BELFAST DRAWING VISITORS

Mention Northern Ireland, and two images likely come to mind: rolling green hills and violent clashes dressed up as religious unrest. While the first are very much still in evidence, the latter are much less so. In fact, the region has transformed in the last ten years, with the capital city of Belfast bustling as a center of redevelopment.

LEAVES OF GLASS

Glass, as a building material, offers a special interlayer between our outer and inner space and has opened up and contained, as well as sheltered and revealed, the architecture of its time. Architects' pursuit of the minimal environmental envelope has created an evolutionary and reductionist approach, whereby glass has become a predominant and essential cladding material of contemporary architecture.

STRUTTING SPACE

Students at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation have been building complex structures — and in the process learning about parametric modeling, digital fabrication, and computer-assisted assembly.

They have been using the Trusset System, developed by Columbia researchers in the Avery Digital Fabrication Laboratory. The system provides an inexpensive and simple method for manufacturing and building a custom-designed, three-dimensional space-truss structure and enclosure.

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