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Unleash Your Expertise: Review Your Favorite Architecture Tools on the Tech Directory
CategoriesArchitecture

Unleash Your Expertise: Review Your Favorite Architecture Tools on the Tech Directory

By Zarkon Group,

In the fast-paced and ever-evolving world of architecture, the integration of cutting-edge technology is a crucial factor for staying ahead of the curve. Architizer’s Tech Directory not only serves as a repository for a myriad of tools but stands as a collaborative platform inviting architects and design enthusiasts to actively contribute to the ongoing narrative of architectural technology. This article serves as a rallying call, urging you to share your expertise by providing reviews on the Tech Directory.

Explore 100+ Architecture Tools

Why Your Review Matters

As architects and designers, your interaction with technological tools is transformative. Your reviews possess the power to guide and influence the collective understanding of the AEC technology landscape.

Architizer’s Tech Directory isn’t just a static database; it’s a dynamic space where your insights contribute to the continuous evolution of technological advancements in our field.

Submitting Your Review

Getting started on the road to becoming a leading expert in architecture tech is easy. As shown in the GIF below, simply follow these four steps:

  1. Navigate to the Tech Directory and click ‘Sign In’ in the top right corner.
  2. Create your dedicated Tech Directory user profile (distinct from your Architizer.com profile).
  3. Search for the tool you wish to review and select ‘Write a review.‘
  4. Provide a star rating (1 to 5) and articulate your detailed thoughts on the tool.

Screen recording of Architizer Tech Directory for ArchitectsIncentivizing Your Participation

To express our gratitude for your valuable contributions, we’re excited to offer the opportunity for select reviews to be published in upcoming editorial features on Architizer and LinkedIn. Imagine seeing your insights quoted, positioning you as a trailblazer in the realm of AEC technology.

Your voice matters, and we want to amplify it!

Crafting an Exceptional Review

Knowledge sharing and peer-to-peer learning plays a pivotal role in architecture and the wider AEC community. For this reason, the quality of your review holds great significance. Your thoughtful and detailed reviews will not only benefit individual architects, but contribute to the collective knowledge base of the entire profession, pushing software providers to improve their products for the industry.

By providing nuanced insights, you empower your peers to make informed decisions, fostering a culture of shared learning and advancement. Here are four ways to elevate your reviews and become a trusted thought leader:

1. Be Specific and Detailed:

  • Illuminate the standout features that set the tool apart.
  • Articulate how the tool elevates your workflow and enhances project outcomes.

2. Compare and Contrast:

  • Provide a nuanced perspective by differentiating the tool from its competitors.
  • Address any drawbacks or missing features to offer a well-rounded evaluation.

3. Be Authentic:

  • Speak from your own experiences. Your authenticity adds weight to your insights.
  • Consider what insights would have been beneficial to you when you first explored the tool.

4. Inspire with Practical Use Cases:

  • Share real-world examples of how the tool has positively impacted your architectural projects.
  • Illustrate your review with anecdotes that resonate with the challenges faced by fellow architects.

Calling All Innovators in AEC Technology: Add Your App

For those at the forefront of creating architectural software, this is your chance to showcase your innovation and get in front of a global community of designers! Create your listing on the Tech Directory and allow architects to explore the unique value your tool can bring to their projects.

In this collaborative endeavor, your reviews and listings will contribute to a comprehensive resource that benefits the entire architecture and design community. Join the community and help make the Tech Directory a vibrant space where insights fuel progress!

Explore the Directory

Reference

Space Caviar launches Non-Extractive Architecture directory
CategoriesSustainable News

Space Caviar launches Non-Extractive Architecture directory

By Zarkon Group,

Design studio Space Caviar and philanthropic initiative Re:arc Institute have launched an online directory to showcase and support architectural practitioners challenging traditional ways of practice.

The open-access Non-Extractive Architecture directory features more than 700 trailblazers worldwide who “prioritise social justice, material awareness and long-term thinking” in their work.

It has been launched by Space Caviar and the Practice Lab branch of Re:arc Institute in response to the growing awareness of the damage that construction is doing to the planet and is hoped to encourage more design that alleviates this.

Directory
The directory includes 727 studios

“As the scale and magnitude of the climate crisis we are collectively facing – and the central role the construction industry plays in accelerating it – become more evident, there is increasing awareness within the profession, especially among the youngest generation of the profession, that something must change,” said Space Cavier founder Joseph Grima.

“Our goal is for the Non-Extractive Architecture project to be an accelerator of this change,” he told Dezeen.

The directory is a continuation of Space Caviar’s existing work exploring the concept of Non-Extractive Architecture – a term it coined to summarise a style of architecture that prioritises conserving, rather than exploiting, the Earth’s resources.

Each practitioner a “useful part to a larger puzzle”

The studio released a book, Non-Extractive Architecture Vol 1, in 2019 and later began a year-long research residency with the non-profit private organisation V-A-C Foundation.

“The directory we are launching today represents the most ambitious phase of the project so far,” said Grima.

“We didn’t expect the book to receive as much attention as it did, and now sadly it’s out of print and quite difficult to get hold of,” he explained. “This is why we decided to go with an online directory – to keep it as democratic and open-access as possible and also to allow it to grow organically over time.”

The directory is divided into six themes, named Timeless Ways of Building, Material Origins, The Politics of Construction, The Long Now, Building as Last Resort and Systems Architecture.

Case study in the Non-Extractive Architecture directory
Dakar collective Worofila is one of the studios in the directory

According to Grima, the categories are intended to maximise the directory’s accessibility and help readers “take that first step of jumping in”.

“We intend to document the work of everyone who we feel is making a sincere effort to contribute to meaningful change in the way in which architecture will be practised in the future,” said Grima.

“This is not to say that their practice is necessarily devoid of critical weaknesses – it’s more that we feel their work contributes one useful part to a larger puzzle.”

“We hope it can accelerate the diversification of a profession”

Among the studios featured in the directory is Atelier Luma, a circular design lab based at Luma Arles that specialises in developing materials made from locally sourced bio-waste, various by-products and other under-valued materials.

Others include Field Architects, a nomadic studio that is developing ways to combine traditional and indigenous construction techniques with modern methods, and Dakar collective Worofila, which specialises in using local, low-carbon materials to create buildings best suited to their climate.

Atelier Aino – a French cooperative architecture workshop focused on retrofit instead of demolition – also features in the directory, alongside a women-led landscape design studio called ORU in Mexico that is dedicated to building resilience to climate change.

Grima said that the goal of the directory is to “accelerate a transformation in the profession by helping like-minded practitioners find one another and share knowledge”.

“We hope it can accelerate the diversification of a profession that is far too male, western-centric and inward-looking – we hope it can be a well-structured, easy-to-use and inspiring source of contacts for clients, curators, editors and conference moderators who otherwise tend to default to the same familiar names,” he explained.

Directory “can help inspire confidence”

However, he also hopes it can help motivate people who are “interested in approaching architecture differently”, particularly the younger and emerging generation of architects.

“It is a heavily regulated field, and the current modus operandi can seem inescapable,” he reflected.

“Seeing hundreds or thousands of other practices who have already found ways to question the prevalent assumptions about how design is practiced can help inspire confidence in the idea that it is possible to do things differently.”

The non-extractive architecture(s) directory is an ever-evolving resource and it is welcoming other contributions for its expansion.

Grima shared details of the Non-Extractive Architecture project in a talk with Dezeen in 2021 and also in a manifesto written for the Dezeen 15 festival.

“In the face of clear and present danger, we have no choice but to rethink the predatory principles (towards habitat, towards each other) that modern industrial economies are optimised towards,” Grima wrote in his manifesto.

The images are courtesy of Space Caviar.

Reference

Highlighting Useful Technologies for Getting to Zero: The New Zero Energy Project Product Directory
CategoriesSustainable News Zero Energy Homes

Highlighting Useful Technologies for Getting to Zero: The New Zero Energy Project Product Directory

By Zarkon Group,

New technologies are making zero energy homes and buildings more affordable, healthier, and more comfortable than ever. The Zero Energy Project now helps you keep up with advanced building equipment and materials through our new Zero Energy Product Directory. Our focus is on energy-efficient, environmentally-friendly products that support and hasten the transition to zero energy homes and buildings.

 

Improved Efficiency

At ZEP, we are fond of saying that you can buy all the products you need to build a zero energy building “off the shelf”. While that’s certainly true, even mature technologies are improving their energy efficiency every year. For example, the success of heat pumps in heating and cooling homes is well established, and using heat pumps for water heating is gaining acceptance. Now heat pumps are being used for energy-efficient clothes drying as well. And mini-split heat pumps are now capable of heating a home even when outside temperatures drop below -13°F . As product offerings change and new products are introduced, one of the goals of the directory is to help you find the latest equipment and materials for your building project.

 

More Choices

While the key to affordability in zero energy buildings is, and always will be, good design, new technology offers designers many more choices. Technological advances are increasing efficiency and changing the balance between efficiency due to structural measures and efficiency as a result of high-performance equipment. For example, the rapidly falling price of solar electric panels is changing the relative cost-effectiveness of on-site generation versus that of structural improvements. Furthermore, solar roofing combines two functions that can be installed at the same time at lower cost than roofing and solar panels separately.

 

Lower Cost

It’s also true that it is sometimes cheaper to purchase an advanced product than to spend time and money on a labor-intensive, conventional approach. For instance, Aerobarrier is an aerosol sealant for buildings that can reliably reduce air leakage to a specified level in only a few hours. Air leakage is a complex problem with at least a dozen unique solutions. But this one technology promises to revolutionize the task of air sealing, especially for production builders.

 

New Capabilities

Finally, some new products offer capabilities that simply haven’t existed in the past. On-site battery storage is already a key component of major grid-integrated zero energy housing developments. This could become standard equipment in future zero energy homes and buildings. It’s a nascent technology that can benefit builders and buyers, while helping utilities even out the loads on the grid.

 

Greenhouse Gases

Reducing the energy needed to operate buildings has been the focus for years. Now that we are closer to realizing the goal of buildings that operate entirely on clean energy, it’s time to integrate the greenhouse gas impact of creating the products themselves. Sometimes called embodied energy, this is the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from extraction of raw materials, transportation, processing, manufacturing, installation, and disposal or recycling.

Products selected for the Zero Energy Project Product Directory exhibit low global warming potential compared to conventional materials or products. When available, the manufacturer has completed and made public a full life cycle assessment to show the range of benefits and impacts of its production, use, and disposal.

 

Indoor Air Quality and Environmental Safety

Since zero energy homes are so air-tight, it is important that the products used in them do not off-gas toxins, such as volatile organic compounds or formaldehyde, or contain chemicals contained in the Living Building Challenge Red List. These chemicals are a risk for homeowners, builders, fire safety personnel and for the environment.

 

New or Existing Buildings

New zero energy construction offers the easiest opportunity for installing these products.  On the other hand energy efficient equipment has an especially important role to play in renovating existing homes toward zero. In these homes where the structure is already established and access is limited, upgrading the energy efficiency of the shell is more difficult and expensive. So it becomes necessary to take advantage of the opportunity to replace failing equipment with new, high-efficiency products, either over time or as part of a major energy upgrade on the path to zero. The energy savings that result may be sufficient to avoid having to make major structural changes.

 

Suggest Products for the Directory

While the Zero Energy Project Product Directory is not intended to be an exhaustive list of everything needed for high energy performance, our hope is that the Directory will stimulate the supply chain of cost saving, energy efficient products in a way that will help drive the zero energy movement forward. Our goal is to help you identify useful products, both new and tried-and-true, that will make it easier to build a zero energy home. We invite your suggestions for products to add to the directory as well as your feedback on listed products, which you can provide in the comment section at the bottom of each page.

Please Note: While the Zero Energy Project is funded in part by sponsorships, sponsors will have no effect on our editorial content or mission, which is to help us all advance towards a zero net energy, zero net carbon, society. Contact us for more information about sponsorship.

Reference