Reinvention is one of the founding myths of the United States of America. For those lucky enough to come here on the decks of ships rather than chained in the hold, this country offered a chance to be someone else, somewhere else. For them and generations of immigrants who followed, America seemed to put a safe distance between their pasts and a boundless future.
But the illusion was eventually flipped on its head. Around the turn of the millennium, reinvention was a prevailing theme for movie characters intent on getting out of small-town America; in architecture, that sentiment took the form of building dream cities anywhere but here. In Dubai and Shanghai our brightest design minds conjured up hermetically sealed towers, malls, and museums largely disconnected from history, community, and climate.
Architects are constantly diving into design strategies that aim to select the best products to create outstanding atmospheres inside their projects. The solutions adopted in projects, especially in interiors, are highly influenced by trends that mirror what society values most at the time. But how are interiors being designed nowadays? With a focus on natural interiors and the interaction with their context, architecture is prioritizing local materials and textures, natural light and the use of minimal furniture that allows continuity throughout space.
Below we present a selection of inspiring projects that, using products from Spanish brands, showcase these modern trends, from the use of natural materials to maximizing natural light.
If you’ve been avoiding some of the latest news recently, here’s a quick update; European and North American countries have been facing one of the hottest recorded summers in modern history. Discussions over the climate crises have therefore been reignited and so has the role of the design and construction industry in providing solutions that would mitigate the experienced heat effects in our daily lives. While passive cooling solutions have always been used in some parts of the world, where local resources and vernacular builds are adapted to high temperatures, other regions are looking to technological and innovative manufacturing means that would maintain human comfort, aesthetic values, and energy efficiency/ cost.
Although early modernism with its signature high-rises and glass houses had made us think that glass enveloped buildings are mostly uncomfortable, over-exposed, and overheating settings; nowadays glass manufacturers are proving that glass, if well treated and well-placed, can be as versatile and efficient a material as one could want without compromising the visual comfort or the dwellers.
Nevada's annual Burning Man is underway at the Black Rock Desert. Under the theme of Waking Dreams, this year's festival is exploring the "transformative power of dreams, both literal and figurative, and celebrating the dreamers who channel this potent energy in eye-opening, often surrealistic, sometimes life-changing ways". The "temporary metropolis" is running until September 5th, and is expected to showcase numerous installations and pavilions that celebrate "community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance".
In large cities, it is becoming increasingly common to find buildings that are capable of admitting different configurations and layouts in their internal spaces. Towards the end of the 1960s, duplex typologies began to appear in buildings in the city of Buenos Aires, when the Building Code allowed them to be located in the obligatory setbacks of the upper floors.
Co-living is a residential community living model, referring to a modern form of group housing that has significantly transformed London life and the UK as a whole. The notion of co-living has even more so been popularized by the rise of housing startups, with many offering affordable housing in homes and apartments alike shared by a handful of adult housemates.
“Hope for Architecture” is the calling of Clay Chapman and described by him as “a building initiative to address the challenges of an uncertain future.” In truth, “Hope for Architecture” is a masonry and timber technology, reinvented and adapted from antiquity for this moment. Clay and his young family moved to Carleton Landing, Oklahoma fifteen years ago to fulfill a mission: creating a community and explore that technology.
Achieving the perfect bathroom design and layout for each user comes with a lot of very detailed decision-making. One example is the shower versus bath debate, which includes valid arguments in favor of each option, and no objective right or wrong. When designing a bathroom, architects must use their experience and perception to make decisions that will best respond to the layout’s spatial needs. Shower or bathtub standard dimensions, placement of elements, and material selection are some of the factors that must be studied before adjusting to the user’s requirements.
With an analysis of four factors –spatial needs, user needs, innovation, and sustainability– the following article aims to discuss the pros and cons of bathtubs and showers. Through a selection of innovative, accessible and space-saving bathroom layouts, all of which include products from the Bathroom category on Architonic, the discussion exemplifies solutions to possible shower and bathtub problems.
Ahead of the official opening of the Expo City Dubai site on October 1st, the organizers have announced that visitors will have the chance to discover two of the Expo's thematic pavilions: Alif and Terrastarting September 1st, marking its inauguration. The pre-launch will also feature access to Garden in the Sky, a 360-degrees platform that offers panoramic views of the site.
CHYBIK + KRISTOF have unveiled the design for a Public Art Gallery clad in movable copper plates. The conceptual project is located in a new public square, near a riverbank with access to the water. The cultural function marks the heart of the new development. The cylindrical volumes are inspired by past functions of the area: mining, smelting, and minting. Toward the public square, the cylinders are elevated with the purpose of connecting the interior of the building with the surrounding public space.
As a protagonist of the Argentinean culinary scene, the barbecue plays a prominent role. In architecture, beyond the dimensions of the spaces where they are installed, grills are consolidated as a meeting point for visitors and residents of the houses, coming into direct contact with the customs and culture of the country.
Fairview Park Comfort Station, Staten Island. Image via NYC Parks, Design by Sage and Coombe Architects
In the realm of design, we often talk about ensuring that there are enough public spaces to serve a community. We discuss the need for public parks so that people have access to outdoor spaces. We think about public transportation, and how our dwindling reliance on cars will help to ensure that we have a healthier planet. But what about the public spaces we lack? What happens when we don’t have enough public restrooms?
Beneath the Spaceship Earth geodesic sphere and the display of world cultures that symbolize Disney World’s EPCOT lies the buried vision for a utopian city. The original EPCOT - a community built around innovation - was one of Walt Disney’s last visionary projects. Bothered by haphazard urban sprawl, Disney had bold ideas for an urban fabric that would drive progress in the USA. The “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow” was Walt Disney’s antidote to the decay of American cities.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has announced that Boston’s iconic concrete Government Center, the Hurley Building, will be getting a complete renovation by architecture firm NBBJ. Originally designed by Paul Rudolph, the brutalist building and its site were listed for sale in 2019. The new mixed-use development will "catalyze substantial economic development on the underutilized and uninviting site with a new life-sciences building, renovated state offices, ground-floor retail, improved public open space, and 200 units of mixed-income housing as part of a dynamic mixed-use development which will enliven and reactivate 5 acres in Downtown Boston".
Grimshaw Architects has revealed the design for a 16-soundstage studio production campus for the independent company East End Studios. Located on a 15-acre former industrial site in the Arts District in Los Angeles, the campus will provide creative workplace buildings and production support spaces connected via a series of outdoor terraces and walkways. The project responds to its location and context by moving away from the traditional studio layout and instead opting to create a “vertical campus”. This composition creates a more open public relationship with the downtown neighborhood while ensuring that all campus facilities are well connected.
Usually, refurbishments are to completely change a space or, in a more surgical way, to bring about improvements in mobility and privacy issues. No matter the number of walls to be demolished, coatings to be replaced and joinery to be designed, the result is always looking for a more functional and beautiful space. In the case of apartments that usually have standard floor plans, intervening in them is also a way of bringing a unique and more personal character to each home.
https://www.archdaily.com/987607/before-and-after-10-refurbishments-in-brazilian-apartmentsArchDaily Team
Buenos Aires, Argentina. Image from sharptoyou. Image via Shutterstock
Understanding the diversity and plurality of people who inhabit and pass through cities on a daily basis, gender-responsive urban planning aims to incorporate all those identities, perspectives and activities that have been invisible for years. Understanding the complexities that surround cities and getting involved in the urban experiences of their inhabitants, public spaces turn out to be the scenario for the development of urban life and, as such, should bring together a series of guidelines and considerations in accordance with this new paradigm that act as planning tools, composing this network of spaces and contemplating all the users of the city.
The Second Studio (formerly The Midnight Charette) is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features different creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions.
A variety of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes are interviews, while others are tips for fellow designers, reviews of buildings and other projects, or casual explorations of everyday life and design. The Second Studio is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.
This week David and Marina are joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning Architectural Critic and Author Paul Goldberger to discuss his journey to becoming an architectural critic; the importance of critics, their role in society, and the challenges of being one; adapting to the digital age; his critiquing process; the state of architecture today; and more.
https://www.archdaily.com/988021/the-second-studio-podcast-interview-with-paul-goldbergerThe Second Studio Podcast
Can you imagine a world in which the built environment around us is 3D printed from living materials? That buildings will germinate, bloom, wither, produce new kinds of material, and eventually return back to the soil? To Grow a Building is a performative lab space that 3D prints - in real time - a live structure. The project presents a new approach to integrating flora into the design process, by developing a novel material for 3D printing, through which seeding is an inseparable part of the fabrication process. To Grow a Building is a gate into a future world in which there are people who build buildings, and there are people who grow them.
The architectural identity and urban fabric of the old city of Frankfurt has grown organically over centuries. Shops, bars, and craftsmen's workshops have always attracted a lot of visitors to the area between the Cathedral, or "Dom" in German, and the Römer, the main square in the center of Frankfurt. Historically, the area included buildings of many different styles, such as Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Classical architecture, which most locals only knew about from black and white photographs, the town’s famous miniature model in the historic museum, or stories passed down through generations.
However, the quarter’s picturesque buildings and alleyways, were almost entirely destroyed during the Second World War, but the collaborative work of the community and local authorities have made it seem as though time before the war stood still. The entire quarter was reconstructed exactly as its original plans, bringing Frankfurt’s medieval history back to life and creating what is now known as the Neue Alstadt, a project considered by some to be controversial.
Ennead Architects has revealed its competition design entry for the Chilean-Argentine border complex along the Cardenal Antonio Samoré Pass, one of the most heavily-trafficked mountain passes through the southern Andes and between the two countries. Dubbed Samoré, the project is designed to serve as a welcoming station and refuge for travelers, complementing the Patagonian tradition of remote mountain shelters that are commonly found across the southern Andes.
Boston is the latest city to announce a city-wide plan that, if passed, would eliminate the use of fossil fuels in new constructions and major renovation projects. This measure expands upon the commitment to enact climate action and make Boston a Green New Deal city. Other US cities like New York, Los Angeles, San Jose, Seattle, and Berkeley have all imposed similar measures in recent years. Seven European cities - Bilbao, Bratislava, Dublin, Munich, Rotterdam, Vienna, and Winterthur - have also developed a project to phase out fossil fuel from urban heating and cooling.
In the midst of programmatic diversity and experimentation, the Rio de Janeiro office gru.a is an encouragement to those who wish to venture into the expanded field of architecture. Formed by partners Caio Calafate and Pedro Varella in 2013, gru.a demonstrates the potential of the profession when it dialogues with other disciplines.
Entries to the annual Architecture Drawing Prize are judged in three categories, hand-drawn, digital and hybrid. Last year, Dafni Filippa, a post-graduate student studying for a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture (MLA) at the Bartlett School of Architecture, won in the hybrid category and was also judged overall winner of the Prize with her Flood-responsive landscape performance, a virtuoso drawing created through a variety of rendering and modelling techniques produced by hand, in plaster and through and across multiple software platforms.
