Jeremy Ryan

From Fast Company Holcim is one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in the manufacturing category. Source: Fast Company The construction industry has been slow to innovate, reluctant to tinker with materials and methods designed to keep people safe from structural failures. But the building sector is also the source of 40% of the global greenhouse gas emissions that threaten the planet’s ecology. Holcim, the giant Swiss cement and concrete manufacturer (the largest outside China),...

S. Guy Fishman’s 1951 Better Rooms Competition first prize entry. Entry detail of a view toward the terrace showing sleeping area at left and sitting area in right foreground. From NewCity Lit Between 1945 and 1946, when the end of World War II spurred the demobilization of 7.6 million Americans who were in military service, Chicago veterans returned to a city short by more than 100,000 homes. Homes affordable to young adults starting anew were especially lacking. The G.I. Bill offered help....

Colorado-based Prometheus Materials and other emerging companies are developing new biocements that could help meet the world’s growing concrete demands and avert climate catastrophe. [Photo: Dave Burk/©SOM] The Bio-Block Spiral is a small, short wall, but it may be a bulwark against a giant threat: climate change. The curved, mud-colored structure is part of the current Chicago Architecture Biennial, entitled “Rehearsing the Future.” Unlike the artists’ installations filling the city’s...