As we recognize the 50th Earth Day, it is difficult to think of a time where our relationship with the Earth has been so different from normal. As we grapple with the worst health crisis in one hundred years, attention turns to the future of how we will live with each other, how global systems will operate, and in some cases, how profoundly positive it can be for the natural world when our exponential demands for oil, transport, and energy are curtailed.
OMA / Jason Long’s 11th Street Bridge Park was granted approval by the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) at the beginning of April. Designed by OMA, with landscape architects OLIN, and structural engineers WRA, the project is the winning entry of the design competition held back in 2014.
The first unit from Carlo Ratti’s CURA project was built at a temporary hospital in Turin, north of Italy, one of the world’s hardest-hit regions by the pandemic. Launched four weeks ago, the initiative to convert shipping containers into plug-in Intensive-Care Pods for COVID-19 patients was assembled at record speed.
The Seattle Design Festival is currently set to open this August. Presented by Design in Public and AIA Seattle, The festival celebrates its tenth anniversary at a pivotal moment in the life of American cities. This year’s festival theme, “It’s About Time,” invites audiences to ponder our past, present, and future as we all reflect on what our opportunities are at this unique moment in history.
With the recent release of Twinmotion 2020, you can now create even more convincing visualizations and immersive experiences from your CAD and BIM models. In addition to a huge boost in realism, one of the most significant areas of improvement in the new release is project review, with a range of features for fast BIM design review and presentation.
British architect and Pritzker Laureate Sir James Stirling (22 April 1926 – 25 June 1992) grew up in Liverpool, one of the two industrial powerhouses of the British North West, and began his career subverting the compositional and theoretical ideas behind the Modern Movement. Citing a wide-range of influences—from Colin Rowe, a forefather of Contextualism, to Le Corbusier, and from architects of the Italian Renaissance to the Russian Constructivist movement—Stirling forged a unique set of architectural beliefs that manifest themselves in his works. Indeed his architecture, commonly described as "nonconformist," consistently caused annoyance in conventional circles.
“Home” is a new documentary series created by Apple TV+ that takes viewers on a tour of some of the world’s most intriguing dwellings. The first season, spanning nine episodes, showcases how domestic architecture is being re-evaluated across different contexts and geographical areas, taking radical, innovative, and highly creative forms.
Goettsch Partners (GP), the global architecture firm based in Chicago, has designed Alcove, the first residential building adjacent to Nashville Yards. Located in Tennessee, the 34-story building “is composed as a series of stacked, shifted cubes organized in pairs on four levels”.
Due to the global pandemic, restoration works of the Notre Dame in Paris have been paused. For security reasons, all operations have been halted by French officials. While the consolidation of the cathedral was completed, the reconstruction of the spire and the roof as well as the removal of the melted scaffolding, have been interrupted.
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The new Zoomed In virtual photography and architecture festival has launched this week. Running from 21st - 24th of April, the festival brings together a diverse international selection of architectural photographers and cross-disciplinary creatives in a series of online talks and discussions, short film screenings, image galleries, and a charity print sale to raise funds for those most in need during the current pandemic crisis.
Yesterday, on the 20th of April, we passed the cap of 111 days of the pandemic. During this time, we’ve been busy fighting in supermarket aisles over toilet paper in Australia, lining up for marijuana purchases in Amsterdam and boosting gun demand in the USA. We are conscious none of those will help in fighting the virus, but we do it, nonetheless. Beyond the bizarre human psyche, this pandemic unveils interesting trends that will, whether we like it or not, impact on Architecture and Cities.
During the academic formation process, beginner architects are educated and trained to develop projects on the most “traditional” software. Several reasons might explain that: the partnerships that these companies usually make with the university labs, the lack of time to learn a new program, or the culture to use the most popular software.
We often use the term accessibility when designing spaces for the elderly or for people with special needs. However, to guarantee effective universal design for children, it is necessary to understand and cater to their specific needs as well, especially through ergonomics, safety, lighting, colors, and some particular accessories. In this article, we will cover the most important parameters to consider when choosing dimensions and materials in public bathrooms for young children.
Marshall Blecher & Studio Fokstrot have introduced “wilderness and whimsy”, to the Danish capital by creating a series of floating islands in the city’s harbor. Adding a new archetype to the urban space, the project can be used by boaters, fishermen, kayakers, stargazers, and swimmers.
The Rastegar Property Company has announced plans to develop the tallest living wall in North America as part of a 26-story tower in Dallas. The building aims to improve local air quality with over 40,000 plants estimated to capture over 1,600 pounds of carbon dioxide and produce 1,200 pounds of oxygen annually. The development will be located across the street from the Union mixed-use complex.
The impact of COVID-19 has disrupted daily life as we know it and caused a shift in technology trends within the workplace. Over recent weeks, businesses have found themselves hastily searching for and implementing temporary solutions to help them deliver an uninterrupted service. These solutions are highlighting the significant role technology plays in helping companies adapt to the situation and maintain daily operations. But what happens once the crisis is over?
Intro GPS systems and Location Based Services give access to an important amount of data that is currently being used mostly for traffic analysis - but which, if properly processed, could open up infinite possibilities for planning.The access to these Mobility Big Data is no longer a privilege of large cities; on the contrary, it is possible to effectively apply the technologies to increasingly more diverse territories, from mega-regions to contained districts and cities. These data, when retrospectively compared to previously collected ones, lend themselves to multiple applications loosely related to the traffic issue, such as socio-demographic or economical studies. Systematica opens the doors of its laboratory to show us what are the potentials and limits of these tools, starting from a direct experience - a research project, developed in the Los Angeles area.
For the 2019 Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (UABB), titled "Urban Interactions," (21 December 2019-8 March 2020) ArchDaily is working with the curators of the "Eyes of the City" section to stimulate a discussion on how new technologies might impact architecture and urban life. The contribution below is part of a series of scientific essays selected through the “Eyes of the City” call for papers, launched in preparation of the exhibitions: international scholars were asked to send their reflection in reaction to the statement by the curators Carlo Ratti Associati, Politecnico di Torino and SCUT, which you can read here.
Etudes is a rare thing amongst architecture books. Its subject is neither built nor unbuilt projects but instead imaginary places and abstract compositions by San Francisco architect John Marx. Rendered in delicate watercolours, Marx’s places are dreamlike and akin to the structure and sentiments of his taut poetry that sits alongside pages of his paintings.
Curiously, the quiet streets and vacant landscapes of Marx’s imagination speak to us in an acutely timely fashion as we find ourselves in a new world of empty cities closed for business, a world that feels as if it has come to a standstill.
Hashim Sarkis, the curator of the 17th International Architecture Exhibition organized by La Biennale di Venezia, launched a striking visionary theme at the beginning of this year: “How will we live together?”. This fundamental question finally transcends all disciplines and opens an existential portal for humanity. It does not refer only to humans but all species, the nonhuman organisms as well.
An expression of power and a symbol of surveillance, the panopticon is a notorious architectural concept intended as a disciplinary mechanism. Photographer Romain Veillon shares his images of the Panopticon-inspired prison in Autun, France.
Radical neofuturist architect Jan Kaplický (18 April 1937 – 14 January 2009) was the son of a sculptor and a botanical illustrator, and appropriately spent his career creating highly sculptural and organic forms. Working with partner Amanda Levete at his suitably-named practice Future Systems, Kaplický was catapulted to fame after his sensationally avant-garde 1999 Lord's Cricket Ground Media Centre and became a truly innovative icon of avant-garde architecture.
Architects throughout the modern era have displayed their fantasies through their designs and their obsessions with how women have inhabited them. Take for example Corbusier’s infatuation with Eileen Gray and her home, E. 1027. Plagued with unconfirmed tales of how he broke into her home to paint murals on the white walls, he was also known to publicly downplay the home's design, while conversely praising it in a series of unreciprocated love letters to Gray. In the same vein, while Adolf Loos stood firmly against architectural decoration, he perhaps supported the elegance of women acting as a human ornament, an assumed notion in his envisioned home for the French Entertainer, Josephine Baker. The unbuilt proposal took on the form of a black and white striped solid which located a glass pool at the center of the space, forcing Baker to catch the male gaze of other occupants.
The relationship of sensuality and space doesn’t stop with the provocative desires of these three men, but lives on in one of the world’s most famous publications, Playboy magazine. Perhaps best known for its significance as a vanguard in the sexual revolution with its promotion of masculinity, the magazine also illustrated a showcase of swanky glass bachelor pads standing high above Beverly Hills that pushed forward a debonair lifestyle punctuated by modern design. As a generator of a glamorized lifestyle, the magazine highlighted architectural titans including Mies van der Rohe, Bucky Fuller, and Eero Saarinen, and made them palatable to a general audience.
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While public parks and gardens have closed down their doors around the world, in fear of the COVID-19 spread, Studio Precht has proposed a green space designed around the rules of physical distancing. Entitled “Parc de la Distance”, the project introduces an outdoor space that encourages social distancing and short-term solitude.
A new film by Steven Holl Architects and Spirit of Space showcases the REACH at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Designed as three pavilions interconnected below an open green roof, the elegant expansion merges architecture and landscape to increase the center's interior space with 72,000 sf of open studios, rehearsal and performance spaces, and dedicated arts learning spaces.
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