Meininger, who grew up in Germany but now lives in London, likes making things. So when he saw how much his young sons enjoyed the jungle gym and play forts at the local park, he made an indoor treehouse for them.
The Off-Grid Luxury Mobile Double Office is a trailer-based unit that packs two fully independent workspaces and a sleeping area into a 26-ft (7.9-m) frame, all while running entirely on solar power. Built on a double-axle trailer, the unit spans 10 ft (3 m) wide, broader than a standard tow, which means it requires a permit for road transport.
When you design your home with intentionality, you are essentially 'hard-coding' healthy behaviors into your daily rhythm. Health outcomes are the result of thousands of micro-decisions—so in his own home, he prioritized spaces like the kitchen, whose open layout makes cooking a pleasure, and the gym, centrally located.
Photovoltaic (PV) solar energy represents a modular technology that can be manufactured in large-scale facilities, generating economies of scale, while also being adaptable to small-scale applications. From residential rooftop systems to large-scale power generation installations, photovoltaic solar energy has established itself as a cost-effective option for electricity production in many countries around the world.
Lynov's project, a hybrid design inspired by Earthship principles and geodesic domes, is designed to be partially buried in soil, leveraging the earth's natural insulation to create a stable, energy-efficient environment. The ambitious plan includes multiple vaulted rooms, a greenhouse tunnel entrance and a dedicated sauna.
In the nineteenth century, entire railway networks became obsolete almost overnight, not due to physical deterioration, but because of changes in the technical standards that supported them. The expansion of railroads across Europe and North America adopted different track gauges, and as a dominant standard gradually emerged, these infrastructures became incompatible with one another.
The rods are the central element of a novel seismic-responsive structural system that is designed to help the building snap back to its original shape in the event of a major earthquake. Their trick is an embedded cluster of taut cables made from a highly flexible compound called a shape-memory alloy that's capable of bending under tension-like the lateral shaking in a California earthquake-and then straightening out.
Rather than representing a simple return to the past, this renewed interest reflects a broader reconsideration of how architecture engages with materials, local resources, and environmental conditions.
When it comes to prepping, look to the Mormons. It's right there, in the official name of the religion: To be a "Latter-day Saint" is explicitly to believe in, and prepare for, the end times. This is why, on a calm morning last September, I arrive just outside Salt Lake City in a place called American Fork and knock on the door of Tyler Stapleton, the chief product engineer for off-grid power products at 4Patriots, one of the biggest companies pushing preparedness into the mainstream.
So many homes now have high efficiency sealed combustion boilers and furnaces that do not vent out through the chimney at rooftop height. These units typically will have their intake and exhaust going out through the side of the house. These do need to be high enough off the ground to allow for typical snow patterns, but snow drifts due to high winds can pile pretty high, and this next storm is coming with very high winds.
"I thought I was going to die in the street on this day." Moses describes the moment his health deteriorated to the point where he collapsed outside Victoria Station, having lived on the streets for several months. "I was there for maybe one hour on my knees with my suitcase, and crying in a lot of pain. I was broken." Moses now says he has found a "new family" at the Salvation Army church in Chalk Farm but is still trying to find a permanent home.
In Indra's Net of pearls and jewels, every gem reflects every other, a shimmering image of interdependence. This ancient Vedic metaphor for connection across the cosmos also illuminates what the environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht first proposed in 2014as 'theSymbiocene': the era after the Anthropocene, in which human technologies take their cues from living systems and work in partnership rather than through dominance.
Having explored adaptability at the city scale, we are now zooming in on the building itself-and, crucially, on practice. How can architects, developers, and consultants embed adaptability as a measurable, mainstream outcome? This question will be on the agenda at the Adaptable Building Conference (ABC) on January 22 at the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, where architects, engineers, policymakers, and industry leaders will explore the potential of adaptable buildings-and how to deliver them at scale.
For the self-build of their modern black barn just 35 minutes from Dublin city centre, interior designer Robert Glynn and his partner used a timber frame that was erected in just three days Studio 31 founder and interior designer Robert Glynn has made a name for himself by doing what many consider the impossible: taking the stress out of the design process. It's a reassuring promise
Spaces of light and darkness are conceived to enhance circulation and spatial directionality, as well as to highlight the colors, textures, and forms of specific architectural elements. That said, the impact of natural light on building facades reveals the need to develop strategies that support energy savings, improve the thermal and visual comfort of interior spaces, and promote the reduction of carbon emissions.
The home isn't just where we live anymore. It's a mechanism for living longer. In this AD PRO LIVE report, we'll examine how residential design has become the next frontier to a healthier, longer life. Delve into the industry's expanding catalog of non-toxic materials, the architectural elements shaping conscientious builds, and the luxury amenities promoting physical and mental well-being in every room of the house.
Life doesn't pause for grief or fear. You might be going through something devastating but you're still packing lunches, still driving your kids to baseball practice, still showing up to work. One minute I find myself prepping for a whole home presentation and the next minute I'm checking the news, hoping and praying that no one has been killed on the streets today.
Architecture Office founder Alexander Mackison and glass artist Juli Bolaños-Durman had something of a creative meet-cute. The two became acquainted while running a lecture series at Custom Lane, a collaborative center for designers and makers in Edinburgh, where they both have studios. They remained friendly, so Alexander eventually learned of Juli's plans to renovate an apartment nearby. "Just through casual conversations, I became integrated into the project," he remembers.
When a 7.7-magnitude earthquake hit Myanmar last year, roads buckled and thousands of buildings collapsed. But a group of small, ultra-low-cost homes made from bamboo survived without any damage. Finished just days before the quake, the houses are emergency shelters for some of the millions of people displaced by Myanmar's ongoing civil war. Myanmar-based architecture studio Blue Temple worked with its spinoff construction company Housing Now to make the simple prefab homes as low-cost as possible while still able to withstand natural disasters.
