Any kid with an architectural bent—and many a grown designer—has dreamed up elaborate and maybe-crazy buildings, made from materials that don’t exist with anti-gravity properties that make soaring heights a cinch. And while it’s not to say that some pretty extraordinary (La Sagrada Familia) and experimental (Fonthill) buildings don’t get built, vast cities of the never built remain in our collective unconscious.

Dreams aside, there are plenty of examples of interesting buildings that got to the sketch or model stage from some well-known architects, but were never constructed (see some dramatically interesting examples from the City of Angels in this month’s story, “Dreams Unfulfilled.”)

Seeing what they didn’t build can give us (almost) as much insight into these architects’ work and method as those that were. Read more…

A Chicago Tribune series this past summer, “Playing with Fire,” shed new light on an old but hidden problem – the ubiquity of toxic chemicals embedded in many of the materials used in our indoor environment, halogenated flame retardants (HFRs) for one. Boiled down to the essentials, the issues call out for our attention:

• Flame-retardant chemicals are included in a wide range of materials and furnishings as the most expedient and least costly path to meeting the flammability standards. These sandards are written into law with the intent of reducing fire hazard by slowing the spread and intensity of fires. The state of California’s flammability standards for furniture are most often met by adding HFRs to foam; the International Code Council (and the local jurisdictions that adopt their standards into codes) leads to HFR use in foam insulation; and their use in electronics is a result of standards set by the International Electrotechnical Commission. These standards for furniture and insulation developed largely in response to the increased use of foam in the built environment, coinciding with an increase in fire incidents, primarily involving cigarettes. These standards were written reactively and without much planning or evaluation of appropriateness at the time they were implemented.
• In the case of foam insulation, the requirement that is met through the use of flame retardants is based on an inappropriately-applied flame test: The Steiner Tunnel Test is designed to study flame spread in tunnel conditions, not in a building’s interior. At a summit on flame retardants held the day prior to Greenbuild in San Francisco last month, fire scientist Dr. Vyto Babrauskas stated that the Steiner Tunnel Test “Might be an appropriate test if we lived in coal mines, with a low ceiling and a massive fan blowing heat through the space.” California’s furniture flammability standard, adopted in 1975 and known as Technical Bulletin 117, utilizes a small flame test. As a special 2011 report by Environmental Health News explains, “Naked foam treated with flame retardants to meet TB117 can resist a small open flame. But when fabric starts to burn, the foam will be exposed to a much larger flame than used in the TB117 test, and there’s no evidence that treated foam can resist that larger flame.” Since manufacturers who want to sell furniture in California must meet these standards, and since the state has such a significant economic influence, the state standard becomes the default standard for the rest of the country as well. Read more…