New Atlas

Architecture Audio available

Imperial War Museum archive is most airtight Passivhaus building to date

Adam Williams June 11, 2019

Britain's Imperial War Museum (IWM) recently gained a new archive to help house its vast collection of records. The IWM Paper Store is one seriously energy efficient building and is also the most airtight Passivhaus project to date, according to International Passivhaus Association records.

The Imperial War Museum Paper Store was completed in January, 2019 and cost £2,863,000 (roughly US$3.6 ...

Aircraft

KLM and TU Delft eye sustainable aviation future with V-shaped flyer

Paul Ridden June 4, 2019

When Gibson introduced the Flying V electric guitar in 1958, it divided opinion. A bold new aviation concept out of TU Delft is sure to do the same. Wearing the same moniker as Gibson's iconic instrument, the design is aimed at improving aircraft efficiency and sustainability.

The Flying-V concept is reckoned to use 20 percent less fuel than an Airbus A350-900

Tiny Houses

Living small in the high desert

Joe Salas January 18, 2019

I've often wondered what it would actually be like to have a small footprint, off-grid house. How does it work? What does it take? How much does it really cost? Does it feel like going back in time?

As you can see, this tiny home is almost completely isolated in the high desert of ...

Environment Feature

Beyond oil: Inside Dubai's Sustainable City

Nick Lavars December 10, 2018

The carefully planned Dubai Sustainable City is a reminder that between the towering skyscrapers there is plenty of environmental awareness to be found. As cranes hover at its edges expanding its footprint piece by piece, New Atlas ventured into the desert to see it all from the inside out.

A "central green spine" runs down the center of Dubai's Sustainable City

Architecture Audio available

Shimmering sustainable home on the lake uses glass to give residents a floating sensation

Nick Lavars December 9, 2018

As the name might suggest, the Glass Villa on the lake is big on transparency, with its walls largely consisting of panes of glass designed to leave residents with the impression of floating on the water.

Good Thinking

Seven brilliant inventions from the world's biggest student design show

Nick Lavars November 18, 2018

With 150 projects from the world’s leading design schools on show, the Global Grad Show in Dubai is an annual celebration of all the creativity student design has to offer. New Atlas was on the ground at this year’s edition to sniff out the brightest ideas.

Zhang Liye from China’s Huazhong University of Science and Technology designed Acorn, an entirely biodegradeable base ...

3D Printing Audio available

Pulped paper replaces plastic as the raw material for this 3D printer

Paul Ridden November 8, 2018

With a few notable exceptions, the majority of objects removed from a 3D printer bed are fashioned with plastic. But plastic has a nasty habit of ruining our environment at the end of its useful life. Beer Holthuis has built a 3D printer that extrudes paper pulp to build three-dimensional objects.

When objects produced by the Paper Pulp Printer are no longer needed, they can be recycled ...

Environment

How biodiversity loss is quietly eroding the potential for life-saving drug discovery

Nick Lavars November 3, 2018

Drawing on nature to cure ailments stretches back thousands of years, but with our destruction of the environment continuing apace, some are concerned how much of it we’ll have to depend on in the future.

The Amazon rainforest in Brazil is home to a multitude of species, which could be sources ...

Good Thinking

Potato plastic and 3D-printed ant nests feature in the 2018 James Dyson Awards

Rich Haridy October 18, 2018

The finalists for this year’s James Dyson Award offer an exciting array of clever design solutions. Some of the highlights include biodegradable plastic made from potato starch and prefabricated ant nests designed to help rural communities easily harvest insects for food.

Architecture

Mud-spraying drones take aim at low-cost housing

Nick Lavars October 2, 2018

Further to opening our eyes to all kinds of new perspectives on our environment, we are beginning to see how drones can play very active roles in its construction. The latest example comes from a team of researchers that hope to use them to craft low-cost housing made from natural materials.

Researchers hope to fit drones with spraying hoses to apply layers of biomaterials onto light structures, ...