The Rooftop Trend and How It Began

When the weather is great and sunny, isn’t it nice to be able to spend your time on a rooftop ? Enjoying the sun, the view and feel that luxury of city living ! The access to a rooftop is very popular and many restaurants, hotels and apartment buildings offer a great place on the rooftop.

Hotel Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

Hotel Banyan Tree (Bangkok)

But this trend hasn’t exist 140 years ago. At that time, rooftop wasn’t viewed as a luxury, it was used by domestic servants to hang out wet laundry and for industrial equipment. The attitude of most residents against rooftop can be said to be awkward and the impulse of most residents was to stay away.

A group of boys play marbles on a New York rooftop as laundry hangs in the background. Date unknown. (Bain News Service/Library of Congress)

This attitude began to change in the 1880s, when Rudolph Aronsin, inspired by European traditional, built a garden on the roof of his Moorish-styled Casino Theatre on Broadway to stage operettas, musicals and concerts. Other theaters took note and roof gardens blossomed in New York. Theater rooftop gardens became a summertime entertainment and offered an exotic and relaxing place for the locales to escape from the din and heat of the city.

A beer garden on top of the Belasco Theatre, ca. the 1880s. (New York Historical Society)

Elevator is an important factor that increase the value of top-floor apartments. It has before lower rents because of the exhaustive climb and proximity to the rooftop service space. Elevator make these quieter, sunnier and with grand views place more easily accessible and therefore more valuable.

Invest in rooftops declined after the war, but we can find some modern architectures that remind us of American’s taste for rooftop garden. With more and more people being aware of sustainability, roof gardens are more and more often built for ecological benefits.

The Chicago City Hall

To help you build your perfect garden roof, Shanghai Metal Corporation can provide you with the necessary materials ! We have rock wool, ideal for growing plants and we accept any challenging construction projects. Please contact us if you need further information, our English speaking staff will be very glad to help you. To be fully updated on our products, follow us on social media.

    

Original article : citylab
Photos : citylab, google image

Ayu P.//SMC editor

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The New Building Trend : Green Building

Green building, also known as green construction or sustainable building is a building structure that is “environmentally responsible” and “resource-efficient”. It has the objective to reduce the negative effect of built environment on human health and the natural environment by :

• Efficiently using resources (energy, water, etc.)
• Protecting occupant’s health & improving the employee’s productivity
• Reducing environmental degradation (waste, pollution)

According to a study, green building construction is increasing across the globe as it is more and more viewed as a long-term business opportunity. More and more building owners and developers switch from new building design to a more green building. Green building is hitting the mainstream, therefore, to distinguish themselves, developers focus more and more on designing green building.

Graphic from World Green Building Trends

There are different factors that drive the construction of green building and they vary around the world. Australia, USA and European Countries are mostly influenced by business factors (market & client demand). Singapore, UAE and South Africa are more influenced by regulation (government’s policies) and ethical reasons.

Several green building certification has been established and may attract competitors.  One of the most notable are LEED and BREEAM. Below you can discover some buildings that has been awarded with a green building certification.

Taipei 101, Taiwan

This skycrapper is the tallest and largest building of LEED Platinum certification in the world since 2011.

Abad Nucleus Mall, India

This mall is India’s first LEED certified gold-rated green mall.

The University of Texas, USA

This is the first academic building in Texas to receive LEED Platinum certification.

Shearer’s Foods plant, USA

We have here the first food manufacturing plant to receive LEED Platinum status.

David L. Lawrence Convention Center, USA

This is the first convention center in the world to have received the Gold and Platinum LEED rating.

There exists thousand of other construction that has been awarded as green building and the number keeps increasing. We are getting more and more involved in fighting against environmental degradation. Shanghai Metal Corporation cares about the future and participate in reducing energy consumption. We offer solar panel that can be designed according to your projects and drawings. We also have eco-friendly material for buildings and we can help you with many types of construction projects. Please feel free to contact us if you need further information. Also follow us on social media to have a quick update of our products.

    

Credits to : wikipedia, World Green Building Trends, bdcnetwork
Photos : google image

Ayu P.//SMC editor

Money Is So Over: Pay With Tweets

Hub of a number of astonishing fashion and high-tech trends such as CityCharger, New York City has once more set a new thing: the pop-up tweet shop. At the Marc Jacobs Tweet shop in SoHo at 462 West Broadway customers could pay in tweets at the check-out counter. The shop in NYC was the first one to successfully create a social buzz around fashionistas and media-savvy shoppers, followed by a Convent Garden pop-up shop in London last month.

Put up to last a couple of days the lounge-inspired pop-up shop features apart from a lounge area, photo booth, vine booth, food, drinks, free Wi-Fi, and nail bar, all accompanied by the skills of DJ Jilly Hendrix. Goodies such as mini-fragrances, clothing and accessories could be purchased and paid in form of tweets, Facebook or Instagram posts followed by the hashtag #MJDaisyChain. To enhance the social campaign MJ store is also giving handbags as rewards to best Instagram photos.

This is not the only social marketing campaign to use exquisite forms of currency in exchange for goods. McDonald’s Stockholm has also set a new trend by accepting recycled cans as payment for burgers. Linked to a more “proud” cause, McDonald’s social campaign can be said to have a deeper purpose behind it unlike MJ pop-up stores that mainly aim at creating a social buzz among their consumers and admirers.

Shanghai Metal Corporation, a specialist manufacturer and trader of metal products, doesn’t accept social currency for the moment. But you can find us on WordPress, LinkedIn , Twitter , Facebook  and Instagram. To find out more, please visit our Website, Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code. Moreover, we sell directly from Alibaba , EC21, Tradekey or directly at sales@shanghaimetal.com.

#BuildingValueAcrossTheGlobe

Sources and pictures: fashionista.com, timeout.com, psfk.com, graphiquefantastique.com, simplyq.com, mdgadvertising.com, mdgadvertising.com, luxury-insider.com

Camilla G.//SMC Editor

 

Furniture Trend Alert

Trending currently around the world is the increase in popularity of galvanized furniture; prized for its often industrial look, adaptability and durability (especially in outdoor settings) consumers are updating their homes with these trendy pieces. Pictured below is a striking outdoor setup where a selection of galvanized pieces has made a particularly striking impression on an already stellar location.

Complementing this galvanized furnishing trend is the addition of industrial fittings to the home and bare walled rooms to give the impression that one is in a warehouse. This has the effect of opening up a space and also allowing the resident of the dwelling to have a unique living perspective. This ideal is emphasized below, where galvanized furniture is complemented with galvanized steel bars to create this aesthetic but also a bonus practical foot rest.

Further tapping into this trend is our example below, which goes one step further by incorporating the use of reclaimed timber scaffolding along with galvanized piping to emphasize the urban rival and reclamation that this trend emphasizes.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers galvanized steel in a multitude of forms that can be used to satisfy the applications mentioned above. These include piping, galvanized steel coils, strips, sheets, plates, wire, pre-painted steel, roofing material (in a number of profiles) as well as steel grating.

To find out more about these products or to discuss customization and individual requirements please visit our website Here. For more updates on this and other exciting developments follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Linkedin. Or by using your smart device, scan the QR code below!

 

Dominick F.//SMC Editor

Sources: Groundwork, Coroflot