Birds Are Natural Builders!

Some birds’ nests are cup-shaped, some have domes, others have been likened to apartment complexes. How do birds build their nurseries? Captain Cook collected a hummingbird nest during his trip to Brazil. That nest, just 6 cm (2.4 inches) high was in the fork of two branches, camouflaged with lichen, lined with fluffy seeds and … Read more

Turning a WW2 Bunker into an Underground Cabin

After discovering an abandoned World War II bunker while on a hike in northern Norway, Henrik Lande Andersen spent two years transforming this former German  lookout into an overnight refuge open to all. Over the course of two years, Henrik made the hike from town – the only way to access the site – carrying … Read more

Morning Dove Rammed Earth Home Blends with Desert

Morning Dove is a model of 21st-century desert architecture set in Twentynine Palms, California. There are two structures, a main house, and a guest house, both featuring rammed earth construction. Soil from the property, which is mostly granite, was mixed with colored mortars. The mixture was then poured into forms and compacted by a tamper. … Read more

3D Printed Earth Forest Campus in Spain

There is a Catalonian park in Spain that is home to a 3D Printed Earth Forest Campus, featuring a series of architectural structures printed from earth. The campus is the work of the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, which has leveraged WASP’s large-format 3D printing technology to print these buildings. Their latest structure features … Read more

The Amazing Sage Wall in Montana

Deep in the remote mountainous wilderness of Montana you can find this remarkable structure known as the Sage Wall. This imposing megalithic wonder is composed of massive polygonal granite stone blocks intricately stacked and aligned in a perfectly straight line. The Sage Wall’s unique features set it apart from the natural geological formations commonly found … Read more

Can Wood be Used to Self-Shape Structures?

Wood is inherently imprecise. Its grain reverses and swirls. Trauma and disease manifest in scars and knots. Instead of viewing these natural tendencies as liabilities, Achim Menges, an architect and professor at the University of Stuttgart in Germany, sees them as wood’s greatest assets. Menges and his team at the Institute for Computational Design and … Read more