, we’re constantly exploring and embracing innovative practices that not only enhance our living spaces but also protect our planet. Among these forward-thinking approaches, non-extractive architecture stands out as a beacon of sustainable development.

So, what exactly is non-extractive architecture? It’s an approach that minimizes the environmental impact of buildings by using recycled, reclaimed, or repurposed materials. This method significantly reduces the demand for new resource extraction. While sustainable architecture is a broad term encompassing various practices, non-extractive architecture uniquely focuses on material sourcing and lifecycle.

Unlike biophilic design, which integrates natural elements to enhance human well-being, or green building, which emphasizes overall environmental responsibility, non-extractive architecture specifically targets the reduction of raw material use. It’s a crucial step towards reducing our carbon footprint and fostering a more circular economy in construction.

Recent examples of non-extractive materials include the K-Briq Construction Waste Bricks, a low-carbon alternative that is made of 90% recycled materials, Hybrit Steel, the world’s first fossil-free steel, which has the potential to reduce Sweden’s carbon emission by more than 10%, and Biotic, material research of biologically grown textiles made from resources like bacterial cellulose and dyed using natural plant and fruit waste.

Globally, several projects embody the spirit of non-extractive architecture. The Bullitt Center in Seattle, with its self-sufficient and long-lifespan design, sets a high standard. The building is home to a rainwater-to-potable water system and composting toilet system, and when developing the project, builders ensured that over 360 toxic chemicals typically used in their building materials were absent from the project.

Optima’s signature vertical landscaping system at Optima Kierland Apartments

At Optima, we embrace non-extractive architecture through xeriscaping in the use of our vertical landscaping system, which features self-containing drainage and helps reduce the waste of water while contributing to a sustainable urban environment.

The world of architecture is evolving, and non-extractive design is at the forefront of this change. Our commitment to sustainable practices is unwavering, and we invite you, our community, to join us in this exciting and necessary shift towards a more sustainable world.

Conceptualizing the Future of Furniture

Posted on December 21, 2022 by Hunter

During the spring semester of 2022, the Department of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducted Course 4.041 — Advanced Product Design. The focus of the course was to “develop concepts of sustainability for a more ecologically-responsible and digitally-enabled future.” According to the course syllabus, students would be asked to “reinterpret and conceive of new typologies, redefining what ‘furniture’ means from the ground-up.” Today, we’re spotlighting just a handful of their future facing designs.

To make the course even more interesting, MIT teamed up with Emeco, an iconic American furniture company to provide students with access to Emeco’s manufacturing technology as they conceptualized sustainable furniture. The students’ design solutions have been dubbed The Next 150-year Chair, based on Emeco’s 1006 Navy chair developed in 1944, which, according to the manufacturer, has a “150-year lifespan.”

Associate Professor Skylar Tibbits explained that “Today, a 150-year chair means making something that lasts a long time, which is a great thing to do. But the question is whether that will be the same for the next 150 years – should the goal still be to make things that last forever? That’s one approach, but maybe there’s something that could be infinitely recyclable instead or something that’s modular and reconfigurable.”

La Junta designed by María Risueño Dominguez

Over the spring term, five students explored their unique approaches to answering the question. Their results featured a number of complete furniture pieces and components that were exhibited at Emeco House, the company’s converted 1940s sewing shop, in Venice, CA in late November.

María Risueño Dominguez developed a furniture component based on longevity. Her research on furniture consumption and interviews with people involved in the furniture industry resulted in a concept called La Junta – a cast-aluminum joint with multiple different inserts shaped to fit a variety of components.

Amelia Lee developed a product designed to last through different stages of childhood. It is made from a single sheet of recycled HDPE. Modeled on a rocking chair, the piece can be turned on its side to function as a table.

Zain Karsan set out to improve metal 3D printing technology for the frames of his chairs, focusing on a technique for dispensing molten material at high-speed to explore new ways to think about form and joining parts.

Faith Jones designed the ReWoven Chair, with an aluminum frame and a recycled (and replaceable) cotton sling, as an exploration into how to maintain comfort and sustainability.

Jo Pierre’s interest in maintaining comfort within dense physical settings resulted in a chair called Enhanced Privacy — a plastic partition designed for domestic spaces that includes a hanging sheet of plastic that can be filled with water to block sound and diffuse light.

As both a design process and a collaboration between academia and industry, The Next 150-year Chair Project established a refreshing model for how we might conceptualize the future of furniture while pushing the boundaries of sustainable design and novel materials.

How Denmark is Leading the Movement in Sustainable Architecture

Posted on December 14, 2022 by Hunter

As champions of leading-edge, thoughtfully-designed spaces built to inspire communities, we enjoy sharing the visionary work of others who continue to impact the world’s landscape. One of the world’s leading cities aiming to set a powerful example of how architecture can help enrich the lives of those around it is Copenhagen, Denmark. Let’s take a look at how the Scandinavian country is leading the movement in sustainable architecture.

The Danish capital is embracing the title it received just a year ago as the world’s most sustainable city by championing various sustainable practices. Soon to host the UIA World Congress of Architects, Copenhagen’s latest builds feature a mixture of unprecedented eco-conscious and climate-resilient designs.

One of the city’s most famous sustainable builds is the CopenHill power plant, said to be the “cleanest-waste-to-energy power plant in the world” and the winner of the European Commission’s Green Building Award in 2012. The unique build is combined with a recreational facility, allowing visitors to ski and sled down its artificial slope throughout the year.

COBE, Karen Blixens Plads, 2019, Copenhagen, Denmark, Courtesy of Rasmus Hjortshøj

Many of the city’s other leading designs stem from its appreciation for cycling. Since 2005, Copenhagen has spent more than $16 million on cycling infrastructure, including the Karen Blixens Plads, a public plaza that holds parking for more than 2,000 bikes, and Lille Langebro, a cycling bridge that easily opens to admit boats.

Copenhagen’s love and appreciation for sustainable design is something the country has held for decades, stemming from pioneering architects like Jan Gehl, who promoted humanist architecture in the 1970s. Today, the city relies on local architects and designers to build on its rich history of eco-friendly design.

At Optima, we continue to explore the best possible ways to create harmony between the built and natural environments to allow our residents to enjoy a healthier, more sustainable environment. From our signature vertical landscaping systems and ample green spaces to the inclusion of induction cooktops, we look to embrace sustainable design in every aspect of our residents’ lives.

With new forms of sustainable design created across the world daily, we can’t wait to continue exploring the ways innovative architecture can contribute to a healthier, more sustainable home for all.

Gjenge Makers: Transforming Tradition and Community

Posted on November 23, 2022February 26, 2024 by Hunter

Sustainable design is a valuable part of our ethos at Optima as we strive to create vibrant communities built with the surrounding natural environment at the forefront. Now more than ever before, changemakers across the world are expanding the possibilities for what sustainable designs resemble. Today, we’re spotlighting a leader in sustainable design and affordable construction: Gjenge Makers and its founder, Nzambi Matee.

In 2017, Nzambi Matee, then an engineer working for Kenya’s oil industry, threw everything she knew away to create a startup aimed to address the need for affordable and sustainable construction materials in her home country of Kenya and across the world. Her first thought immediately went to plastic, a material creating pollution problems across Eastern African countries like Kenya, where Matee has resided her whole life.

Thanks to her academic background, including a major in material science, along with experience working as an engineer, Matee understood which plastics would easily bind together and built the needed machinery, allowing her to mass produce the building alternative. Today, Gjenge collects waste materials from local factories and other recyclers and then uses a mixture of plastic and sand to form durable bricks and tiles.

The designs aren’t just sustainable and durable. Matee and the Gjenge team wanted the finished products to emulate a sense of beauty, and today, bricks come in an array of colors, including red, blue, brown and green. Since its founding, Gjenge has transformed more than 22 tons of plastic into various alternative building materials and created more than 100 jobs for local garbage collectors, women and youth.

We can’t wait to continue exploring the ways innovative architecture can contribute to a healthier, more sustainable world, especially with changemakers like Matee impacting the lives of others daily.

5 Innovative Materials Changing the Future of Architecture

Posted on March 23, 2022 by Hunter

As technology continues to advance, changemakers and visionaries are discovering ways to push the boundaries of sustainable design in architecture. Today, we’re spotlighting five of the most innovative materials currently in development that are setting the stage for the future of architecture and design.

Green Charcoal Loofah Bricks

Engineered at the Indian School of Design and Innovation in Mumbai, the Green Charcoal Loofah Brick is another revolutionary twist on traditional brick material. Soil, cement, charcoal and organic loofah fibers – the plant commonly used in sponges – make up the lightweight, biodegradable product.

Similar to the cavernous gaps that are found in loofahs, the bricks’ fibrous network allows it to double as a home for plants and animals to thrive. The bricks’ pours also act as water chambers, which, when filled with water, act as a coolant for the structures they support. While the name might suggest charcoal is a significant part of the material’s build, it only appears on the brick’s surface, purifying the air by absorbing a compound used for growing plants.

Hemp Rebar

Hemp is one of the most carbon-sequestering and strongest fibers on the planet, making it a perfect material to shift the future of architecture. Engineers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute developed the low-cost, low-carbon alternative to traditional steel rebar. One of the material’s most outstanding features is its ability to avoid corrosion, further extending the potential lifespan of the structure it is used to build.

The rebar’s sustainable makeup has the potential to decrease construction time and triple the lifespan of the most costly traditional infrastructure — including everything from bridges to dams to seawalls. Its engineers intend the product to be cost-competitive, making it an obvious alternative material choice for future builds.

3D Printed Mycelium

An ever-growing number of engineers are discovering how to incorporate mycelium – a root-like structure of fungus that creates a network of threads and branches – into their designs, with a huge impact on advancing sustainable design. One of the teams leading the drive is Blast Studio in London. Their team takes advantage of mycelium’s strong webbing structure to form columns that not only support builds but also grow mushrooms.

The tree-like structure is made up of a mixture of mycelium fiber and recycled coffee cups. After being constructed through 3D printing, the mycelium eventually consumes the recycled material and grows to command the entire form of the column. Along with cultivating its own food, the dynamic material also produces natural insulation and fire-retardant properties. While mycelium-based materials are still sparse, more and more engineers and architects are beginning to see their advantages in designs.

Chip[s] Board

One of the best single-use alternatives to fibreboard, corkboard and even wood, Chip[s] Board is finding its place in today’s architecture landscape. Created by Rowan Minkley and Robert Nicoll, the biodegradable material is one of the healthiest building components used on the planet due to its absence of toxic chemicals or resins like formaldehyde. When creating the material, Minkley and Nicoll were set on combining the issues of material and food waste – eventually resulting in the sustainable wood substitute.

The product’s name is a play on the ingredients used to make it, which includes a blend of potato peel binding agents mixed with fibers from potatoes, bamboo, wood or hops. To develop Chip[s] Board, the blended composite is heat-pressed into a sturdy board that becomes functional in everything from furniture to buildings.

Kenoteq’s K-Briqs made of recycled construction waste, Courtesy of Felix Speller

K-Briq Construction Waste Bricks

Invented by Gabriela Meder, an engineering professor at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University, the K-Briq is one of the leading sustainable and recycled brick materials today. The unfired brick is made of 90% construction waste and produces less than 10% of carbon emission in manufacturing compared to clay bricks, making it an obvious low-carbon alternative in construction.

Designers of 2020’s Serpentine Pavilion – an annual design commission known for its experiential architecture – were one of the first to utilize the brick due to its versatility and similarity to the weight, look and functionality of standard bricks. Meder, who spent ten years developing the K-Briq, still produces it herself through her company Kenoteq.

With new forms of sustainable design being created daily, we can’t wait to continue exploring the ways innovative architecture can contribute to a healthier, more sustainable world.

The Future of Sustainable Design in Architecture

Posted on January 31, 2022April 3, 2024 by Hunter

At Optima, sustainable design has always been part of our ethos, as we strive to create vibrant communities built with the surrounding natural environment at the forefront. And as technology continues pushing the boundaries of sustainability in architecture, we wanted to explore what the future might possibly hold.

Historically, sustainable architecture has focused on lush outdoor environments, and at Optima, we know the benefits of urban greenspaces, which is why we have incorporated them into our communities for decades. Urban greenspaces and vertical landscaping are just some of the many sustainable features found in many of our Optima communities that help promote mental and physical health, while mitigating pollution and emulating the feeling of oasis.

Today, as new age modernism continues to evolve and environmentalism exceeds formalism, designers and architects are developing new ways to create built environments that also benefit the Earth. The newest approach to sustainable architecture is found within regenerative building.

Regenerative building looks beyond lessening harmful impact; it seeks ways to repair and restore the surrounding environment. In the regenerative design process, innovators conceive ways for each building to produce its own energy, treat its own water and emit a net-positive impact on the environment.

The Centre for the Built Environment’s living wall which features 24 plant species and 7,000 plants, courtesy of Nova Scotia Community College

While global contests like Redesign the World are encouraging designers to envision radical solutions to end environmental issues through built communities, some architects have begun to bring regenerative building to life.

Buildings like The Kendeda Building For Innovative Sustainable Design found on Georgia Tech’s campus and Portal High School in Irvine, California use green roofs and water collection systems to reduce reliance on negative forms of energy. Other buildings like Nova Scotia Community College’s Centre for the Built Environment take advantage of multiple sustainable design features like living walls, geothermal systems and solar and wind energy to regenerate and restore their surroundings.

As sustainable approaches to design continue to expand over time, we can’t wait to continue exploring how – through architecture – we can change contribute to a healthier, more sustainable environment.

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Tag: sustainable