Building Information Modeling: Collaboration in Design

From: Yasui-Archi.co.jp/

BIM: 

Building Information Modeling

The construction and architectural industry has been in great crisis in the past two decades. This was mostly due to lack of communication between the inter-disciplines that share knowledge on the lifecycle of a building. This resulted in most complex and large projects to be over budget, a failure to meet planned dead-lines and design inconsistencies.

However, BIM and GIS are revolutionizing the design and building industry in a myriad of ways through its design software platform that offers solutions to planning, designing, construction, and management of data throughout the building’s lifecycle.

Bottle Tower Gardens: Project Case Study

By Ian Salamanca
Editor-in-Chief.

As I mentioned earlier today, Urban Agriculture is an important topic i'm glad I have the ability to discuss. One key factor of most major cities is a lack of space.  Often time people barely have enough space for themselves, much less the ability to plant in either soil or roof.  This leaves us with only one way to go; UP!

Green Walls: An Overview

By Ian Salamanca
Editor-in-Chief

This week i'm going to talk about a concept both myself, and the Sustainability Club of LATTC are fascinated by; Green Facades, Living Walls, and Vertical Gardens. We'll look at what those mean and how they differ, some substantial benefits of including them in your design, and some DIY methods in multiple scales.

Patrocínio House- Architectural Record "Record Houses 2013"

"Make it look like a duck..." or The Falsification of Sustainability

Courtesy of Brimen Cartoons

I have seen this all too often. A company makes an announcement of their intentions, the speech littered with hot button words,and in the end we all feel warm and fuzzy at the progress we're promised.  Fast forward some time and it seems more often than not these companies show little progress, if not backwards movement. Was it a lie? Was it a misunderstanding? How is it that we have been talking about Sustainability for over a decade, with so little to show for it?  I believe it all boils down to what we choose to call Sustainable, more specifically, how many things we call Sustainable.  Slapping labels on things, doesn't actually make them so.  

This Week in Sustainability: 03/22-03/29

So in our effort to stay relevant we have decided to pay more attention to the news.  It's important to understand what others are doing, and to see the whole picture as well as the details.  So without further ado, I present to you the Sustainabilty Club's first installment of what I hope to be a weekly publication.

This Week in Sustainability 

"Portland argues the definition of "Sustainable."

From: All Things Writing

This week's Portland Business Journal is taking a stab at symantix, as it debates what it really means to be "Sustainable."  As many logicians would tell you definition is key to correct debate, so I'm interested to see their outcome.  I have personally felt for a while now that the term has been overused and underexplained; or in  some cases abused for the sake of business or politics.  As Ecotrust President Astrid Scholz puts it, “You don’t have to care about ‘sustainability’ to use it,” she said. “You can attract dumb capital, so to speak, just by virtue of getting a financial return and getting it to do the right thing.”¹