Although the sun is almost 150 million kilometers away, this star has had the most impact on our planet. But while some are busy chasing the sun for sun-kissed skin, architects are all about creating sun-kissed spaces.

By definition, “passive solar energy is the collection and distribution of energy obtained by the sun using natural means”. The simple concept and process of implementing passive solar energy systems have provided buildings with heat, lighting, mechanical power, and electricity in the most environmentally-conscious way possible.

In this article, we will provide you with a complete guide of implementing passive solar systems in your designs.

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Architectural photographer Marc Goodwin recently visited Panama City to continue on his journey documenting the world's architecture offices. He's already featured an impressive list, including the Netherlands, Dubai London, Paris, Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul, the Nordic countries, Barcelona, and Los Angeles. In Panama, Marc photographed a range of work spaces across eight offices, from a studio of five people all the way up to 200. Looking outside and in, he captured both the spaces where designers work and glimpses into the city itself.

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Carlo Ratti Associati, working in collaboration with energy company Eni, has developed an architectural structure made of mushrooms, unveiled at Milan Design Week. “The Circular Garden” was grown from soil made over the past six weeks, and will be returned to the soil at the end of the month. The structure is composed of a series of arches adding up to a 1-kilometer-long mycelium, experimenting with sustainable structures that can grow organically.

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As part of Milan’s Salone del Mobile, Knoll has presented an exhibition celebrating the centenary of the Bauhaus, curated and designed by OMA / Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli with Domitilla Dardi. The story, presented at Knoll’s showroom at Piazza Bertarlelli, is told by means of four clusters that encourage people to participate.

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Let's suppose you need a bookcase. Years ago, you would probably search the furniture stores or antique shops in your town. Today you are more likely to open dozens of tabs on your web browser to compare prices and models. But there is another option that is becoming increasingly popular: open source furniture.

It's simple; you download the design of a piece of furniture and send it to a CNC machine (a mill that cuts wood from a digital file). It’s more or less like sending a PDF to print. With the pieces cut, you just assemble it. We used a bookcase for example, but it could be a chair, a table, a cupboard, a bench. Opendesk, one of the current open source furniture platforms, brings together about 30 pieces of furniture available for download. There the user can download a project and cut the furniture in a FabLab or personal workshop, or use the site to connect with a joiner who makes the cuts.

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Danish architecture studio Dorte Mandrup has designed new culture house and library in the heart of the Swedish baroque city of Karlskrona. Working with Marianne Levinsen Landskab and Torbjörn Nilsson, the team developed the cultural project to combine an art hall, library and cafe together in the city center. The culture house is meant to become a modern meeting place and hub for several cultural activities at the corner of Karlskrona’s central square.

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Videos

Pritzker Prize winning architect Jørn Utzon (9 April 1918 – 29 November 2008) was the relatively unknown Dane who, on the 29th January 1957, was announced as the winner of the "International competition for a national opera house at Bennelong Point, Sydney’." When speaking about this iconic building, Louis Kahn stated that "The sun did not know how beautiful its light was, until it was reflected off this building." Unfortunately, Utzon never saw the Sydney Opera House, his most popular work, completed.

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Bogdan Newman Caranci have designed a new mass timber office building in Toronto that will become one of Canada's tallest. Dubbed 77 Wade Avenue, the project is being developed by Next Property Group and will include 150,000 square feet across 8 floors. Following 3XN's T3 Bayside project that will rise to 42 meters in height, BNC's office will be among the tallest modern mass timber office and commercial buildings in the country. The design celebrates the use of mass-timber construction within the ever-evolving architecture of Canada.

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Burckhardt+Partner has released details of their proposed secondary school in Malawi. Finalists in a competition for the school’s design, the Burckhardt+Partner scheme embodies the old African proverb that it takes a community to educate a child, rather than simply the walls, roofs, and books of a school. The St. Paul’s new secondary school therefore embraces its community, inviting the adjacent parish and primary school to grow together as a village.

Renzo Piano Building Workshop has released an update of their Emergency Children’s Surgery Center in Uganda, as work progresses on the pediatric surgery hospital. Since its inception in 2013, the scheme has sought to merge the practical requirements of the healthcare industry with a “model piece of architecture that is rational, tangible, modern, beautiful, and firmly linked to tradition.”

Blank Space has announced the winners of the sixth annual ‘Fairy Tales’ competition. With submissions from over 65 countries, the award-winning entries explore current events and the creative process through wonderfully crafted short stories and artwork.

The winners were chosen by a jury of more than 20 leading architects, designers and storytellers, including Moshe Safdie, Tatiana Bilbao, Jurgen Mayer, Julia Koerner, Mark Foster Gage and Jane Yolen, among many other distinguished judges.

Check out the winning designs after the break.

For ten consecutive years, Vienna ranks first in the Mercer survey on cities with the best quality of life in the world. In this edition to the global ranking, eight Western European cities join the top ten, even when "trade tensions and populist undercurrents continue to dominate the global economic climate", as Mercer points out in its report.

It is officially the time of year when the streets of Milan flood with design enthusiasts, eager to explore cutting-edge innovations and intricate Italian craftsmanship exhibited during Milan Design Week. From the 9th till the 14th of April, ArchDaily, along with 300,000 visitors hailing from countries all across the globe, will exchange ideas and indulge in the most recent furniture, product, and interior design technologies.

As part of Milan Design Week, Salone del Mobile, the most anticipated furniture and interior design event of the year, will be hosting more than 2,000 exhibitors at the Milan Fairgrounds in Rho, ranging from renowned architecture studios and architects to upcoming designers who are debuting their creations for the very first time. The list of acclaimed architecture studios participating in the Salone includes Zaha Hadid Design, Renzo Piano, John Pawson, and UNStudio to name a few.

Although all windows have common functions such as allowing the passage of light, providing ventilation, and focusing the different views, these objectives can be enhanced through a series of useful options. Depending on the orientation of the building, climatic conditions, direction of the wind, and architectural point of view, each specific window model can make a difference within a project, improving usability and the spatial and environmental quality of each room.

Below, we present types of windows that can be found in today's homes, specifically in 11 projects previously published on our site.

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Videos

The Cavatina Group has completed a series of designs rethinking public space and urban revitalization in Poland. With projects located through the city of Bielsko-Biała, the group's larger project aims to transform city parkways and major cultural venues. From street intersections and a former market to underutilized structures, the plan lays out a vision for historic buildings and new architecture alike.

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YAC - Young Architects Competitions launches “Plastic Monument”, a competition of ideas aiming to create an itinerant architectural installation. It will travel all around the world to raise awareness about the impact of plastic waste on our planet. A cash prize of € 15,000 + realization of the 1st Prize will be awarded to winners selected by a well-renowned jury made of, among the others, Kengo Kuma, Carlo Ratti, Italo Rota, Mandy Barker, Maria Cristina Finucci.

This article was originally published on CommonEdge as "How Design Education Can Transform Our Schools".

Exploring the streets of foreign cities is profoundly engaging. Whether it's meeting new cultures, observing new architectures, or trying new food, travelers usually go for the typical sightseeing activities. However, some have quite a unique take on tourism and choose to think outside the box - or in this case, above it.

Hungarian photographer Márton Mogyorósy chose to explore the Catalonian capital from above, capturing aerial shots of the city. Drone photography has helped us see cities from a unique perspective, and with Barcelona’s dynamic urban fabric, the coastal city’s buildings and beaches have turned into vibrant geometric artwork.

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Studies show that public investment in integrated and safe cycling networks promotes urban transformation, providing more humanity, health and quality of life in urban spaces. While cities in the Netherlands and the Nordic countries have already incorporated bicycles into daily life, with a significant portion of the population using the means of transport for daily commutes, much of the world is still seeking a model to reduce congestion and increase its use. According to the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), investing in non-motorized transport allows congestion reduction, improves air quality, physical and mental health of residents, and local trade and brand visibility, once that cyclists tend to pay more attention to local commerce and take up less space than cars.

But along the cycle lanes and cycle paths it is essential to provide suitable places so that bicycles can be parked at the end of the trails. While bike stands are enclosed spaces, usually with some kind of surveillance and additional infrastructure, paracycles are the structures that allow to securely support and lock the bike. They can integrate in the urban furniture of a city, next to benches, plates, lamps and informative totems.

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GoArchitect have launched a “fast-paced card game” aimed particularly at “raging architects,” challenging competing players to build a new city. Titled “CITY,” the game is currently in the process of development, with a Kickstarter campaign launched to fund the first batch. The game pits players against each other, with would-be tycoons trying to build a complete city while interfering with their competitors’ efforts.

Until recently, the architecture world largely viewed plastic polymers as inferior building materials, handy for wipe-clean kitchen surfaces, but not practical in full-scale building applications. But with technological innovations driving material capabilities forward, polymers are now being taken seriously as a legitimate part of the architect’s pallet. One of the most widely-used of these materials is a fluorine-based plastic known as ETFE (Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene). Brought into the public consciousness thanks to its use on the facade of PTW Architects' Water Cube for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, architects are now realizing the film’s capabilities to express a new aesthetic and replace costlier transparent and translucent materials. Its most recent and spectacular public appearance was on the 120-foot telescopic shell of The Shed, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Rockwell Group in New York City.

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Videos

Rozana Montiel has won the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2019, along with Werner Sobek, Ersen Gürsel, Ammar Khammash and Jorge Lobos. The award ceremony will take place on May 13, 2019 in Paris, France.

The Royal Institute of British Architects has published a new guidance for architecture practices on closing the gender pay gap as part of its commitment to support a diverse and inclusive profession. The RIBA’s guidance – Close The Gap – Improving Gender Equality in Practice – outlines best practice measures and initiatives, and the guidance is accompanied by a #CloseTheGap pledge. The RIBA is encouraging all Chartered Practices to sign up to the pledge as a demonstration of commitment to improving gender equality and ensuring that individual career prospects are independent of one's identity.