Acoustic comfort is affected by the levels and the nature of the sound experienced in an interior space, measured in decibels. The functionality and aesthetics of working and living spaces are usually the primary focus of the designer, however, too often overlooked, are the factors contributing to the productivity of employees or the comfort of residents. Providing a comfortable acoustic environment contributes significantly to the overall mood and health of people operating within it.
This article was originally published on CommonEdge as "The Design Media Needs to Examine its Own Privilege."
Kate Wagner grew up in rural North Carolina. As a kid, her mom, who never went to college, worked in a grocery store deli and later in childcare. Her dad had a steady government job with a pension, and his time in the military meant he had the resources and benefits needed to get a college degree. Wagner describes her economic background as “one foot in the working class and one foot in the middle class, and it was always a negotiation between those two classes.” They were, she says, “just normal-ass American people.”
Both today and in centuries past, it is a reality of building that not every project is destined for success. Financial issues or unrealistic timetables can complicate a building’s construction but, while usually the final result eventually meets the initial expectations, other times the worst-case scenario of a building being abandoned during construction becomes a nightmare come true. Unfortunately, these failed projects have an extensive history. Economic factors are the most common cause of unfinished construction, but buildings have also been stranded in limbo by wars, geopolitical shifts, epidemics of disease and other unpredictable obstacles, leaving partial structures as haunting reminders of what might have been.
Whether partially completed and left as ruins or still under construction decades (or centuries) after initial groundbreaking, unfinished buildings offer an alternative history of our built environment, promising long-delayed gratification or examples of design so ambitious that they prove impossible to realize. Initiated by civilizations across the globe, the following list details just a few examples of history’s most interesting and infamous unfinished construction projects.
Due to its ability to be shaped into complex forms and the diversity of textures that it can offer, concrete is one of the favorite materials of many architects, who appreciate its capacity to help them realize their designs. For this reason, for this week's Photos of the Week we have selected 20 images that highlight the beauty and expressiveness of this material. Read on to see a selection of renowned photographers such as Brigida González, Bruno Candiotto, Élena Marini Silvestri, and Raphael Olivier.
This August 19th is World Photo Day, which celebrates photography on the anniversary of the day on which France bought the patent for the daguerreotype, one of the earliest photographic processes, and released it to the world for free in 1839. At ArchDaily, we understand the importance of photography in architecture—not only as a tool for recording designs, but also as a discipline that many of us enjoy. To celebrate the occasion, we decided to reveal the most popular images ever published on ArchDaily, as selected by you, our readers. Using data gathered from My ArchDaily, we have ranked the 100 most-saved images from our database; read on to see them.
During his frequent travels to Seoul, Hong Kong- and Singapore-based photographer Raphael Olivier noticed a new trend taking the South Korean capital: a crop of geometric, concrete buildings of all genres. He calls the new style Neo-Brutalism, after the modernist movement that proliferated in the late 1950s to 1970s, in which raw concrete was meant to express a truth and honesty. Olivier's observation led him to capture the phenomenon in a personal photo series—a photographic treasure trove of these projects which, when taken as a whole, uncovers a cross-section of this trend in the city's architecture.
North Korea is one of the few countries still under communist rule, and probably the most isolated and unknown worldwide. This is a result of the philosophy of Juche – a political system based on national self-reliance which was partly influenced by principles of Marxism and Leninism.
In recent years though, the country has loosened its restrictions on tourism, allowing access to a limited number of visitors. With his personal photo series “North Korea – Vintage Socialist Architecture,” French photographer Raphael Olivier reports on Pyongyang’s largely unseen architectural heritage. ArchDaily interviewed Olivier about the project, the architecture he captured, and what he understood of North Korea’s architecture and way of life.
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