An architect has designed a wind turbine you can live inside

By CityMetric staff
April 14,2015, CityMetric

Today in crazy architecture news: a firm has designed a giant, circular wind turbine, which also happens to be inhabitable.

We can imagine a few potential objections – most obvious among them being, “What was that? I can’t hear you over the sound of the turbine.” But the wheel, planned for the port city of Rotterdam in southern Holland, would use a wind power technology with no moving parts, and should therefore be completely silent.

The electrostatic wind energy converter, developed in 2013 by a consortium of Dutch companies and academics, uses a combination of wind and water to generate power. Thin metal tubes across the turbine’s surface contain electrodes and nozzles which throw out a fine spray of water droplets. These are naturally attracted to the positive eletrodes, but are displaced by the wind blowing through the structure. This increases their potential energy, and it is this energy that can then be harnessed as electricity. Here’s a diagram: Read more…

Canadian journalists win top architecture awards Special

By Tim Sandle
April 13, 2015, Digital Journal

Montreal – The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada had announced this year’s awards for media in architecture and the winner is the Montreal daily newspaper La Presse and two of its journalists.

Each year The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) presents an award for the best coverage of architecture in the Canadian media. According to organization president Sam Oboh, RAIC acts as the voice for excellence in the built environment in Canada. One of the organization’s aims is to demonstrate how design can enhance the quality of life. In addition, the society emphasizes the important issues of society through responsible architecture.

(Left: A view of Montreal’s City Hall building, Bookchen)

For this year’s award, the RAIC recognized journalist François Cardinal for a two-part series about the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, which was recently constructed. Cardinal’s article was titled “Prix Citron and Maintenant, faut vivre avec.” Read more…