Common Expansion Joint Field Problems and How to Avoid Them
CategoriesArchitecture

Common Expansion Joint Field Problems and How to Avoid Them

Are you struggling with the aesthetic and functional challenges of expansion joint covers in architecture? These essential components require careful integration and understanding to ensure they meet project needs effectively. This can be quite challenging, which is why many architects don’t like them. However, with the proper guidance, you can transform this challenge into an opportunity for innovative design and effective functionality.

In our recent webinar, we delved into the complexities of expansion joint systems, offering insights and practical solutions for architects and builders. If you missed the live session, don’t worry — the recording is available for you to watch at your convenience.

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Exterior waterproofing options via Inpro Corp

Once again, we had the pleasure of hosting Matthew Fisher, the Senior Product Manager for the Expansion Joint Systems division at Inpro. Fisher, with his extensive 25-year experience spanning architecture, construction management and building materials management, brings a wealth of knowledge and practical insights. His expertise is particularly invaluable considering his background as a practicing architect and his deep understanding of both the design process and the on-site construction dynamics.During the webinar, Fisher covered a range of critical topics, helping participants to:

  • Examine common floor joint oversights regarding blockouts, concentrated loads and coverplate specification;
  • Discover the types of interior wall expansion joint systems and how to accommodate obstructions, changes in directionand functional requirements;
  • Examine and compare building envelope joints and recognize the importance of proper detailing for transitions;
  • Identify the types of expansion joint fire barriers and the dangers to life safety when seams and intersections installations are not assembled to specifications.

Exterior joint cover types via Inpro Corp

These topics were not just theoretical discussions but were backed by real-world scenarios and practical solutions, making the webinar an insightful learning opportunity for anyone in the field.

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Don’t miss this chance to broaden your understanding of expansion joint systems and their critical role in architecture. Access the webinar now and equip yourself with the knowledge to tackle one of the most nuanced aspects of building design.


Kalina Prelikj

Author: Kalina Prelikj

A jack of all trades and a soon-to-be Master of Architecture, Kalina enjoys embracing her creative side and has dabbled in everything from marketing to design to communications. However, her main interest lies in architecture, as she loves to explore how it shapes our communities and transforms our daily experiences. With a deep appreciation for the art of puns, Kalina is constantly on the lookout for opportunities to craft clever wordplay.

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An app helps families avoid food waste
CategoriesSustainable News

An app helps families avoid food waste

Spotted: Around 70 per cent of all food waste in the UK comes from households, which equates to around 6.6 million tonnes a year. To help tackle this, Kitche was launched to help families avoid throwing away food. The company has found that the most effective strategies are preventative, so aims to target food waste at the source.  

Kitche has developed an app that lets users import their food to keep track of what they have at home, and users can also scan supermarket receipts to update their virtual inventory. Based on what is recorded on the app, Kitche will send reminders of when foods need to be eaten or frozen, and lets users move products between “To buy”, “At home” and “Ditch” lists. The app also has recipes to help customers use up all their products efficiently.

Since launching three years ago, Kitche has had nearly 65,000 downloads in the UK and earlier this year, the app had a re-launch with new features. For instance, the new Impact Section allows users to see the results of tracking their food waste, including water, CO2, food, and money savings. To make the app even more convenient, Kitche has also made it possible to add food products to the app by voice or scanning by barcode. Other new features include an Explore Section, which includes a lifestyle magazine-style collection of top tips and recipes, and a Community Section where people can connect and become Kitche Ambassadors to earn unique elements both in and outside the app. 

There are so many innovations out there helping to tackle food waste. Springwise has spotted a startup turning wasted fresh produce into healthy snacks and another transforming broccoli waste into plant protein.

Written By: Anam Alam

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“Architects need to embrace radical change to avoid a hellish future”
CategoriesSustainable News

“Architects need to embrace radical change to avoid a hellish future”

As yet another COP fails to put the world on a path to avert climate catastrophe, it’s time for architects to fundamentally rethink the work they do, writes Michael Pawlyn.


The outcome of COP27, and Antonio Guterres’ grim warning that “we are on a highway to climate hell”, requires us as designers to do some serious thinking about what we do next. Aside from the breakthrough on “loss and damage” payments to the countries most affected (generally the poorest and least responsible for the problem) there was virtually no progress in getting the world on-track for a safe future. It would be easy to feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of the challenge, but the more courageous thing to do is to engage in an urgent debate about how change happens – and then to take radical action accordingly.

It may also be tempting to think that we can carry on broadly as normal and try a bit harder at sustainability, but that would be a disastrous course of action. We need to accept that the degree of change required is far greater than the industry has embraced to date.

There was virtually no progress in getting the world on-track for a safe future

We urgently need to transcend conventional sustainability approaches to pursue regenerative solutions that are net-positive rather than simply mitigating negatives. We need to move from mechanistic approaches towards more systemic approaches and to widen our perspectives from being solely human-focussed to recognising the whole web of life on which we depend. In short: architects need to embrace radical change if we are to avoid the hellish future predicted by Guterres.

Change needs to occur at the level of mindsets. This has been the focus for Architects Declare UK, in the way the declaration points were written, the events we have organised and the practice guide that was produced. The source of inspiration has been the systems thinker Donella Meadows, who asserted that the best way to change a system is by intervening at the level of the mindset, or paradigm that drives the system, and by shifting its goals.

If we ask ourselves “what drives the way architects work?” it’s probably fair to say that it’s a mixture of worthy aims, such as transforming the built environment to enhance people’s lives, as well as less comfortable motivations, such as the glory gained from publicity or completing a project. Younger, and future, generations are likely to judge harshly those who are motivated by the latter and some of the big-name architects who would like to think of themselves as avant-garde are at risk of being on the wrong side of history.

If, as many have argued over the years, architecture is a celebration of the age in which it was created, then a good test of its relevance is to consider how a contemporary work will be considered in, say, 20 years. Buildings that are little more than gimmicky manipulations of form that help a developer make more money, or extravagant showpieces paid for by luxury brands are likely to be regarded by future generations as some of the most trivial and morally detached artifacts ever created.

Big-name architects who like to think of themselves as avant-garde are at risk of being on the wrong side of history

Societal norms like democracy and human rights are coming under increasing threat and it is worth contemplating how an informed teenager would regard architects who seem content to be photographed with genocidal leaders or those who design projects for murderous autocrats. If we want to be “Good Ancestors”, to use Roman Krznaric‘s term (in turn, borrowed from Louis Kahn’s client Jonas Salk), we need to think much more consciously about how we spend our limited lifespans and how we will be remembered over longer timescales.

An urge to create monuments or icons has been a significant driver for (mainly male) architects and that now needs to be challenged. Ever since the first skyscrapers, we have fetishised supertall buildings and continually competed to go ever taller. A growing body of evidence is showing that this is an extremely profligate way of building; both in terms of embodied and operational carbon.

Surely, in a planetary emergency we should be competing to design buildings that are best aligned with long-term planetary health? Earlier this year Architects Declare UK wrote an open letter to the Council for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitats (CTBUH) in which we proposed that it was time to transform its register of “The World’s Tallest Building”. We called on the CTBUH to shift its focus from a fixation on height to the other part of its mission: Urban Habitats. As an organisation they have done a lot to promote sustainability and now there is an opportunity for them to engage with regenerative thinking.

As a profession, we risk being left behind by other sectors that are embracing change more rapidly. Many large businesses are now accepting that the pursuit of profit is not a sufficiently inspiring purpose to attract the best staff and are defining bold new purposes. Similarly, many institutions are recognising that their original purposes are in need of updating. The 1828 Royal Charter for the Institute of Civil Engineers declared that civil engineering “is the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man”.

We risk being left behind by other sectors that are embracing change more rapidly

Architects Declare UK has written to the president of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), Simon Allford, proposing that its mission statement should be updated to align with the planetary emergency. Whether he chooses to make this part of his legacy remains to be seen.

It is encouraging to see that some awards such as the Pritzker Architecture Prize are moving with the times, choosing to celebrate architects who champion retrofit, those who work with low-energy materials and, recognising a more diverse range of architects than was conventionally the case. There are, however, plenty of awards systems that still reward highly damaging approaches, as Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN) have argued in connection with the RIBA Stirling Prize.

Ideally, this mindset change would be shared by governments. After two years of requesting, and being refused, a meeting with the UK prime minister or former energy secretary Kwasi Kwarteng (during which time it was revealed that ministers from his department held hundreds of meetings with fossil fuel companies), Architects Declare UK recently met with shadow climate change secretary Ed Miliband and engaged in a constructive dialogue about systems change.

There are, of course, limits to our agency as architects and designers, but it’s no longer acceptable to claim that our existing limits are the end of the story. Where change is necessary, and exceeds what’s possible for an individual company, we need to collaborate to drive systems change. This means joining groups like Architects Declare, Design Declares, Architects Climate Action Network – wherever you feel most at home – and working together to drive change.

Michael Pawlyn is founder of Exploration Architecture. He is the co-author, with Sarah Ichioka, of Flourish: Design Paradigms for Our Planetary Emergency published by Triarchy Press, and the co-host of the Flourish Systems Change podcast. He is a co-initiator and Steering Group member of UK Architects Declare.

The top image is by Verstappen Photography via Unsplash.

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Free Webinar: How to Photograph Iconic Architecture (and Avoid Clichés!)
CategoriesArchitecture

Free Webinar: How to Photograph Iconic Architecture (and Avoid Clichés!)

Send us a photo. Tell us a story. Win $2,500! Architizer’s 3rd Annual One Photo Challenge is underway with a Late Entry Deadline on July 15, 2022! Start your entry for architecture’s biggest photography competition here.

We’re excited to reveal our second architectural photography webinar of the year — and you’re invited! Join Architizer’s Architecture Editor Hannah Feniak on Tuesday, July 12th at 1pm ET, as she chats with renowned photographer Paul Clemence about the challenges and opportunities involved in shooting iconic architecture.

Register for the Event →

Oscar Niemeyer. Zaha Hadid. Le Corbusier. Louis Kahn. The works of these renowned architects are among the most photographed in the world, and it’s no surprise given the striking forms and classic silhouettes of their buildings. That said, once a building has been captured in a million photographs, its image can start to feel repetitive. How can we reframe iconic architecture in new and unexpected ways? Which perspectives of these buildings have not yet been caught on camera? Is it possible to change perceptions of the world’s most famous buildings by photographing them in unconventional angles and unusual light?

As the 3rd Annual One Photo Challenge approaches its exciting climax, award-winning photographer and competition juror Paul Clemence will join us to explore answers to some of these questions. We’ll look back at some of the best images of iconic architecture from last season’s competition, and explore the ways in which photographers can help us see these familiar structures in a new light.

By attending this talk, you’ll learn:

  • How to look for new and interesting angles when photographing iconic architecture
  • How composition and lighting can completely change the way in which a famous building is viewed
  • How Paul capture the works of renowned architects around the world

Register for the Event →

About Paul Clemence

Paul Clemence is an artist, photographer, writer and filmmaker focusing on expressing the subjective and poetic side of Architecture. His work has been widely published and he exhibits in events like Venice Biennale, ArtBasel/Design Miami. “Architecture Photography”, aka ARCHI-PHOTO, his Facebook page, is a worldwide social media phenomenon, with more than one million followers worldwide. Trained as an architect, he is originally from Brazil and is now based in Brooklyn, NY.

About Hannah Feniak

Hannah Feniak is Architizer’s Architecture Editor. When she’s not leading our talented team of writers and interviewing the industry’s most innovative designers, Hannah is likely to be found exploring the latest exhibition openings. A trained art historian and educator with a focus on architecture and urbanism, Hannah holds degrees from McGill University in Montreal and NYU.

Send us a photo. Tell us a story. Win $2,500! Architizer’s 3rd Annual One Photo Challenge is underway with a Late Entry Deadline on July 15, 2022! Start your entry for architecture’s biggest photography competition here.

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