Great Gulf Group, Dream, and Westdale Properties, have unveiled renders of Frank Gehry's newest architecture in Toronto, Canada. Set to leave a mark on the city's skyline, Forma, the architect’s first residential tower in Canada and his tallest building yet rises 73 storeys and features a thoughtfully-appointed Gehry-designed lobby along with a striking custom art installation that reflects his visionary approach, as well as interiors by international design studio Paolo Ferrari.
Powerhouse Company has revealed a new design for THIS., a new mixed-use development in Amsterdam’s North District. Overlooking the waterfront of the IJ river, the complex offers the necessary amenities for both working and living in an area close to the city center. The ensemble includes a new office building, two waterfront private sector residential buildings, and two social housing blocks containing a total of 2017 homes. A Hidden Garden, designed by Delva Landscape Architecture and Urbanism, connects the residential and office buildings, creating a space for leisure and social activities.
Headquartered in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, the architectural firm Arquitetos Associados presents a dynamic and varied way of dealing with each project. Based on a specific and specific work organization for each case, which allows for a varied team including external collaborators, the firm's way of working reflects on its unique projects.
In 2016, Pritzker Prize winner Alejandro Aravena announced that his firm, ELEMENTAL, had released the rights to four of their social housing projects, and all documents would be uploaded to their website for public use. Aravena’s goal was to start a movement in which architects would work together to tackle the world’s challenges around housing shortages and affordability, especially with increased migration. The shared drawing sets and a description of the project’s principles provide architects with the necessary documentation for building a low-cost home, encouraging designers to do the same with their work, contractors to assist in building these homes, and governments to shift their thinking of how they can approach mass urbanization. Six years later, how has the concept of open-source architecture progressed, and how has it impacted the architectural profession ever since?
For Milano Design Week 2022, UniFor, a company of the Molteni Group specialized in workplace furnishing solutions, will be presenting PRINCIPLES, a new collection developed in collaboration with the international architecture firm, OMA. The unveiling of PRINCIPLES will take place in a new location with a prestigious address, Viale Pasubio, which is also home to the headquarters of Fondazione Feltrinelli and soon to become UniFor’s permanent showroom.
The fundamental concept of PRINCIPLES is to provide furnishings that can be used by anyone, at any time, to best support the flow of operations and communications required by the contemporary workplace.
Gagosian Gallery Paris has announced an exhibition dedicated to Christo, presented in collaboration with the artist’s estate. Featuring sculptures made in Paris between 1958 and 1963, the exhibition features the earliest examples of Christo’s wrapped objects and barrel structures, many of which are exhibited for the first time, along with key works from his rarely shown Surfaces d’Empaquetage and Cratères series. The exhibition is open to the public on June 10, displayed across two floors of Gagosian’s rue de Ponthieu gallery, near Christo’s first Paris studio.
"La Curutchet habitada" is the title of a forthcoming book that records research developed by the Department of Interior Architecture and Furniture of the Instituto de Proyecto de FADU-Udelar, Uruguay, of which we share a small preview originally published in the magazine Summa+ 189 in December 2021.
In addition to their aesthetic appeal, the use of raw materials can save resources by bypassing the use of additional coatings and processes. This type of solution was most commonly used in utility buildings, such as infrastructure, factories, and warehouses. Exposed concrete floors, for example, were primarily found in industrial spaces, parking lots, and gas stations. However, they are increasingly being used in structures of different programs due to their appearance, durability, resistance, and vast possibilities for finishes. But what are the main factors to be aware of when using a concrete floor for a project?
A lot of people around the world would agree that we are currently in a climate emergency. The IPCC report, released last year, makes for difficult reading. Practitioners in the built environment have taken to direct climate action, with organizations such as ACAN and Architects Declare fostering carbon literacy and calling for designers to re-evaluate how they practice.
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Most of us use stairways every day, but few times do we stop to contemplate their design or put much thought into their function. With their steps, treads and railing, they are easily one of the most fundamental architectural elements in any home. Apart from providing a safe, simple and easy access from one floor to another, it is through staircases that architects create unique spatial forms and strong visuals. From afar, one can observe people moving up and down repeatedly; from within, the user is treated to new angles and ways to perceive a space. Therefore, good staircases are more than just means of vertical circulation. Through their might and scale, they can become the protagonist of a space – a design focal point that rises to the level of art. In this article, we present their versatile characteristics and material qualities through a selection of inspiring examples, all of which can be found in Architonic's 'Staircases' section.
When development firm Blue Heron set out to create their one-of-kind residential showpiece, Vegas Modern 001, or VM001 for short, the goal was to stretch the boundaries of design and create an immersive experience that embraced both the natural and human-made worlds.
“We like to think about the home as being appropriate to our time and place, our culture and the technology that's available,” says Founder and CEO Tyler Jones. “And so there's an energy and spirit that comes from the city … so we're talking about digital media and this playful kind of vibe that we have in some big dramatic moments.”
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Ma Yansong, principal partner of MAD Architects, have revealed his latest artwork "Flow" at the recently opened 8th Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale. Taking place this summer in Japan, the installation reinvents part of the “Tunnel of Light” artwork that was completed back in 2018. Through a series of immersive platforms, the architects abstracted and captured the spirit of the Kiyotsu River, providing visitors with an immersive and dynamic spatial experience. The Triennale hopes to improve the local economy through art, and promote a more harmonious relationship between human and nature.
The 60th edition of the Salone del Mobile.Milano is taking place from 7th to 12th June 2022 at Rho Fiera Milano. This edition has been built collectively around fundamental trains of thought and work: the opportunities and responsibility of design, inclusion and environmental responsibility, demand for and the culture of design. It will serve as a showcase for the progress made by creatives, designers, brands, and companies.
"Indigenous technologies are not lost or forgotten, only hidden by the shadow of progress in the most remote places on Earth". In her book Lo-TEK: design by radical indigenism, Julia Watson proposes to revalue the techniques of construction, production, cultivation and extraction carried out by diverse remote populations who, generation after generation, have managed to keep alive ancestral cultural practices integrated with nature, with a low environmental cost and simple execution. While modern societies tried to conquer nature in the name of progress, these indigenous cultures worked in collaboration with nature, understanding ecosystems and species cycles to articulate their architecture into an integrated and symbiotically interconnected whole.
The jury's verdict for the competition for the new Museum of Fine Arts in the city of Vannes, Brittany, France, was recently revealed, and the winner of the first prize was the renowned Nieto Sobejano studio (based in Madrid and Berlin), with French architect Richard Faure as associate.
Upon becoming a sovereign country, free from British Rule, the people of India found themselves faced with questions they had never needed to answer before. Coming from different cultures and origins, the citizens began to wonder what post-independence India would stand for. The nation-builders now had the choice to carve out their own future, along with the responsibility to reclaim its identity - but what was India's identity? Was it the temples and huts of the indigenous folk, the lofty palaces of the Mughal era, or the debris of British rule? There began a search for a contemporary Indian sensibility that would carry the collective histories of citizens towards a future of hope.
Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection sought to explain the origin and survival of species on the planet. In short, it points out that the fittest organism survives and can reproduce itself, perpetuating useful variations for each species in a given place. Adaptation is, therefore, a characteristic that favors the survival of individuals in a context. In the construction world, we could draw some parallels. Could adaptation be an important quality to increase the useful life and efficiency of a building over time, considering the changes and demands of society, as well as technologies and lifestyles?
On other occasions, we have written about how to design stairs and calculate their dimensions. We have also collected references from Portuguese projects that demonstrate the versatility of wooden staircases. Today, we present some of our best examples highlighting the multifunctional potential of staircases in interior spaces.
Architects have always been asked to breathe new life into ancient architectures inherited from the past or into historical – often monumental – artifacts that no longer respond to the customs and needs of contemporary society.
Nevertheless, ancient architecture tells our stories and therefore deserves to be restored with interventions that bring along a hint of modernity and show the trace of the design activity. YACademy's course in “Architecture for Heritage” has been created on these premises. Its aim is to train designers who will be able to understand and enhance the memory of historical architectures and take inspiration from them to carry out new interventions that both meet new needs and are enriched by the link to the past. In a close dialogue between the ancient and the modern, between existing architectures and new interventions, it is possible to comprehend what has been and what is now, redesigning – through architecture – a historical line bound to be continued by future generations.
Steven Holl Architects, in collaboration with Marcela Steinbachová and SKUPINA Studio, have won first place in the international competition of the Terezín Ghetto Museum in Czech Republic. Founded in 1780 as a military fortress, Terezín served as a Jewish Ghetto during World War II where an estimated 33,000 people died. The existing Terezín Ghetto Museum honors individuals who have lost their lives with a new design that is set to serve as a memorial of hope and light.
Friday, June 3, marks 100 days of war in Ukraine. One of the many devastating effects has been de destruction of urban and rural environments. Ukraine’s cultural and architectural heritage is under threat. As of 30 May, UNESCO has verified damage to 139 sites affected by the ongoing hostilities. The list includes 62 religious sites, 12 museums, 26 historic buildings, 17 buildings dedicated to cultural activities, 15 museums, and seven libraries. According to UNESCO, the most affected buildings included in the list are in Kyiv. Still, damages are also found in the regions of Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhya, Zhytomyr, Donetsk, Lugansk, and Sumy. This represents a preliminary damage assessment for cultural properties done by cross-checking the reported incidents with multiple credible sources. The published data will be regularly updated.
If, on the one hand, bathrooms have a certain rigidity when we think about the layout and their spatial arrangement, it is in the floor and wall coverings that this logic is inverted. With the wide variety of models and patterns available on the market, ceramic tiles and porcelain tiles are often used to give quality and identity to space. At the same time, the ease of access to ceramic and porcelain tiles, as well as their ease of installation, end up conditioning our choices, making it difficult to think of other finishing possibilities for these areas.
Participatory design is a democratic process that aims to offer equal input for all stakeholders, with a particular focus on the users, not usually involved directly in the traditional method of spatial creation. The idea is based on the argument that engaging the user in the process of designing spaces can have a positive impact on the reception of those spaces. It eases the process of appropriation, helps create representative and valuable spaces, and thus creates resiliency within the urban and rural environment.
Besides thermal, acoustic and luminous comfort, colors are factors that influence the sensation we feel when in an environment and become a strong device to influence the user's behavior.
Far beyond aesthetic preferences, the use of certain colors can bring different meanings that cover other fields such as psychology or symbology. Therefore, it is known that a color does not depend only on light and environment, but also on the perception we have of it. The German Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, who has deepened his study of the Theory of Colors, points out that the identification of tones is subjective, but the effects are universal. As an example, the warm colors (red, yellow and orange) are more dynamic and cause feelings of comfort and stimulus in people, while the cold colors (green, purple and blue) have a softer, soothing and static effect. Therefore, creating a color palette is a possibility to generate different sensations in the perception of space.
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.jpg?1654436110 "Sanjaynagar Slum Redevelopment Project - Technical team holding a meeting with members of the Slum Committee. Image Courtesy of Community Design Agency")
