With the increase of urban density and the decrease in the availability of land, the verticalization phenomenon has intensified in cities all over the world. Similar to the vertical growth of buildings — which is often a divisive issue for architects and urban planners — many initiatives have sought in the vertical dimension a possibility to foster the use of vegetation in urban areas. Vertical gardens, farms and forests, rooftop vegetable gardens, and elevated structures for urban agriculture are some of the many possibilities of verticalization in plant cultivation, each with its unique characteristics and specific impacts on the city and its inhabitants.

But is verticalization the ideal solution to make cities greener? And what are the impacts of this action in urban areas? Furthermore, what benefits of urban plants are lost when adopting vertical solutions instead of promoting its cultivation directly on the ground?

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The 2020 COVID-19 outbreak has deeply redefined our relationship to public spaces. Fear of transmission (both direct and indirect) has closed schools, restaurants, office buildings, and transportation hubs, and has limited access to other densely populated locations and shared spaces. We have also learned that COVID-19 primarily transmits through the spread of water droplets from infected individuals, especially in scenarios of close contact, such as prolonged indoor activities. As a result, new building regulations have been put in place that reduce the circumstances in which the disease can spread. These safety precautions include mask mandates, redesign of ventilation systems, and social distancing policies. In this article, we will focus on social distancing.

It didn’t take long for the coronavirus pandemic to inspire both cutting-edge architectural design solutions and broad speculation about future developments in the field. Many of the realized innovations have been contracted by or marketed to the real estate sector. But as firms compete to provide pandemic comforts to rich tenants, the COVID-19 technology that directly affects working-class communities is mostly limited to restrictive measures that fail to address already-urgent residential health hazards or administrative conveniences for developers that allow them to circumvent public scrutiny. These changes had been long-planned, but they have found a new license under the pretext of coronavirus precaution. In terms of “corona grifting,” this sort of thing takes the cake.

Religion is a uniquely human reality. As are cities. As we emerge from our burrows of sequestration, the silent cities and places of worship will become human again, versus the present sad memory of what they once were.

We will recover from another human reality, the pandemic and when we do we will be forced to address some questions. Before this century, the automobile was once seen as the way Americans could create a new reality: a huge middle class that could control its life by using the freedom that cars gave them to go where they wanted, when they wanted, and to live where they wanted. Before this latest change of sequestration, that vision of what cars meant to our culture was changing —especially in cities.

Architectural plans require training in order to read, understand, and produce. Mastering their codes can unlock the most powerful tool that architects have to imagine and construct new buildings. It is not only important to learn the intricate formal and geometric operations to produce these types of drawings, but also to interrogate the traces they leave on the buildings we design. In this video, architecture professor and designer, Stewart Hicks talks about the basics of architectural plans: where they came from, how they are made and used, and what they are good at representing. Using a three-dimensional model of a basic house, he goes through the steps of transforming it into a plan projection while discussing the implications of each step and offering precedents to reveal their nuanced implications.

Linear parks exist in many different contexts - along riversides, coastal areas, or inserted in the urban fabric - and represent a very particular type of public space that evokes the idea of a vector and, consequently, the sense of movement. However, they can provide more than just activities and programs associated with mobility, proving to be an appealing solution to the lack of spaces for leisure, contemplation, and relaxation in the most varied urban situations.

Below, we have gathered 12 examples of linear parks built in different parts of the world, illustrated by photographs and floor plans.

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Industrial buildings are among the best examples of Louis Sullivan's famous phrase "form follows function." Generally, they are functional, efficient buildings, quick to build and unornamented. That is why, when we study the industrial heritage of different cities and countries, we are able to understand local materials, technologies, and traditional construction methods of the time. England's red brick factories come to mind, as well as the roof lanterns used to provide natural light to factories and other typical construction elements. Metallic and precast concrete structures are currently the most commonly used due to a combination of construction efficiency, cost, the possibility of expansive spans, and the unawareness of the benefits of other materials, such as wood. Often, these industrial warehouses are also characterized by being cold and impersonal, in addition to having a considerable carbon footprint. But Canada's experience in recent years is noteworthy, where there have been an increasing number of wooden buildings constructed for industrial programs.

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

There is an astonishing degree of complexity, order, and beauty in the natural world. Even so, and especially within the realm of living things, nothing is more complex than it needs to be to sustain its existence. Every aspect of the system serves a purpose. If it does not, the unneeded component eventually ceases to exist in future generations. Even with these constraints of resource and energy efficiency, we find boundless beauty and harmony in the natural world. Contrast nature’s “just the right amount of complexity” to the way many architects design buildings today. While nature is only as complex as it needs to be, architects and designers add excessive and inessential complexity to their buildings and landscapes when none is warranted.

Metaphorically, building bridges equates to creating new opportunities, connections, and paths. The first bridges likely formed naturally with logs falling across rivers and natural depressions, though humans have also been building rudimentary structures to overcome obstacles since prehistory. Today, technological advances have made it possible to erect bridges that are both impressive and sculptural, playing a key role in transportation and connectivity. Usually needing to overcome large spans, with few points of support, bridges can be quite difficult to structure. But when is the bridge more than a connection between two points, instead resembling a building with a complex program? How can these 'bridge houses' be structured?

Social Urbanism: Reframing Spatial Design – Discourses from Latin America, a new book by Maria Bellalta, ASLA, dean of the School of Landscape Architecture at the Boston Architectural College, is a welcome addition to the growing number of publications on the social justice-oriented form of urbanism, architecture, and public space emanating from Medellín and Colombia. The achievements of social urbanism have rightfully become synonymous with Medellín in the world of landscape architecture, urban planning and design, and architecture.

Videos

As Covid-19 spread across the globe last year, cities underwent a transformation unlike any we had seen in the last century. The sudden disappearance of both human and automotive traffic as people bunkered down under quarantine was visible in cities worldwide and, astonishingly, continued even after quarantine restrictions were lifted. 

In only a few years, Italian-Argentine architect and engineer Francisco Salamone developed more than 60 buildings throughout the small towns of Buenos Aires Province as a part of the conservative government's push to develop the province's municipal buildings.

Multifamily housing in urban environments provides social, economic, and environmental benefits to both individual residents and cities as a whole. Kicked into overdrive after the 2008 financial crisis, demand for multifamily housing has since continued to rise and remains strong today. Generations Y and Z are the youngest urbanized group of adults and these young professionals are fueling much of the demand for compact living in city centers. Though the younger generations are the ones driving the changes, the result is expected to be more secure, convenient living for everyone.

Videos

At the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, curator Alejandro Aravena decided to reuse 100 tons of material discarded by the previous Art Biennale to create the new exhibition halls. Besides preserving 10,000 m² of plasterboard and 14 km of metallic structures, the initiative intended to give value, through design, to something that would otherwise be discarded as waste. The project also shed light on another observation: as architects, we generally restrict ourselves to thinking about buildings during the design process, construction phase, and at most through the use phase. We hardly think of what will become of them when they are demolished at the end of their useful life, an issue that should urgently become part of the conversation.

Florian Schaffner has had a passion for architecture ever since his childhood. After he finished his bachelor’s degree in business at IE University, he went straight on to pursue the Master in Real Estate Development. We spoke to Florian to find out more about his experience in the MRED and to learn about Triadic Labs, a real-estate startup project founded during the pandemic.

Videos

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 Craig Dykers, co-founder of Snøhetta, to discuss how architecture can cause both segregation and innovation in offices and in the U.S. Capitol; having meaningful dialogue with non-architects; the messiness of life; creating beautiful architecture that aids the larger society; the struggle for equality; a brief history of the contemporary profession of architecture and its current state; relying on theory in architecture; and more. Enjoy!

Videos

What is the danger of making something pretty? Well, when it comes to homes it can be complicated. Curb appeal seems like an innocent concept, but architects have been quoted calling it “empty signifiers of good design” or even eerie or creepy. Curb appeal privileges superficial visual composition over deeper, more spatial considerations. Further, the overregulation of visual propriety easily strays into practices that are exclusionary and oppressive. This video takes a close look at the history, evolution, and consequences of curb appeal from an architect’s perspective using examples from popular culture, art, film, and architecture. Unexpected origins and peculiar turns through picturesque gardens, mirrors for viewing the landscape, and exhibitions like Venturi Scott Brown’s ‘Signs of Life’ serve as waypoints in our journey for understanding people’s views of what houses should look like.