Architecture: technical

Filmed in October 2008 at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture's second international conference on the changing state of materials in architecture, "Solid States: Concrete in Architecture and Structural Engineering" offers examples and insights into the ever-adapting possibilities of concrete. With the participation of prominent architects and engineers such as Steven Holl, Toshiko Mori and Bernard Tschumi, the lectures consist of footage and theories pertaining to the developments of concrete as a material within the architectural world. Looking towards the past, present and future of concrete, the conference notes its innovations and abilities while considering the material's economic, environmental and geographical impacts.

This documentary explores the Passive House movement, a new development in homebuilding technology, and how it can help address problems of climate change and the future of our planet.

Filmed at the third international conference of prominent architects and engineers at Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture in 2010, "Post Ductility: Metals in Architecture and Structural Engineering" presents a series of detailed lectures during which the past, present and future of metal is discussed. Speakers such as José Rafael Moneo, Mabel Wilson and Steven Holl bring forth examples of the material's merit and methodical use over the past two centuries. The engineerical history addressed during the conference highlights the developmental and aesthetical reliance designers have consistently felt towards metal as a material. Citing its form, structure and construction, the lecturers analyze the material's anatomy, tracking its adaptation and growth within the architectural world.

Accentuating the effects of space, light and structure, glass has become an architectural staple that encourages transparency and visibility throughout a variety of landscapes. After its role in the last century's call to a radical new architecture and urban life, glass architecture is today more ubiquitous than ever. Touching on the social and cultural aspects of its popularization, architect Elizabeth Diller states, "It's not so much about looking out, feeling the mastery of outside, it's much more about revealing ourselves to the outside in a very willful way." (Elizabeth Diller). Its latest incarnation reveals a virtually new product that is replacing the glass used even twenty years ago, offering new modes of visual depth and spatial experience to building occupants. Glass has also been the beneficiary of major advances in engineering that are decidedly less visible such as structural innovations, thermal properties, and expanded fabrication limits. Filmed at an international conference of prominent architects and engineers at Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture in September 2007, "Engineered Transparency" explores the timeline of glass as a material and its consistent significance within the architectural community.

This documentary series focuses on extreme construction projects -- be they the biggest, tallest, longest or deepest in the world -- and the machines used to create extraordinary structures.

Architect Danny Forster gets up close and personal with mega construction. Along the way, Danny explores design and construction of amazing structures. Danny loves what he does, brings some background knowledge, and gets hands on at every site.

What do you do if you don't trust the world around you? You build a new one. That's the motto of Michael Reynolds, Architect and visionary that created the Earthship. Earthships are houses that are completely self-sufficient and totally off the grid with no electricity or water bills - ever. Michael Reynolds and his team of builders along with 50 interns, who have given up their lives to be part of this project, have just four weeks to build a house in Big Sky, Montana for Earthship enthusiast Jeff Saad. Michael and his crew battle nature and time to try and complete this amazing house.

In rural Alabama, architecture students cross the threshold of poverty to build communities, not just structures, and leave snakebit to make a better world.

This film, produced by the Canadian Centre for Architecture, explores the controversial story of the planning and politics of a series of overpasses that span the parkways of Long Island, New York. These bridges were commissioned in the 1920s and 1930s by the public administrator Robert Moses. The story suggests that the bridges were designed to prevent the passage of buses, thereby allowing only people who could afford to own a car to access Long Island's leisure spaces. The film investigates the story and the ongoing academic debate that it spurred through interviews with four scholars who in the 1980s and 1990s discussed interpretations of the design: Bernward Joerges, Bruno Latour, Langdon Winner and Steve Woolgar. The questions that the film raises engage with issues of secrecy and control, the morals of power and the effects of technology. What is the relationship between politics and artifacts? How and to what degree can a project's intentions be deliberately concealed? What are the deviously designed effects and the unplanned political consequences of the agency of the artifacts that surround us? This film is part of a curatorial project carried out by Francesco Garutti while in residence as Emerging Curator 2013-2014 at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

In cities where space is scarce and populations are booming, the answer is to build up. Skyscrapers are monuments of the modern world, triumphs of human imagination made real through the might of engineering. In this series we explore the story of great buildings and the human desire to build bigger and better and conquer new heights.

Robert Maillart elegantly found ways to use concrete to overcome distances between banks, or to support a roof.

A travelogue featuring oddly-shaped buildings (and the folks who live in, work in, own and admire them) located along USA highways.

The recovery and cleanup of the World Trade Center site, and the intense public debate regarding what to build there next.

Small is Beautiful is a documentary following four people as they build their own tiny houses in pursuit of a mortgage free lifestyle, discovering that living tiny is about so much more than just the house.

A how-to and inspirational DVD video on green building featuring hybrid straw bale and adobe house design and construction, green building materials for the home, passive solar design, rainwater cisterns, earth plasters, photovoltaics, aesthetics, and more. Follow the construction of one house, from start to finish, and learn how natural building materials like straw and mud can work together with high-tech elements like a photovoltaic system to create a home that is both beautiful and energy-efficient.

This Indian Documentary Film is based on the ingenious engineering skills, innovative architectural brilliance and meticulous teamwork that boasts the success of Palais Royale as the tallest building in India.

TV producer and Internet-video personality Kirsten Dirksen invites us on her journey into the tiny homes of people searching for simplicity, self-sufficiency, minimalism and happiness by creating shelter in caves, converted garages, trailers, tool sheds, river boats and former pigeon coops.

One of 3 early 30s Paris architecture films by Chenal: Shows reinforced concrete used in 1920s churches and homes, concludes with Le Corbusier's vision of skyscrapers, light, air, and green space rather than old dark and narrow streets.

Extreme Homes is a series of tours around some of the worlds strangest, largest, and prettiest properties and their homes.

Meet hopeful house enthusiasts and join them as they build their dream home. Architecture critic Mark Isitt walks us through the process, from the very first sod to the last.

"In depth tours of magnificent homes and properties. Interviews with the experts who built and designed them as well as the owners who no enjoy them."

A journey through some of Britain's greatest historic buildings to examine their impact and influence on the country's architectural and social history.

A screening of the 30 year old Hands Over The City at the School of Architecture in Naples is the occasion for a debate among youth, historians, politicos, industrialists, environmentalists.