Group items tagged

El CEVE -Centro Experimental de la Vivienda Económica- es un centro que realiza investigación, desarrollo tecnológico, transferencia y capacitación en el campo habitacional desde 1967. Su sede está en la ciudad de Córdoba, Argentina, desde donde realiza actividades en distintas partes del país y Latinoamérica.

The project uses the frame of a 1950s building as a shell in which to build its experimental space. Over the past five years, this formerly vacant building has been repurposed and extended with minimal costs for materials. Professor Bernd Kniess, dean of Hafencity University's urban design department, is primarily concerned with questions of sustainability, renewal and repurposing in urban space. How to transform the existing? How can the new emerge from the old? Both the building itself and the city around it are employed as resources. Every piece of the building that is removed in the remodeling is then redeployed with a new function elsewhere. Discarded materials from surrounding construction sites are harvested and upcycled at the UdN. This patchwork process requires those engaged in the reconstruction to deal with building's structure as it was found, to develop new courses of action and productively channel uncertainty and risk. In this situation, sustainability does not rest solely on the objects used. Most importantly, it is fostered by relationships-by the neighborhood.

Madrid studio ÁBATON has just revealed the ÁPH80 Transportable House, a small prefab dwelling designed for two and sized to be easily transported by truck. The units are manufactured in Spain and could probably be shipped anywhere in Europe. For whatever reason, lately there seems to be a lot more interest and experimentation with prefab housing in Europe than in North America. The small house is a simple gabled rectangle with minimal exterior adornment. Roof and walls are both clad with a composite material made from wood fiber and cement. The sheets have a mottled gray appearance that would probably help the house blend right in within a natural setting, like some kind of angular rock outcrop. All the materials were selected on the basis of their environmental impact and ability to be recycled.