As we successfully launched our 14th Building of the Year Awards earlier this year, we want to thank you for being part of our community for over 10 years. Together we have been growing and contributing to the architectural scene, aiming for a better world. Now, we are proud to announce the 7th edition of The ArchDaily Building of the Year China, celebrating the best architecture in China, as chosen by you, the reader.
By nominating and voting, you form part of an interdependent, impartial, distributed network of jurors and peers that has consistently helped us celebrate architecture of every scale, purpose, and condition, and architects of all profiles. Over the coming weeks, your votes will result in 700 Chinese projects filtered down to just 10 best projects in China.
Under the theme of "Mosque: a cross-cultural building", the 4th cycle of the Abdullatif Alfozan Award for Mosque Architecture (2020-2023) has announced its 5 winning projects hailing from Australia, Turkey, Serbia, Slovenia, and Mozambique. The award ceremony took place at the Riyadh National Museum on March 5th, 2023, followed by a 2-day architectural seminar in which the architects explained the design process behind their winning projects.
Looking into mosques between the past, present, and future, the selection took into account each project's contextuality, privacy, its religious and architectural significance, and contribution to the community. Over 200 mosque were submitted from across the world, narrowed down to a shortlist of 22 projects. The five winning mosques, however, were commended for looking beyond common mosque typologies, as they explored the importance of feeling within a religious space, their value as "urban communication tools", and how their architectural languages are re-establishing the values of the religion.
The Austin Transit Partnership has selected UNStudio, HKS, and Gehl to lead the architecture and urban design of Project Connect, a major expansion of the public transportation system in Austin, Texas, in the United States. The project is set to become a transformative investment, including and integrating the light rail system, expanded bus routes, and connectivity with more services across the city. The initiative is also voter-approved. In November 2020, Austin citizens approved Project Connect, leading to the creation of the independent entity Austin Transit Partnership charged with implementing the project. The citizens of Austin are invited to continue to get involved and provide feedback.
With many high streets hollowing out and the National Health Services Association pushed to its limits, Heatherwick Studio is calling for a new kind of health space in metropolitan cities. The Health Street initiative is placed right at the heart of urban communities, reimagining the way we look at well-being and the holistic health of complete localities. Moreover, this radical approach to health creation is based on integrating community-led facilities into the local high streets.
In both cases, the reduced area, simple materials and modest budget were not impediments to a virtuous architectural project that took full advantage of the qualities of the surroundings and the terrain's orientation, proving that limitations can serve as an impetus for higher quality projects.
March 8th is celebrated as International Women's Day, a date remembered for years as a symbol of the fight for their rights. However, although many countries have laws establishing equal rights for men and women, gender inequality and all its consequences are still experienced every day by girls and women all around the world. The patriarchal system, rooted in many societies over the centuries, has been responsible for inequality of power between the genders which, in the most extreme cases, results in violence and femicide.
Lighting is often a numbers game — too much, and interiors lose their edge (literally), too little, and the dim atmosphere can make a space seem bland. Its importance in interior design cannot be overstated: done right, it not only accentuates a space's architectural features but also makes inhabitants feel at ease. As Carmelo Zappulla of Lighting Studio External Reference explains in a recent interview with Architonic, light is a crucial tool to add an emotional element and "animate a space." It follows that a lighting concept gone wrong can have catastrophic consequences for an otherwise perfectly designed room.
Data Feminism, as conceptualized by D’Ignazio & Klein (2020), introduces intersectional feminism in data science and invites us to examine power relations and dynamics of oppression that are built into data infrastructures that underpin society today.
Few architects in history have had the honor and privilege of intervening in the famous St. Mark's Square in Venice — a tourist landmark of incomparable historical value to humanity. Sir David Chipperfield is one of them. As if that was not enough, he also left his mark on another project of inestimable value: the Neue Nationalgalerie, designed originally by Mies van der Rohe in Berlin. The four centuries that separate the design from its restoration seem to pose no difficulties for the 2023 Pritzker Prize winner, who rejects an international style of architecture in search of a trait that highlights local qualities.
The 2023 Pritzker Prize has been awarded to Sir David Chipperfield, London-born, architect, urban planner, and activist. David Chipperfield, founded his architectural practice in 1985 in London under the name of David Chipperfield Architects, after shaping his career working with renowned architects such as Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, and Douglas Stephen. He studied art and architecture at the Kingston School of Art, graduating in 1976, and continued his studies at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, concluding in 1980. Today, David Chipperfield Architects has expanded to include offices in Berlin, Shanghai, Milan, and the latest office opened in Santiago de Compostela.
By emulating manual manufacturing techniques, 3D printing utilizes digital models to create customized three-dimensional objects through an additive production process. This tool enables architecture to explore innovative forms, structures, and materialities, providing new paths for creative thinking. Progressively expanding its limits, 3D printing is integrating other existing technologies to unlock new uses and typologies. Such is the case with the work of Philipp Aduatz, which combines 3D printed textured structures with LED lighting, adding a new layer of complexity to enable the creation of the world's first 3D printed film studio.
Villa Peer / UAU Collectiv Architects. Image Courtesy of Randers Tegl
Identified as small rectangular blocks made of fired or sun-dried clay, bricks have traditionally been used for building pavements, walls and other elements of masonry construction. Laid in courses or rows and joined together with mortar, bricks are known for their strong structural strength and durability. But beyond their basic functional purposes, their multiple patterns, sizes and shapes allow for a distinctive aesthetic with an infinite design versatility, becoming a design feature themselves. Showcasing an example of aesthetic brickwork, we will take a closer look of Villa Peer, an architecture project in Belgium that uses Randers Tegl’s long format waterstruck bricks as the main design feature for the whole building’s facade.
Yanacancha-Huaquis Cultural Landscape, Peru. Image Courtesy of World Monuments Fund
The World Monuments Fund (WMF) announced a commitment of more than US$10 million to go towards preservation projects to protect culturally significant places from around the globe in urgent need of intervention. The initiatives vary in scope, from winterization efforts at Ukrainian heritage sites to protecting remote archeological sites representative of Peru’s Chachapoyas Civilization. The suite of projects launching in 2023 aims to address and help mitigate the threats that heritage sites are facing: conflict, climate change, and underrepresentation.
At the 2023 Biennale Architettura, Finland'sPavilion will present its exhibition Huussi, Imagining the Future History of Sanitation, which deals with the architecture of water and nutrient circulation, questioning the water toilet and Its implications for the future. "Huussi" is the Finnish word for an outhouse, a small compost toilet commonly used by Finns in rural settings and holiday homes. The exhibition, curated by Arja Renell and The Dry Collective, a group of Finnish architects, presents this typology as a starting point to finding alternative solutions to managing wastewater, inspiring professionals to start envisioning new sanitation solutions. At the core of the presentation, the exhibition questions the consequences of waste in the context of the current climate crisis the world is going through.
Despite not being found in nature, right angles are the most used by architects. In the search for more functionality and practicality in construction, squares and rectangles emerge as the main option when designing. On the other hand, several vernacular and ancestral architectures adopted arches and circular plans as a solution. The game of geometric shapes in the architectural composition is vast, but we cannot forget a polygon that also stands out: the hexagon.
With frames and surrounding waterproof panels in any colour to match or contrast the surrounding decor, shower enclosures like Eterna from Samo are a useful tool in bathroom design. Image Courtesy of Samo
I’ve written before about my preference for showers over baths in the sanitation stakes. An instant hit of hygiene therapy, they’re quicker, cleaner, more energy efficient, and use less water than their horizontal siblings.
Thankfully, I’m not in the minority. Shower popularity means there’s a huge range of shapes, sizes, and types on the market. However, bathroom planning can be exhausting with so many to choose from. Here are six simple questions to ask when looking for the perfect shower enclosure to fit any type of space, lifestyle, or preference.
When people describe the modernist movement as a whole, they broadly reference the steel and glass skyscrapers which dot many of our cities’ skylines, or more specifically, the International Style that once emerged from Europe after World War I. The International Style represented technological and industrial progress and a renaissance of social constructs that would forever influence the way that we think about the use of space across all scales. Often designed as politically charged buildings seeking to make a statement towards totalitarian governments, many architects who influenced the style moved to the United States after World War II, paving the way for some of the most iconic buildings and skyscrapers to be built in the 20th century.
As farmers water crops by moonlight, undocumented children head to school and villagers scan the sky for surveillance airplanes—these are glimpses of a complex culture that emerges in south Lebanon after dark. In collecting some of these nightly practices, Mohamad Nahleh—lecturer in architecture and urbanism at MIT—journeyed across the landscapes of Jabal ‘Amil hoping to build a new alliance between architecture and the night. His "Path of Nightrise" research has turned into a construction to revive a forgotten river path and was published by Places Journal. The interview with Nahleh argues for a new nocturnal imagination in design and reveals, not only how the night has changed in Lebanon over time, but also how he has changed alongside it.
As part of our yearly tradition, we have asked our readers who should win the 2023 Pritzker Prize, the most important award in the field of architecture.
For those who don't know, the Pritzker Prize is funded by Jay Pritzker through the Hyatt Foundation in the United States and has been awarded to living architects, regardless of their nationality, whose built work "has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity through the art of architecture."
When streets lay empty, sidewalks untouched, and shutters hung heavy, the city seems lost of life. When businesses close, offices go remote and economic activity declines, the mechanisms that operate a city are idle. Vacant space and land are often perceived as “failed”, reflecting urban decline and economic blight. Emptiness, however, holds hope for possibilities and change. When urban voids are at the brink of transformation, what happens in the meanwhile?
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AXOR Citterio E I AXOR Starck Shower Column. Image Courtesy of AXOR
Hadi Teherani approaches his architecture and design projects holistically. Born in Teheran and raised in Hamburg, he is a prolific and versatile designer whose works can be found in Germany and all over the world. His projects have been recognized with internationally renowned awards for their ecologically-sound sustainability and holistic approach. Maybe that’s the reason for his constant stream of ideas: he sees the process of creation as a reaction to what he sees, senses and feels.
Designing from personal perception and inspiration, Teherani's bathroom concept for the AXOR DISTINCTIVE project was born. When asked by the brand how he would define his very personal “bathroom with personality”, the architect answered with a design that reflects an individual idea of this space, derived from this self-image — in its daily use, its design and its furnishing.
The 2023 Winter Stations has just announced eight winning projects for their 9th annual international competition. The winners were chosen from hundreds of entries from around the world, along with three student designs from Toronto Metropolitan University, Waterloo Department of Architecture, and Guelph University. The competition was first launched at Woodbine beach by RAW design,Ferris + Associates, and Curio, to capture the imagination of designers and architects to create bold designs that spark conversation, transforming lifeguard stations at Toronto’s Woodbine beach. Furthermore, since these lifeguard stations are usually dormant throughout the winter, the exhibition inspires artists to bring the public back outdoors with their unique designs.
