In his latest photographic journey, Paul Clemence explores the architectural essence of Swiss Museums at Le Salon Suisse, Miami Art Week. Delving into the architectural artistry of the region and the museum's significance in today's urban landscape, the photographer showcases a comprehensive exhibition. Titled "Shapes, Rhythm, Abstraction: Swiss Museums," the photo series includes Geneva, Lausanne, Basel, Zurich, and St. Gallen.
The pursuit of an ideal city has long been a topic of debate among architects and urban planners. In addition to aesthetic identity and cultural heritage, the quality of life in every city represents perhaps the most important marker in this pursuit. This year, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a sister company of The Economist, has released its Global Liveability Index 2024, highlighting the cities that excel in this ongoing quest. For the third consecutive year, Vienna ranked as the most liveable city in the world. European cities Copenhagen, Zurich, and Geneva also rank high, attributed to their smaller populations, which contribute to lower crime rates and less congestion. In comparison with the 2023 ranking, the numbers for North American and Australian cities have been dragged down by the ongoing housing crisis.
The assessment ranks 173 cities from around the world. Each city is scored based on 30 qualitative and quantitative factors evaluating 5 categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. The scores are based on external data points, in-house analysts, and in-city contributors. The category of stability has registered the biggest decline, as protests and armed conflicts increased in incidence. At the bottom of the cist, the city of Damascus, Syria, continues to be ranked as the least liveable city in the survey, followed by Tripoli, Libya, reflecting severe instability.
As the landscape of architecture and urban development adapts to the modern climate, the traditional notion of construction has been significantly modified and adjusted. Specifically, principles of reuse, recycling, adaptive reuse, and the power of transforming existing structures into something more meaningful and sustainable have gained much traction. Looking at these curated collections of unbuilt projects, one can begin exploring a different way of looking at buildings and heritage, which is significantly more sensitive to the built environment.
From the austere office buildings of the United Kingdom to the proposal to re-activate a skyscraper in Ostrava, these diverse contexts tell stories of resilience, innovation, and a profound commitment to the existing built environment. Offering a new way of looking at things, the projects champion adaptive reuse and activation concepts.
CPC concrete slabs are based on the technology of "carbon pre-stressed concrete," which originated from a long-term research project conducted by the Zurich University of Applied Sciences Winterthur (ZHAW) and Silidur AG, Andelfingen. These panels are reinforced with thin, pre-stressed carbon strands, allowing them to be three to four times thinner and lighter while maintaining the same load-bearing capacity as traditional reinforced slabs.
CPC's innovative approach to concrete panel production reduces material usage by 75% and minimizes the carbon footprint of concrete production. ArchDaily interviewed Professor Josef Kurath from the Department of Architecture Design and Civil Engineering at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), who collaborated with CPC Construction in developing these concrete panels. We discussed his perspectives on decarbonizing architecture, the inspiration behind the development of CPC panels, a comparison with traditional concrete, and the potential for scalability and accessibility in the future.
For the second consecutive year, Vienna is the world’s most liveable city according to The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) 2023 Global Liveability Index. Topping the ranking for the fourth time in five years, Vienna has excelled in stability, culture and entertainment, and reliable infrastructure. Copenhagen in Denmark maintained its second position while Melbourne and Sydney came in third and fourth position, rising to the top 5 where they previously had a consistent presence among the leading positions, before the pandemic.
Under the titles of Optimism and Instability, this year’s global index score has returned to pre-Covid-19 days, highlighting that the world has fully recovered from the pandemic. Ranking living conditions in 173 cities based on stability, health care, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure, the survey suggests that nowadays, “life in cities is a bit better than at any time in the past 15 years”, although Stability scores dropped on average in 2023, due to worldwide clashes, political disruptions, social protests, inflation, and wars.
From ending up by accident in architectural studies, to eventually falling in love with the complexity of the field and the multitude of its layers, Johanna Meyer-Grohbrügge was amazed by the dual nature of architecture; its intellectual aspect, and physical outcome. Founder of Meyer-Grohbrügge in Berlin, the architect, and her studio seek to spatialize content, create relationships, and find solutions for living together.
With Toshiko Mori and Gabriela Carrillo, Johanna Meyer-Grohbrügge is part of a new documentary titled "Women in Architecture", premiering on November 3rd. The film by Sky-Frame, in collaboration with ArchDaily, and directed by Boris Noir is a catalyst for debate on one of the most pressing topics in architecture.
