Articles by Janelle Zara

This open-source construction kit can be turned into a home in just one day.

WASP explored what 3D printing can do with one readily available completely sustainable substance: m ud.

“Architecture is the masterly, correct, and magnificent play of masses brought together in light,” L e Corbusier wrote in his 1923 manifesto Towards a New Architecture. The same can be said of the architectural photography of Hélène Binet, the 2015 recipient of the Julius Shulman Photography Award. Over the past 25 years, Binet has worked closely…

Far be it for us to call it a trend, but all kinds of new buildings bear an uncanny resemblance to e veryday objects: a can of ham, for example, or a sandwich accoutrement. While you may be sick of looking toward the skyline and seeing the contents of your fridge, you could be open to…

Formal gimmicks in architecture are a fact of life. Many are incidental; no one set out to build a s ky-high pickle, a can of ham, a drunkard’s gaping mouth, or a pair of boxer shorts. But recent trends seem to favor imbuing buildings with regionalist clichés as a form of deeper meaning. These projects aim…

The next building you build may contain sources of fungus, invasive alien plant species, mutant frui t, or weeds. But in a good way. These materials and more are some of the main ingredients in the new generation of biopolymers and biocomposites, products that mainly comprise plant, animal, fungal, and bacterial sources that can now be…

For a slight boost in sustainability to its most iconic landmark, Paris recently outfitted the Eiffe l Tower with wind turbines — and they’re just gorgeous, according to Popular Science. The new wind turbines, via The Verge’s amazing photo essay At the end of February, the firm Urban Green Energy installed two vertical-axis wind turbines within…

“Architecture is a borrower,” Eric Owen Moss said on Wednesday night, during a conversation with Fra nk Gehry at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (better known as SCI-Arc). “It gloms onto events and speculations in the arts and culture and science.” Moss raised a compelling point on the varied sources of architectural movements and nomenclatures.…

At its best, we generally regard our built environment as a source of comfort, protection, and inspi ration. But at its worst, can it also foster destructive habits? Manhattan-based urbanism thinktank The Van Alen Institute, wondering just that, plans to launch “Ecologies of Addiction,” an interdisciplinary investigation on the impact of our surroundings on our impulsive…