After a 2020 that will be remembered as a point of inflection for our global society, 2021 only reminded us that the fast phase of change was here to stay, and that a new attitude towards the way we see and embrace the world was needed. A challenge that we took with optimism.
During this year we continued with our mission to connect our global community through inspiration and knowledge, taking you on an endless journey around the world, through which we saw how architecture, often slow to react, was up to the challenge and architect embraced a new attitude, becoming aware of the new scenario, bringing adaptable, hybrid, scalable, reusable solutions.
As we are at the peak of the urban era, the question of the built environment has become a transversal concern, making architecture more necessary than ever. In this process architecture has been pushed to open and become more inclusive. We believe that architecture is not just for architects, and we have seen how the boundaries of the profession become diffuse and permeable. Why does architecture have to be distant, uncertain, unpredictable? As it has happened in many industries, digitalization has reduced complexity, lowered prices and empowered consumers. And it is happening to our industry, where an empowered and fast growing number of prosumers are engaging with architecture and architects in a new and informed way. From the fast evolving trends of micro living, tiny cabins, off the grid living, to the lockdown push into questioning our quality of life and improving our homes, how we live in the built environment became one of the most important questions of 2021, a common place where architects and larger society found each other.
As it happened with finance or retail, our industry is about to be disrupted, and we are happy to see a new breed of startups that are taking the challenge to digitalize and make architecture more accessible, democratic and sustainable, combining bits and atoms to bridge digital and physical, as seen at the startups selected as part of ArchDaily 2021 New Practices.
In this new context, the mindset of the architect is also permeating outside of our traditional sphere, and our skill set (abstraction, collaboration, problem solving) is finding a new place in different industries, from manufacturing to interfaces and the upcoming metaverse, opening new opportunities to the new generation of graduates, who often saw an uncertain future when looking at architecture as a fixed profession.
While we started to connect our community around these issues, interest and engagement only grew, and during 2021 we reached new highs with more than 22 million visits per month across our network. We continued to grow on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and on Instagram, where with 3.4 million followers we found new ways to connect with our creative community. TikTok and Discord remain as our next frontier.
During this year we worked hard to give presence to architecture offices and photographers in their enhanced profiles, and we also opened our platform to the different professionals that participate in the building cycle. We kept improving the dashboard for the materials industry, our search, and new ways to manage your newsletter subscriptions and email alerts.
What to expect in 2022? While we continue to connect the world around inspiration and knowledge on the built environment, from the local to the glocal, we will dive into the new grey area that the boundary of our profession has become, to connect the new startups in the space. We plan to bring new tools to help connect architects and other professionals with more business opportunities, and of course to improve our usability and user experience, putting our users first.
As I mentioned before, we started with optimism, but it was not easy. As we started a new era for ArchDaily in 2020, as part of Architonic ArchDaily, our global team has faced many internal challenges. But our team is committed to our mission of improving the quality of our built environment through inspiration and knowledge, improving the way we deliver it to you in 2021 and we will continue to live by our commitment to bring you even more in 2022.
Thanks for your support, because as a platform ArchDaily only exists with you.
Best regards,
David Basulto
Founder & Editor in Chief
