At ThinkLab, our passion lies at the intersection of specification and design, where we use research to improve communications between designers and manufacturers. Today, that research is helping companies within the interiors industry make critical business decisions as we face economic uncertainty. Here, we share some recent data and insights from our Industry Impact Survey—an ongoing research initiative that we invite you to participate in.
GIS analyst and Hungarian cartographer Robert Szucs has shared an impressive collection of maps that bring together all the drainage basins of the world in vibrant colors. Titled Grasshopper Geography, the maps showcase the rivers and watercourses of the world, featuring the basins of selected regions, countries and continents.
Following up on their series of urban block flashcards, Spanish publisher a+t architecture publishers launched in 2018 a new deck of cards featuring collective living floor plans as part of one of their series of cards about urban density, Density. As a courtesy to ArchDaily, the publishing house shared some of these expanded cards, both typical floor plans, and each unit, where you can see the designs and privacy parameters and openings to the outside of each project.
ODA released images of its 1,185’ mixed-use tower in downtown Seattle. Showcasing a novelty in high-rise design, the project underlines the value and importance of outdoor space. Carving out a void in the middle of the tower, the design creates a shared outdoor amenity space with impressive views to Mt. Rainier.
The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum have announced the winners of the "Europe 40 Under 40" for 2019. The annual program is initiated by The European Centre to spotlight and distinguish the next generation of architects and designers who will impact future living and working environments, cities, and rural areas.
Architecture has an inherent role to the play in the global climate crisis. Buildings and their construction together account for 36 percent of global energy use and 39 percent of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions annually. Brad Jacobson is a principal at EHDD and a leader working to implement climate responsive design. Designing for the future, Brad synthesizes diverse perspectives to craft high performance solutions.
New Generations is a European platform that analyses the most innovative emerging practices at the European level, providing a new space for the exchange of knowledge and confrontation, theory, and production. Since 2013, New Generations has involved more than 300 practices in a diverse program of cultural activities, such as festivals, exhibitions, open calls, video-interviews, workshops, and experimental formats.
New Generations has launched a fresh new media platform, offering a unique space where emerging architects can meet, exchange ideas, get inspired, and collaborate. Recent projects, job opportunities, insights, news, and profiles will be published every day. The section ‘profiles’ provides a space to those who would like to join the network of emerging practices, and present themselves to the wide community of studios involved in the cultural agenda developed by New Generations.
Archdaily and New Generations join forces! Every two weeks Archdaily publishes a selection of studio profiles chosen from the platform of New Generations.
Nearly four months after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a public health emergency of international concern on January 30, the number of coronavirus cases in the world continues to grow. Although some countries, where the virus transmission rate has declined, are reopening businesses and returning to normal, the impacts of the pandemic are continuing to influence people's daily lives, affecting not only the population's health but also their jobs, habits and the economy. Such changes may still endure and may have an impact on the future of architecture and construction, given the prospect of a crisis in the sector.
It is difficult to find someone who has never dreamed of building or having a tree house to call their own. The idea of a refuge, a space fully integrated with nature and with a privileged view, pleases almost all ages. There are examples of tree houses of all scales and complexities, from small elevated platforms to highly complex structures, including electrical and hydraulic installations. Some sites specializing in the topic (yes, that exists!), offer valuable tips for building these dreams. In general, they subscribe to the motto: "Choose your tree, make your project, but be ready to adapt it!"
Grimshaw has just revealed initial concepts of the new 21,000 square-foot arts complex for Santa Monica College (SMC) in Santa Monica, California. Scheduled for completion in 2024, the building is planned as a “factory of creativity”, replacing an existing surface car park and serving as a new western gateway for the college.
The parking house, entitled Parking House + Konditaget Lüders, has just won the international design award Danish Design Award 2020 in the category of “Liveable Cities”. Designed by JAJA Architects, the intervention refurbished the roof of a parking house into living urban space with sports and play equipment.
Dutch design practice Mecanoo has unveiled a proposal for a new wing of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Taking aim at the structure's back of house and organization, the project is made to create clear circulation and connections throughout. In addition, the project is part of a larger renovation of the existing Museum Garden as it bring together the wings of the architects Van der Steur and Bodon as part of the collection.
“Architecture for Landscape” was created on these premises: it aims to train designers to meet the diverse needs of transforming territories. The course encourages an attentive and productive dialogue with the surrounding landscape to respond to the needs of clients' unique contexts. Via a thorough analysis of the natural world, light and geomorphological terrain features, the designers will become increasingly able to reconnect human design to the natural environment. In becoming inspired by the landscape, they can design outstanding, sustainable and impressive architecture.
Taking advantage of a lack of governmental regulations, many Ukrainians turn to their balconies to compensate for the shortage of space in prefab-Soviet housing, rebuilding them in a variety of shapes and sizes. The short documentary Enter Through The Balcony explores this phenomenon in Ukrainian architecture, revealing a compelling image of post-Soviet history through local everyday life and culture.
In addition to showcasing a unique attitude towards private versus public space, the makeshift balconies phenomenon is also a symptom of the dramatic pendulum swing from mass uniformity and anonymity, to freedom of expression and ownership of private space, which shaped attitudes and architectures across the former Eastern bloc after 1991.
There is a slide I like to show at the beginning of the architecture courses I teach that provides an overview of the last hundred years or so in design and technology. In the left column, a car from the beginning of the 20th Century (a Ford Model T) is poised over a contemporary car (a Tesla). The middle column contains a similar juxtaposition, showing a WWI-era biplane and a modern-day stealth fighter (an F-117A). In the right column, Walter Gropius’s 1926 Bauhaus Dessau building is seen next to an up-to-date urban mixed-use building. The punch line, of course, is that the two buildings—separated by roughly 100 years—look basically the same, whereas the cars and planes separated by the same timespan seem worlds apart. What is the reason for this?
There are a plethora of benefits associated with urban green spaces, namely pollution control, temperature regulation, and biodiversity--all of which ultimately add to the quality of life of city dwellers. Like other urban common areas used for sports and recreational activities, green spaces have a direct impact on the health and well being of the residents who use them.
Power Station of Art (PSA) has announced the curatorial team and theme for the 13th Shanghai Biennale, proposed by its Chief Curator, the architect and writer Andrés Jaque (Office for Political Innovation).
Over the past few years, a series of exhibitions and monographs have prompted a rediscovery of socialist modernism, its powerful expression and exoticism stirring significant interest. The recently published photo book Concrete Siberia. Soviet Landscapes of the Far North by Zupagrafika casts a new light on this relatively unexplored chapter of architecture history by showcasing the Soviet architecture of Siberia's major cities while providing an insight into a little-known landscape. The book presents the architecture and urban environment of six Siberian cities: Novosibirsk, Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, Norilsk, Irkutsk and Yakutsk, through the lens of Russian photographer Alexander Veryovkin, bringing about a new-found perspective on post-war architecture.
Rebelarchitette has created a new tool that aims to detox architecture from inequalities, an interactive public world map showcasing 732 outstanding women architects from all over the world.
Herzog & de Meuron have created a new design for a supertall skyscraper in Toronto. If built as planned, the project would rise to 1,063 feet and become the tallest residential building in Canada. Working together with project architect Quadrangle, the team was commissioned by Dutch real estate development companies Kroonenberg Geoep and ProWinko to design the new landmark for Toronto.
A lightweight material par excellence, zinc is a non-ferrous metal that provides an effective solution for coating buildings exposed to adverse weather conditions, while simultaneously delivering a creative response to the requirements of a project.
When in contact with humidity during the summer, zinc panels generate a self-protecting layer that isolates heat from indoor spaces. Rain and snow slide easily over its surfaces, and its modular panels can wrap curved shapes or be perforated according to the architectural design, and combined in facades and/or ceilings through different shades, brightness, and colors.
Throughout history, people from all walks of life with little in common have found ways to unite in neighborhood parks and filled stadiums to put those differences aside for the sake of the sports they love. Sports, and sports fandom, is a source of global unity, and perhaps fewer events in the world can generate such a wide range of emotions quite like a live match.
This article was originally published on Common Edge.
New York City: locked down, empty. It was heartbreaking, of course, but it was also beautiful. For artist Edgar Jerins, that revelation was something of a surprise. Who knew this bustling, chaotic, dirty, vibrant, profane, amazing city could look so … gorgeous when stripped of people and activity? For years, Jerins rode the subway to his studio near Times Square. When news of the spreading pandemic first surfaced—more as a vague, undefined threat, initially—he fled out of fear to the bus, and then, after the severity of the event became apparent and the lockdown began, he borrowed his daughter’s bicycle.
Architecture shapes how we live and come together. Amidst a pandemic and protests around the world, architects and designers are speaking out to condemn injustice and build space for empathy and understanding. In listening, they are looking to how we live together, and in turn, how we can create a more equitable and just world.
