Architecture is a privileged tool for brands that are characterized by a high-end positioning and that, beyond the quality of their own products, needs to feed an imaginary of prestige, style, and refinement. From the showrooms to the stores, fashion needs architects as much as stylists, photographers and modelers.

MVRDV and The Why Factory's have collaborated on an exhibition that explores the principles of "architecture and urbanism calls to action”. Titled "Agir", the exhibition is open to the public since June 9th, in the connected spaces of the ArchiLib Gallery and MVRDV’s Paris office. The exhibition takes its name from the French verb meaning “act”, and examines the activist works of MVRDV and The Why Factory, revealing its capacity to address a wide variety of environmental and social challenges.

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Grimshaw has revealed the final design for City Rail Link, or CRL in short, a large infrastructure project in Auckland, New Zealand. The project includes four new train stations and a 3.45km twin-tunnel underground rail up to 42 meters below the city center. It was developed in collaboration with WSP as part of the Link Alliance, a consortium of seven companies tasked with delivering the main stations and tunnels for the CRL project. The design of the stations is also developed in partnership with Mana Whenua, a local tribal authority that aims to integrate the narrative of the Māori creation story, Te Ao Marama, into the design. Each station's image and identity are a result of this collaboration, and it responds to the characteristics of each location as defined by Tāmaki Makaurau, the Māori name for the geographical region of the city of Auckland.

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"in downtown New Delhi, huge curved structures sink in the ground, taking the form of a ramp. Amorphous voids mark the great twisted walls. The color red marks the structures and sets them apart from everything else."

This could describe a playground or even a skate park, but it is one of five astronomical observatories built in India between 1724 and 1738. These mazy volumes, which look more like a materialization of Escher's drawings, were conceived by the Indian prince Jai Singh as part of an ambitious project that sought to put architecture at the service of science. Their shapes make complex astronomical analysis possible, such as predicting eclipses, tracking the location of stars, and determining Earth's exact orbit around the Sun.

When we consider something edible, we understand its capacity to be eaten, consumed, or ingested independently of its taste. If our contemporary relationship to the built environment reflected this process, what would cities and constructed environments become?

There are many myths and misunderstandings around sustainability in construction. First, the belief that what is sustainable must inherently be technological, complicated or out of reach. Or that the products will necessarily be more expensive, will be made of recycled materials or will not be so aesthetically pleasing. When it comes to material specification, there is often confusion. Is steel more sustainable than bamboo? Would it be better to use a material that is said to be sustainable, but which goes through numerous industrial processes, or one with a low level of processing? The answer is not so simple, and there are various comparison mechanisms to help guide us. But this is an important consideration to make, as one of the main ways the construction industry can help reduce its carbon footprint is to select materials with the lowest general contribution to emissions and environmental impact. Natural slate, which can be used for roofing and facades, is a great example of this. 

Videos

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 interior architect and designer Jaime Bush, Principal and Founder of Jamie Bush + CO. to discuss growing up with designers, photographers, and artists; studying Architecture abroad in Venice; transitioning into Interior Architecture; the disconnect between Architects and Interior Designers; how to differentiate between Interior Design and Architecture; fee structures; and more.

Henning Larsen has unveiled the "Fritz Hansen Pavilion", a sustainably-designed pavilion for the 3daysofdesign event in Copenhagen. Set in Designmuseum's Grønnegården, the Pavilion is developed with a Nordic approach, centered around daylight, using low-carbon materials, and circular design principles. The pavilion is designed to be disassembled, ensuring that its materials can be reused elsewhere. The pavilion will be open to the public during 3daysofdesign 15 – 17 June, and will then be used by Designmuseum Danmark until mid- Autumn.

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Designed for an insurance company, The Centraal Beheer building by Herman Hertzberger in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, is widely recognized as one of the high points of the structuralist movement. MVRDV, in consultation with Herman Hertzberger’s office AHH, is transforming the celebrated building, making it the centerpiece of a new sustainable residential neighborhood while preserving its structure and core principles. The project is part of a larger area of development, a three-hectare site near the city’s train station. MVRDV’s design proposal introduces approximately 650-800 homes while keeping the focus on preservation, greening, and innovation.

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The origins of brutalism can be traced to the UK in the 1950s during the post-war period. However, there is no clear record of its initial boundaries or theoretical frameworks. Despite this, it is widely agreed that it sought to uphold constructive sincerity as its main value and that it had, in the execution of Le Corbusier's Marseille Housing Unit (1952), a turning point for its global diffusion (Casado, 2019). For authors such as Banham (1966) or Collins (1977), constructive sincerity in Brutalist buildings does not only refer to material or technical criteria, but also to moral, political or ethical ones. These variables, in nations such as Peru, were fundamental and built an aesthetic while trying, through and from architecture, to construct an idea of a country. This essay seeks to be an approximation to these ideas and experiences.

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This article was originally published on Common Edge

Four years ago, the Pritzker Prize–winner Tadao Ando spectacularly converted a 1920s apartment building in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago into exhibition spaces for a gallery named—in deference to its street address—Wrightwood 659. The gallery is currently staging a resourceful exhibition on wood-frame construction, the method by which more than 90% of U.S. houses are built. 

Rarely has wood-framing been the subject of an architectural show. It’s too mundane a topic—or at least it seemed that way until two associate professors at the University of Illinois Chicago, Paul Andersen and Paul Preissner, conceived the American Framing exhibition for the U.S. Pavilion at the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale. One year after Venice, the much talked-about exhibition makes its American debut at Wrightwood 659.

The Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) announced the 48 outstanding projects selected by the MCHAP 2022 jury. From the body of nominated projects, the jury elected 38 entries in MCHAP as outstanding among other submissions. The fourth prize cycle considers built works completed in the Americas between January 2018 to December 2021, nominated by an anonymous network of international experts and professionals.

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The Making+Meaning summer studio program exposes participants to a wide range of techniques within a conceptual design framework, pitting the everyday against the unusual to create exploratory content and experiences.

For its 60th and first post-pandemic edition, the Salone del Mobile.Milano was back in full force following two years of setbacks and alternations between digital and physical events. The week-long exhibition, which welcomed over 262,000 visitors from across the world, highlighted the opportunities of environmental consciousness, inviting designers to adopt and reinforce the values of sustainability in the long term, support the protection of human rights, and promote environmental responsibility through design.

One of the most anticipated installations within the Fiera was a centerpiece by Italian architect Mario Cucinella titled “Design With Nature”. The large-scale installation demonstrated the various ways people can improve their relationship with nature, inviting visitors to eat, drink, converse, and work in a piazza-inspired space. During Milan Design Week, ArchDaily had the chance to speak with the architect to discuss the concept behind his installation, the relationship between the city of Milano and Salone, and the importance of valuing our natural resources.

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Dock A, the largest dock of the Zurich Airport, was the subject of international competition. BIG forms the winning team as design lead with HOK as aviation architect, 10:8 architects, engineer Buro Happold, timber experts Pirmin Jung, and aviation consultant NACO. Their design proposal centers on passenger experience and movement through the airport. A pared-back material palette reveals the loadbearing system of the building: V-shaped timber columns provide both a structural function and a distinctive identity true to its place and era, according to the jury.

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For varied reasons, architects have been driven away from professional practice. Sometimes, however, they continue to design buildings in other media and support. Vinicius Libardoni is an Italian-Brazilian architect and artist who migrated from Autocad to metal engraving, passing through woodcut, and has been building imaginary architectures ever since.

Balkrishna Doshi, has been formally presented, on June 15, with the 2022 Royal Gold Medal for Architecture by RIBA President, Simon Allford. Granted by the Royal Institute of British Architects, on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen, the annual award is “given to a person or group of people who have had a significant influence either directly or indirectly on the advancement of architecture”.

A principal figure in shaping the architecture of India and its adjacent regions, known especially for his visionary urban planning and social housing projects, Balkrishna Doshi has “combined pioneering modernism with vernacular”, while his buildings have been “informed by a deep appreciation of the traditions of India’s architecture, climate, local culture and craft”. With a 70-year career, over 100 built projects and his work in education, he became internationally recognized for his contributions to the architectural scene. Still practicing at 90, he “remains as prolific as he is inspirational”, states the 2022 RIBA Honours Committee.

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Metropolis Magazine's Kenneth Caldwell visits the Eames Ranch in Petaluma, California to unpack the goals and secrets of the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity. He explains that he may not be the best person to write objectively about the recent public launch of the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity, a non-profit formed in 2019 to help us explore Charles and Ray Eames’ legacy; particularly their timeless, iterative design process; the chair he sits in every day was designed by the Eameses the year he was born, and their work has been part of his life since he was a young boy looking for the future in architecture magazines at the local public library.

An interactive showcase of design from around the world. This is how EXPERIENCE VALENCIA is presented, the international festival that will bring to Valencia the first design figures from the 13th to the 18th of June. In this very year, in which Valencia is the World Capital of Design, the city puts within the reach of all citizens privileged access to a unique event about design and its transformative power.