When working in an urban area with a complex topography, one of the biggest challenges is urban integration. Worldwide, many socially deprived neighborhoods are situated in complicated geographical locations surrounded by steep slopes. Such areas complicate mobility for pedestrians, cyclists, and the elderly, with a lack of accessibility often excluding them from taking part in city life effectively.

In this context, urban elevators can be a novel solution which combine elements of both functional connectivity and sculpture. With some rising up to 30 meters in height, they become urban and touristic landmarks, creating new viewpoints and walkways. Additionally, in many cases, they can help to uphold the historic legacy of the city.

Below we have collected some interesting examples of urban elevators that have been key in the spatial planning of the urban environment.

Readers of ArchDaily and Strelka Mag have selected a shortlist of 15 architectural projects nominated for the joint ArchDaily & Strelka Award, which celebrates emerging architects and new ideas that transform the contemporary city. The second stage of voting, which will last until August 15, will decide the three winners.

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The new Linde Center for Music by William Rawn Associates has opened at the Tanglewood music venue in western Massachusetts. As the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Tanglewood welcomes its first new performance facility in 25 years. The Linde Center was designed to provide additional concert and rehearsal space and create a truly multi-season facility.

1997 Pritzker Prize laureate Sverre Fehn (August 14th 1924 – February 23rd 2009) was a leader in Post World War II Scandinavian architecture. “His work has an intuitive confidence in how to use the Nordic landscape and its particular light conditions within the built culture, and yet throughout his career each period has reflected a refined sensitivity to international changes and attitudes in architecture,” said his close collaborator Per Olaf Fjeld. “It can be compared to a poetic work conceived on an isolated mountain by a writer with an uncanny, intuitive sense of what is going on in the towns below.” [1]

The 5^thTallinn Architecture Biennale (TAB 2019), will open its doors on September 11^th, 2019 in multiple venues in the heart of Tallinn, with a vast program conceived to foster dialogue, multidisciplinarity, and experimentation. Dedicated to the theme “Beauty Matters”, the international architecture festival organized by the Estonian Centre for Architecture is curated by Dr. Yael Reisner. The event, supported by the Headline Partner ABB, celebrates the aesthetic experience in architecture, following almost 80 years of cultural bias.

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Moscow based office SKNYPL created a new proposal for an inflatable garden atop the Seoul Hall of Urbanism & Architecture in South Korea. Designed as part of the Seoul Maru Competition, the project was made to form a contemporary gathering space for Seoul citizens and tourists alike. Called New Korean Garden, the project aims to complement and update the roof of the Seoul Hall and create a new unique rooftop experience and landmark for the city.

The 6th edition of Passages Insolites or Unusual Passages, has kick-started from the 20^th of June till the 14^th of October 2019, in Québec city. The public exhibition is a 4km walkable art path in the historic Petit Champlain and Saint-Roch districts, showcasing 14 artworks produced by 40 local and international artists and architecture collectives.

Another year, another crop of homes featuring fresh, contemporary architecture, striking décor, and seamless transitions between inside and outside spaces. Peruse our picks below to find the inspiration you need to make indoor-outdoor living part of your next home design.

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The Midnight Charette is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by architectural designers David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features a variety of creative professionals in unscripted and long-format conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and more personal discussions. Honesty and humor are used to cover a wide array of subjects: some episodes provide useful tips for designers, while others are project reviews, interviews, or simply explorations of everyday life and design. The Midnight Charette is available for free on iTunes, YouTube, Spotify, and all other podcast directories.

On this episode of The Midnight Charette podcast, hosts David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet are joined by Elizabeth Timme & Helen Leung, Executive Directors of LA-Más to discuss their organization, maintaining non-profit status, aiding communities through policy and architecture, social responsibility in design, and more.

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Located in the meatpacking district, adjacent to the High Line, in New York City, 40 Tenth Avenue, a 10-story office tower designed by Studio Gang is now ready to welcome its first tenants. With a distinctive structural system, the building twists in order not to cast his shadow on the surrounding, responding to the solar angles.

Avanti-Avanti Studio is a design studio dedicated to the development of creative communication strategies, particularly specialized in “Design for All.” Founded by Alex Dobaño (graphic designer and member of the Design For All Foundation) and Elvira Muñoz (architect), the duo leads a multidisciplinary team of professional people in communication, design, and technology, and work with companies and institutions specialized in leisure, tourism, culture, museums, and cities. They describe their practice as a meeting point, where professionals from different fields come together for every new venture, to ensure that the built environments are suitable and inclusive for anyone experiencing them.

We talked to Alex, founder and creative director of the studio, to learn more about their work and the importance of introducing the Design for All concept in the integrated space design projects.

Once the construction of an architecture project is finished, it's time to install the claddings that will make up the visible faces of the interior spaces. Wallpaper –an efficient way to bring color and design into rooms – is generally specified according to the square meters we want to cover, so we must start by calculating the area of each surface with great precision.

This task can be easy on clear walls with standard dimensions, but it can generate mishaps or unnecessary expenses in more complex designs. We present some tips to make an estimate as accurate and efficient as possible.

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Vietnam-based Bay Huynh Architects have created a proposal for an urban waterway as a new rooftop for Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Designed to explore the value of faith and society, the proposal comes after the Notre Dame fire in April this year. Called the Flowing Fish, the project aims to break the traditional notion of a church to create a "new ecosystem" for worship.

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The Institute for Computational Design and Construction (ICD), the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) and the Institute for Textile and Fiber Technologies (ITFT) at the University of Stuttgart have launched the ITECH Research Demonstrator 2018-19. The project aims to investigate large-scale compliant architecture.

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The 2019 London Design Festival opens next month with highlights including projects at the V&A by Sam Jacob and Kengo Kuma. Running from September 14th to the 22nd, the festival will include large-scale installations by Paul Cocksedge, Martino Gamper, PATTERNITY, Dan Tobin Smith and Camille Walala. Returning for its 17th year, the festival will celebrate design across London.

The A’ Design Award is an international award whose aim is to provide designers, architects, and innovators from all architecture and design fields with a competitive platform to showcase their work and products to a global audience. Among the design world's many awards, the A' Design Award stands out for its exceptional scale and breadth; from 2018-2019, over 2,000 individual designs from 106 countries received awards in 98 different design disciplines. This year's edition is now open for entries; designers can register their submissions here.

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Joshua Prince-Ramus (born 11th August, 1969) has made a significant mark as one of the most promising young architects working today. Named one of the five greatest architects under 50 in 2011 by The Huffington Post, Prince-Ramus made a name for himself as one of Rem Koolhaas' many protégés before forming his practice, REX, in 2006.

Griffin founded the consultancy Urban Planning for the American City, which she complements with her pedagogical work at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.

Since its emergence with the cultural turn in the 1970s and ’80s, spatial justice has become a rallying cry among activists, planners, and plugged-in architects. But as with many concepts with academic origins, its precepts often remain elusive and uninterrogated. Though some of this has changed with the advent of city- and place-making discourse, few are doing as much to lend articulation, nuance, and malleability to spatial justice as Toni Griffin. A Chicago native, Griffin practiced architecture at SOM for nearly a decade before leaving the city to work as a planner in Newark and Washington, D.C., among other municipalities. In 2009, she founded the consultancy Urban Planning for the American City, which she complements with her pedagogical work at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. There, she runs the Just City Lab, which, through research and a host of programs, aims to develop, disseminate, and evaluate tools for enhancing justice—and remediating chronic, systematized injustice—in America’s cities. But what form could justice take in the U.S. context, and how can architects and designers help? Metropolis spoke with Griffin about how focusing on inclusivity and embracing interdependence and complexity are parts of the answer.

There is often a debate on whether architects and engineers should restore old buildings and preserve what is still standing as a token of the past, or completely demolish them and introduce contemporary designs and features. In Iran, the remains of historic monuments, some of which are World Heritage Sites, have yet to know their fate, as restoration strategies remain uncertain.

As part of his Retrofuturism series, Iranian architect Mohammad Hassan Forouzanfar selected a few pre-Islamic castles across Persian towns, and merged them with contemporary landmarks, bringing about a new definition of architectural restoration.

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Modern architecture, visible in contemporary production, is usually related to the use of guidelines established by Le Corbusier's five points of architecture. Despite being widely known and debated for years, these points continue to be revisited and rethought in projects from various places and contribute to the creation of interesting buildings in various programs.

Architect and educator Astra Zarina wasn’t just the teacher of Tom Kundig, Ed Weinstein, and Steven Holl (who designed ‘T’ Space); she was also an advocator for public spaces, cohesive urbanity, and the communities that these attributes fostered. ‘T’ Space’s newest exhibit Rome and the Teacher, Astra Zarina celebrates Zarina’s life and teachings in the context of recognizing overlooked pedagogical figures, particularly women. A recent article by Metropolis Magazine describes this exhibit in detail and with it, Zarina’s own life story.