LEED Gold-certified WE3 shows off its skin at Silicon Beach

In the rapidly developing area of West Los Angeles known as “Silicon Beach,” local architecture firm SPF:architects has recently completed WE3 at Water’s Edge, a 160,000-square-foot creative workspace with a striking, perforated facade that takes inspiration from the play of light on water. This unique design protects the interior from unwanted solar gain. Certified LEED Gold, the six-story structure is optimized for energy savings and low-resource consumption, from the integration of operable, insulated windows and sunshades on every floor to the use of locally sourced and recycled construction materials. The newly completed workspace is the third and final building in a pre-existing, 6.5-acre commercial campus in the Playa Vista Specific Plan. 

Designed to attract top-level tech and creative talent, including the likes of Google, Yahoo and YouTube, WE3 prioritizes flexibility, workplace health and views toward Baldwin Hills and the Pacific Ocean. To gracefully complement the campus’ existing buildings and maximize the lot’s buildable area, the sleek office building stretches 400 feet in length along the site’s eastern edge and frames a new public courtyard. WE3 comprises four floors of parking — two of which are tucked underground to accommodate a total of 600 cars — as well as four levels of open workspace, each with a footprint of approximately 40,000 square feet and 15-foot floor heights.

Related: Perkins Eastman’s WELL Platinum Chicago office prioritizes employee health

In addition to crafting a “floating” skin that visually lightens the building’s mass, the architects left the concrete superstructure exposed to achieve WE3’s modern and minimalist aesthetic. All circulation is located on the exterior to promote outdoor interaction and wellness. Occupants can also enjoy a sky garden on the top floor along with a wind-shielded terrace that can be used for impromptu meetings. 

“The objective was to create a clean and simple building that both practically and symbolically completes the architecture of the site,” said Zoltan E. Pali, FAIA, SPF:architects’ founder and design principal. “From an urbanistic perspective, this plan simultaneously manages to maximize both visibility and workable density.”

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Tribal Textiles employs local artisans to uplift rural Zambian community

On the edge of the beautiful South Luangwa National Park in Zambia, social enterprise Tribal Textiles has made significant strides in uplifting a small rural community with eco-friendly and ethically crafted textiles. The company, which is now in its 30th year, is one of the biggest employers in the remote area and follows a corporate social responsibility strategy that provides sustainable employment and reinvests a percentage of the profits back into local community and conservation initiatives. Developed for minimal environmental impact from sourcing to production, Tribal Textiles’ home decor pieces are handmade at their workshop in Zambia and shipped around the world with a portion of shipping costs donated to supporting children at the local Hanada orphanage. 

With 86 local Zambians currently employed, Tribal Textiles offers a wide variety of handmade home decor pieces and accessories from pillowcases and tablecloths to face masks and aprons. All products use locally sourced and sustainable materials with waste repurposed wherever possible. The hand-painted textiles are inspired by Africa’s vibrant heritage and culture and combine traditional Batik techniques with contemporary compositions and bold colors. 

According to the company, all employees receive a fair monthly wage with annual paid leave, sick pay, bereavement pay, a housing and travel allowance as well as other benefits such as daily breakfasts and lunches and access to free HIV screenings. By providing sustainable and stable employment in a job-scarce area, Tribal Textiles is also able to help reduce the rates of poaching and deforestation in the wildlife-rich region.

Related: Orkidstudio’s 10 Handpicked UK Students Build a Zambian Community Center in Just Seven Weeks

Five percent of every Tribal Textiles purchase is reinvested into local community and conservation initiatives, including Conservation South Luangwa, Zambian Carnivore Programme, BirdWatch Zambia, and Bio Carbon Partners as well as the Malimba School, Hanada Orphanage & Chipembele Education Trust and the Luangwa Artisan Collective. The local artisans have also helped supply the community with approximately 35,000 hand-sewn face masks. 

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The Australian government unveils plan to end plastic pollution

The Australian federal government has launched the National Plastic Plan, which seeks to deal with plastic pollution in various areas. According to the government, the plan will be aimed at banning single-use plastics on beaches, ending expanded polystyrene packaging and introducing microplastic filters for washing machines. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the plan is that the government intends to bring biodegradable plastic to an end. Most countries that have plastic pollution reduction plans tend to be lenient on biodegradable plastic products. But experts have warned that biodegradable plastic is not any better than regular plastic.

The term “biodegradable plastic” is used to mean plastic derived from plant-based materials and is said to be biodegradable after use. It is also often called bioplastic. While some people may think that biodegradable is good, there are no standards that regulate the type of products that can be labeled as biodegradable. Some of these products can take several decades or centuries in landfills before breaking down.

Related: Are bioplastics better for the environment or a waste of time?

The recently unveiled plan seeks to bring together industry players to forge a way forward in dealing with the problem. Its implementation will lead to the phasing out of “fragmentable” plastic by July 2022.

The other area of concern for the Australian government is recyclable plastic. Many companies produce plastics in huge quantities and label them as recyclable. The problem is that only 18% of plastics in Australia are recycled while just 9% of plastics are recycled globally. Recycling plastics is a process that still faces plenty of challenges. First, recycling is very expensive compared to making new plastics from fossil fuels. As a result, most companies prefer investing in fresh plastic.

In Australia, the recycling system is well-developed, but it faces challenges of cost and waste separation at residential levels.

The National Plastics Plan will also seek to deal with compostable plastic. The Australian government already has regulatory standards and certifications for this type of plastic. Unfortunately, most of the standards only apply to plastics that can be composted within an industrial facility. The plan hopes to help recover more plastic through methods like composting, but the government has yet to outline how it will support specialized collection and composting systems.

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Minimalist, low-carbon home features local wood and recycled concrete

Rural inspiration meets modern minimalism in Zürich-based Gus Wüstemann Architects‘ recently completed Pavilion House, a barn-inspired gabled home that takes cues from the agricultural typology in Buchberg, a rural village near Switzerland’s largest city. Instead of building the new home out of stone and wood like most traditional farm buildings, the architects constructed the residence with a concrete frame and a pre-constructed timber roof. Mostly recycled concrete and locally sourced wood were used to reduce the project’s carbon footprint.

Inspired by the “pragmatism of the local building tradition,” the architects crafted a minimalist home that eschews ornamentation in favor of leaving the raw concrete and wood exposed. The architects also hid and minimized technical equipment and interior elements — such as recessing the lighting and constructing built-in benches — wherever possible to create clean sight lines.

Related: Industrial modern Sawmill House is built from recycled concrete blocks

The 484-square-foot family home comprises two floors and a basement. The concrete basement contains a dental practice, while the timber-and-concrete ground floor is given over to an open-plan living room, dining area and kitchen that connects seamlessly to the outdoors via massive glazed doors that slide open to create a spacious, open-air area reminiscent of a pavilion. The outdoor area is sheltered by the roof that, like the surrounding rural buildings, cantilevers out to all sides of the home and connects the living space with the surroundings. The sleeping zone, with four bedrooms, is located on the topmost floor that is entirely outfitted in timber for a warm and cozy feel.

“The use of mostly recycled concrete and local wood enabled a modest carbon footprint,” explained the architects, noting the importance of craftsmanship in the project with a special thank you to the project’s late foreman Samuel Janser. “The rawness of the construction is a reference to the traditional pragmatic way of building; How is it built, no hierarchy of materials or esthetics. Simplicity is the way to go.”

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Flexible prefab cabin wins Volume Zeros 2020 Tiny House competition

Mumbai-based architecture competition platform Volume Zero has announced the winners of the 2020 Tiny House Architecture Competition, a call for entries that celebrate sustainability and individuality through innovative design. A jury of international architects — including jurors from U.S.-based Desai Chia Architecture and Norway’s Saunders Architecture — awarded three flexible tiny house concepts with $4,000 in total prize money and also selected 10 entries as honorable mentions. 

Spanish designer Jorge Cobo won first place in the competition with his entry, A Forest for Rest, a flexible prefab cabin with a tubular steel frame that can be suspended from trees or set on light foundations. Lined with timber slats, the 19.3-square-meter tiny house fits an open-plan living space with a separated bathroom on the ground floor along with an adaptable sleeping space that accommodates up to three people on the upper floor. The prefabricated and customizable home can also be equipped with a variety of sustainable technologies, from solar panels and rainwater reuse systems to green roofs and a ground-coupled heat exchanger.

Related: The top 7 amazing tiny homes we’ve seen this year

French duo Dylan Morel and Dorian Bernard took second place with the Ecottage, a charming, gabled, prefab tiny home designed to operate off of the grid. Topped with solar panels and equipped with a domestic rainwater harvesting system, the adaptable unit was created to operate independently in both urban and rural settings. Plywood was selected as the main construction material for its carbon-sequestering benefits, low cost and availability. The multifunctional interior includes a ground-floor living space and a mezzanine sleeping area.

American designer Tak Ying Chan won third place with Off the Walls, a concept for sheltering people experiencing homelessness in New York City’s Bushwick neighborhood. Designed with recycled materials and a painted timber structural frame, the low-cost build integrates multifunctional furnishings to make the most of its small footprint. The modular, shed-roofed units can also be decorated with street art and murals.

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This Indonesian high-rise performs 36% better than LEED baseline

Located in Jakarta’s central business district of Sudirman, Sequis Tower makes a space for itself on the city skyline. Drawing inspiration from the Banyan tree for both design influence and metaphoric meaning, the tower is meant to look like it’s rising organically from the ground.

Sequis Tower encompasses roughly 1.5 million square feet and 40 floors. This includes spaces for offices, healthcare facilities, shops and restaurants.

The innovative design uses a series of landscaped terraces composed of four bundled super-tubes. While this certainly makes the tower eye-catching, it also creates a range of different floorplates. This makes the building extremely structurally sound, which is essential considering the tower’s location in an active seismic zone.

Related: Seismically-safe cave home in Spain replaces informal shelter for shepherds

While the tower wall is designed to provide beautiful views of the surrounding world, it also reduces solar heat gain, which helps keep cooling costs down. Other sustainable elements have also been integrated into the design, such as high-efficiency building systems. Additionally, using locally-sourced and recycled building materials helped reduce the tower’s embedded energy, while also staying true to the building’s central theme of rising from the landscape like an organic structure.

On the ground level, the tower includes spaces for pedestrians. The building’s parking area is elevated, so the ground floor remains open for green areas and walkways. The design includes an elevated park, too.

KPF, Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, received two major awards for Sequis Tower, starting with a design award recognizing the tower’s human-focused, efficient design. The second is a sustainability award, proving that good design and sustainability can go hand-in-hand. The building also won a slew of additional awards, including Best Green Development and Best Office. Sequis Tower is also one of the first LEED Platinum buildings in all of Indonesia. In fact, it performs 36% better than the LEED baseline.

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The Gaia off-grid container house has a custom rooftop wind turbine

Made using an upcycled, discarded shipping container and featuring its own personal wind turbine, three solar panels and a rainwater harvesting system, the Gaia off-grid container house embodies self sufficiency. The architects at Pin-Up Houses, who are responsible for the project, said that they were inspired to find alternative forms of housing with less environmental impact.

Thanks to its off-grid technology, the Gaia is a completely independent housing unit. The prototype requires no external sources of energy or water, so you can live comfortably pretty much anywhere. The home harnesses the power of the wind and sun directly into an external battery that generates the home’s refrigerator, water heater and other appliances. A higher voltage of 110 to 230 can be added with a high voltage inverter.

Related: Vibrant office building in India is made of recycled shipping containers

The battery stores power to charge cell phones and other small devices; the battery level is monitored through a remote, mobile app, so you can always check your battery consumption and charging while away.

The home itself is made using an upcycled marine HC container that has been sprayed with thermal insulation, while the roof is covered with galvanized corrugated metal. There is plenty of built-in storage inside the home, which also includes wooden studs and spruce plywood as well as a small dining nook and a folding sofa bed. The outdoor terrace can be folded down to supply residents with a built-in deck or cranked up with a winch to allow more privacy.

Apart from the solar panel and wind turbine, the container house is also set up with a rainwater harvesting system that collects and filters water for the bathroom and kitchen. The corrugated metal sheet on the roof extends beyond the container space to increase the amount of rainwater collected into the 1,000 IBC tank.

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