Early last week, the European Commission and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe announced the 40 shortlisted projects of the EU Mies Award, a prize that commends excellence in architecture, highlighting its contribution to sustainable development. In this context, and two years after the European Parliament voted to support the Green Deal, we review the steps taken by the EU in 2021 towards achieving its sustainability goals and shaping a resilient built environment.
In 1929, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich design the German National Pavilion for the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition. The official reception for the exhibition was held there, presided over by King Alfonso XIII and the German authorities. From then on, the story is well known to everyone. A symbolic work of the Modern Movement, the Pavilion has been extensively studied and interpreted, and has inspired the work of several generations of architects.
Staircases can seem like an unalterable part of a building’s DNA. Whether part of a new build or a refurbishment, it can be difficult to imagine changing the angle, direction, or even the placement of the stairs, so choosing the right type can be key. Here are ten different ways to unlock that dream interior.
Over the last century, cars have been the dominant element when designing cities and towns. Driving lanes, lane expansions, parking garages, and surface lots have been utilized as we continue our heavy reliance on cars, leaving urban planners to devise creative ways to make city streets safe for pedestrians and cyclists alike. But many cities, especially a handful in Europe, have become blueprints for forward-thinking ideologies on how to design new spaces to become car-free and rethink streets to make them pedestrian-friendly. Are we experiencing the slow death of cars in urban cores around the world in favor of those who prefer to walk or ride bikes? And if so, how can it be done on a larger scale?
Architect Cino Zucchi (b. 1955) grew up and practices in Milan, Italy. He was trained at MIT in Cambridge and the Politecnico di Milano, but claims to be largely self-taught, although influenced by such of his countrymen as Aldo Rossi and Manfredo Tafuri. He is internationally known for diverse projects across Europe. Many are both abstracted and contextual residential complexes in Italy, particularly in Milan, Bologna, Parma, Ravenna, and, most notably, in Venice. Zucchi’s D residential building in Giudecca, attracted international attention and praise when it was completed in 2003. I met Cino Zucchi last year during the Venice Architecture Biennale; that meeting led to an extensive interview that we recently engaged in over Zoom between New York and the architect’s sunlight and books-filled Milan studio.
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that BIM is booming. It’s the future, and the AEC industry’s definitive move into complete digitization. In fact, in just four years from now, by 2026, the BIM market is projected to be valued at a jaw-dropping 10.7 billion USD. It’s no surprise then that young architecture professionals are looking to BIM for both financially and intellectually rewarding career paths.
Creating an educational setting is a specific and sensitive task. Merging children’s safety and learning optimization requirements with an aesthetic appeal and solid concept can birth some of the most beautiful unique projects around. One configuration we see quite often is the elliptical or circular school.
Sou Fujimoto’s House of Hungarian Music, a contemporary cultural landmark dedicated to music in Budapest's City Park has officially opened its doors to the public. Considered as one of the most anticipated buildings of the year, the project is nestled within the park's trees, and is designed as an extension of its natural setting through uninterrupted glass volumes and a perforated roof structure. The museum offers a unique artistic experience combining landscape, architecture, and exhibition design, all dedicated to the creation of music and sound.
Helsinki seeks to transform the Makasiiniranta area into an extension of its pedestrian city centre through a competition that will reshape a significant part of its maritime façade. The two-phase competition has shortlisted nine international groups whose proposals were made available for public feedback under anonymity. As most of the former industrial areas of the city have been redeveloped, Makasiinirantais is the last part of the old harbour waiting to undergo transformation and the most significant one, as it is considered a nationally valuable environment.
One of the most famous series of numbers in history, the Fibonacci sequence was published by Leonardo of Pisa in 1202 in the "Liber Abaci", the "Book of Calculus". The famous sequence of numbers became known as the "secret code of nature" and can be seen in the natural world in several cases. But, after all, how does this sequence relate to architecture?
Cities are growing, and they are growing upwards. This is far from just being a contemporary phenomenon of course – for more than a century, high-rises have been an integral part of urban settlements worldwide. This growing of cities encompasses a complex web of processes – advancements in transport links, urbanisation, and migration to mention a few. This growth of cities, however, is all too often linked with governmental failure to adequately support all facets of the urban population. Informal settlements are then born – people carving out spaces for themselves to live amidst a lack of state support.
As temperatures rise across the globe with no sign of slowing down, the parks of the future will be subjected to droughts, flooding, punishing heat, and more abundant snowfall as warmer air is capable of holding more moisture than colder air. (It’s often said the world of the future will be wetter and wilder for that exact reason.)
So how can urban parks harden themselves for the coming decades? The Central Park Conservancy, the Yale School of the Environment, and the Natural Areas Conservancy have teamed up to turn New York City’s most iconic park into a hub for studying climate change adaptation and potential mitigation strategies. The Central Park Climate Lab was announced on January 12 by the conservancy, and the insights gleaned from the program will expand to other parks across New York city and eventually, other parks across the country.
In a building industry where topics such as quality and sustainability are high on the agenda amongst the leading players, the contract team at BoConcept London is gaining traction.
Taiwan proposes that architecture can transform a place, and to represent this idea, the work of Sheng-Yuan Huang and his practice, Fieldoffice, were chosen for the Taiwan Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia in 2018, entitled Living with Sky, Water, and Mountain: Making Places in Yilan. Sheng-Yuan and Fieldoffice demonstrated that the notion of making places is more than building a physical space, but is equally about establishing a linkage between people, as well as people and their environment.
Alessandro Martinelli explores Sheng-Yuan and his colleagues at Fieldoffice as the avant-garde of a new architectural movement in his book, The City Beyond Architecture, which seeks to produce a new form of collective living through the lens of design and culture, touching on what the design culture of the majority of future urbanization could become. In the following, we will discuss Shen-Yuang's impact on Taiwanese architecture as he spearheaded the call to integrate and imagine public spaces that inhabited the capacity to structure a particular landscape to provide both social spaces and a sense of identity to its occupants.
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 Jimenez Lai, Founder of Bureau Spectacular to discuss civic and infrastructural spaces in cities; collage architecture; what makes a living room, a living room?; his current project, “Citizens With No Places”; his book “Citizen of No Place”; living and studying at Taliesin West; and suburban developments.
The emergence of the Digital Twin phenomenon has heralded a great change in terms of urban planning. It essentially presents the city as dynamic, in virtual form. Ensuring every element from the historic fabric, new construction, and public transit is accounted for in one three-dimensional model. Not only does it present key elements in terms of the landscape, but it also encompasses often overlooked conditions such as the presence of light throughout the day, shadows, and the presence of vegetation and trees. All of which contribute to a better preliminary process of site analysis.
Architecture and fashion seem like unlikely bedfellows. However, in more ways than one, they are cut from the same cloth. Ancient nomadic tribes lived in shelters made of cloth and animal furs, the very same materials used for clothes. So, clothes and buildings were made from the same craftspeople. Over time, as our constructions filled the basic needs for protecting the human body, these pursuits were elevated into distinct artforms. Today, designers like Virgil Abloh, formally trained as an architect, stitch the two pursuits back together with shows that reference designs by Mies van der Rohe, or jackets filled with puffy 3D buildings. Fashion retail environments also bring space and clothes together, often in thoughtful and interesting ways. This video looks at the history of architecture and fashion and visits a fashion retail store in Chicago called Notre, designed by Norman Kelley.
This week's curated selection of Best Unbuilt Architecture highlights conceptual works, competition entries and projects in different stages of development submitted by the ArchDaily community. From a village made of 3D-printed cacao waste for a chocolate manufacturer in Ecuador, the transformation of a shopping centre in Ontario into a sustainable and walkable neighbourhood, to the refurbishment and redevelopment of Brutalist estates in London, the following projects illustrate a wide array of design approaches shaping the built environment.
This week's selection of unbuilt projects highlights worldwide interventions addressing a range of highly-relevant topics, such as circular construction, the adoption of sustainable materials, biodiversity, urban redevelopment of obsolete infrastructure or adaptive reuse and the reconsideration of the existing building stock.
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the Museum of Architecture (MoA) have launched a competition to find three exceptional designs to create three treehouses across RBG Kew's UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of a larger ‘Treehouses at Kew’ Exhibition.
‘Treehouses at Kew’ will be Kew’s main exhibition running from April to October 2023, and provide one of the most unmissable visitor experiences of the 2023 London cultural calendar.
Following California's Covid-19 health regulations in early 2020, Metro, the Los Angeles public transit agency stopped collecting fares on its busses as a safety precaution measure. However, the company's decision turned into the United States' biggest free-transit experiment, as ridership never dipped below 50 percent, even with the stay-at-home orders enforced by the government. Following 22 months of the decision and around 281 million fare-free transits, the company has decided to restart collecting fares, but is planning on using the information gathered throughout these two years to implement future improvements and introduce other free or reduced-fare programs in the city.
Founded by the architect and professor Angelo Bucci, spbr arquitetos works in different scales of construction of buildings with a distinct and particular language in its works. Its projects are the result of an intense exercise in architectural thinking, combined with the use of drawing as a tool for dialogue between architects and clients.
The "Casa de los Milagros" (House of Miracles), located in the cloudy forest on the outskirts of Xalapa, Veracruz and designed by Mexican architect Danilo Veras Godoy, is a space conceived with organic forms, earth, unexpectedly shaped openings and mosaic glass in different shades. It was designed to meet the needs of Rosalinda Ulloa, a single mother who would live there with her two young children. It was built in stages, starting in 1995, and was completed in 2002, with some changes being made between then and 2006.
There is so much more to know about architects and their projects when you begin to learn the stories behind their work. When you know where and how they draw their inspiration from and how an idea becomes a reality that you can touch, feel and experience, you get a better idea of why the project ended up the way it did.
Together with photographer Marc Goodwin, as part of his project Atlas of Architectural Atmospheres this time in the city of Berlin, we had the opportunity to meet with German architect Christoph Hesse, of Christoph Hesse Architects, based in Korbach and Berlin, and we spoke about all these things that make up his idea of architecture and his work. Meeting a creator on their own workspace is also an added value; we went through different projects while looking at the physical models and the narrative of his work became a beautiful story about a place, a countryside town in Germany, its people, and their lives, and a sustainable future in nature.
This article was originally published on Common Edge.
California, as with most American states, has a housing crisis. Unlike the rest of the country, it is actually working to ameliorate the situation, with private and public initiatives that critics can’t help but label inadequate. The Bay Area made accessory dwelling units legal by changing zoning laws, but that has hardly made a dent. Some cities are now pushing for additional upzoning to give developers more room to bring new buildings to market at lower rents. There are all sorts of studies, university sponsored or underwritten by the industry, that recommend more-or-less radical fixes for a seemingly unfixable problem. Environmentalists are naturally cast as villains because they don’t condone greenfield developments. And Californians are tough on their elected officials, as the current governor learned last year.
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