Are machines capable of design? Though a persistent question, it is one that increasingly accompanies discussions on architecture and the future of artificial intelligence. But what exactly is AI today? As we discover more about machine learning and generative design, we begin to see that these forms of "intelligence" extend beyond repetitive tasks and simulated operations. They've come to encompass cultural production, and in turn, design itself.
With the major happenings of the past year, our built environment and people’s needs within it seemed to change. Different ways of Architectural thinking and design solutions were put forth, showing how global events are capable of pushing the limits of the profession, increasing our responsibility, and also our opportunities to contribute to a better quality of life in every possible way. At ArchDaily, we have continued to connect with architects and designers from all over the globe and have shared diverse works, all displaying relevant implementations and architectural solutions that have an impact on our community.
In response to the published works, we have experienced different reader behaviors that indicate how architectural production can actually have an impact on designers and non-designers all over the world. This led us to create ArchDaily’s Annual Architecture Report which analyzes the most popular trends and topics in the architecture world over the past year, in an effort to understand, discuss and forecast the trends for 2021.
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If you’ve been procrastinating, now is your last chance to enter your design for an A’ Design Award before the deadline on February 28. The international competition was "born out of the desire to underline the best designs and well-designed products" of designers, architects, and innovators from all design fields. Among other design competitions and awards, the A' Design Award stands out for its exceptional scale with over 100 design categories.
Chihuahua is a Mexican state in the northwest region of the country, sharing a border with Coahuila, Durango, Sinaloa, and Sonora as well as the US states of New Mexico and Texas. Chihuahua's largest urban center is Ciudad Juárez, an industrial hub situated on the U.S.- Mexico border right across from El Paso, Texas. Throughout the years, Juarez's economic landscape has been dominated by the maquilladora industry and, thanks to the crime wave between 2008-2012, it earned a spot on the list of the world's most violent cities.
Throughout history, religious reformers and visionary starchitects have attempted to envision the future of our cities: from the Venetian model city of Palmanova to the multi-story housing complex for 5,000 people drafted by Italian architect Paolo Soleri, from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City to Le Corbusier’s Radiant City, numerous masterplans have been crafted to illustrate some of the most unprecedented ambitions.
We’ve all commented on a building’s character before. An apartment might have it because of some special oak trim, or a building might not fit with the ‘character’ of its neighborhood. In this video, architectural designer and professor Stewart Hicks takes a close look at the meaning and origins of this elusive concept. Why do we use this word for both people and for buildings? Characters also occur in fiction, does that help explain how buildings tell stories? From the Enlightenment architects Ledoux, Boullée, and Lequeu, to the Beetlejuice house, to contemporary practices exploring what it might mean for a building to have a face or a posture, we get to the bottom of why architects might consider architectural character to be a good idea.
Understanding what drives economic, social, and educational disparities between communities is one of urbanism’s most critical and highly-discussed topics. It’s an increasingly complex issue, with many factors at play- one of them being the design and location of desirable urban green spaces. While sometimes they are a tool that helps to bolster underserved communities in terms of health and economic benefits, safety, and climate resistance, other times they can actually drive out the residents that they are created to serve. Now, the challenge lies in how to design these recreational sites to create better futures for all.
Certification of sustainable buildings has become a prominent trend in architecture over the last couple of years and while most people can agree on the importance of sustainability in building, how to achieve it leaves copious room for discussion.
This article was originally published on Common Edge
In a Common Edge article, I briefly discussed a concept that I call the “Triple Bottom Lie,” which posits that more people, plus more consumption by each person, plus an economic system completely dependent on the aforementioned items, can just keep working forever, without consequences. Historically, the United States has accepted the economic shibboleth of endless growth because it reduced class conflict; a rising tide (supposedly) lifted all boats, rafts and yachts included. We are, however, approaching the limits of growth, from both a resource standpoint (we’re running out of raw materials) and a technological standpoint (our inventions are progressively less revolutionary).
Extreme weather and conditions call for contextual architectural approaches. From sandy deserts to cold, icy climates, how we build is intimately tied to location. Drawing from diverse project sites around the world, architects and designers create proposals that construct and organize new ways to live, work and play. These unbuilt projects rethink traditional forms while addressing a wide range of landscape conditions.
This week’s curated selection of the Best Unbuilt Architecture focuses on diverse typologies in hot and cold climates around the world. Drawn from an array of firms and local contexts, they represent proposals submitted by the ArchDaily Community. They explore everything from generative design through a desert shelter in Siwa and a cave dwelling in China to a coastal development in Spain and a series of igloo habitats for penguins in Antarctica.
The global COVID-19 pandemic has forced us all to adapt quickly to new ways of living: new ways of working, communicating, buying groceries, and so much more. That adaptability is the key to navigating our changing world. Modular and flexible building systems can help us adapt our physical spaces to the new realities of social distancing or even to the need for rapidly deploying field hospitals.
Urban infrastructures provide comfort to inhabitants and mitigate the risks of disasters such as flooding. Underground systems specifically conceal urban infrastructures from public view and are configured as real mazes under the streets. The distribution of drinking water, urban drainage, sewage, and even electrical wiring and fiber optics in some cases, pass under our feet without us noticing. To this end, the industry developed precast concrete parts for about 100 years that provided construction speed, adequate resistance to force, and durability against time. Concrete pipes with circular sections, in many diverse diameters, are perhaps the most used conduits and are ubiquitous around the world. But there are also those who use these apparently functional elements in creative architectural contexts as well.
Desplans and KooZA/rch have revealed the three final winners of the #mycityscape competition. Inviting young creatives to this conversation, the open call questions the definition of the city, by asking “What establishes the identity of a city? What distinguishes one urban environment from the other? And What defines our relationship to the built landscape we inhabit?”
Trying to find the tools to map the city of the 21st century, the competition encouraged young creatives to record the essence of their cityscape into one image. After selecting 12 shortlisted entries, the contest solicited a wider audience to decide the final winning designs, by voting for their favorites on social media. Following the release of the results, Christele Harrouk from ArchDaily had the chance to talk about the #mycityscape competition with both Desplans and KooZA/rch, discussing the theme and the whole process. Discover in this article the exchange as well as the final winning designs.
Alterity is essential to human development. If deprived of a variety of stimuli, the brain is unable to develop, losing plasticity and deteriorating like an atrophied muscle. This reasoning is widely accepted when it comes to social relations or cognitive and physical activities. But what about the stimuli promoted by the built environment?
Public art is an innate cultural privilege for New Yorkers. Top-notch art can be found across the city’s boroughs everywhere from parks, squares, alleys, and rooftops—sometimes to the jaded disdain of passerby. While permanent staples, such as Robert Indiana’s Love on 6th Avenue or George Segal’s Gay Liberation at the Stonewall National Monument are ingrained in the urban texture, others are more ephemeral. Public art has the power to swiftly take over Instagram feeds but also has a history of sparking polarizing interpretations at town hall hearings.
Few architectural typologies are as timeless as bakeries. A practice spanning thousands of years, the art of baking has diverse roots. Today, bakeries combine areas to gather, socialize, shop, and work. While industrialization and commercialization transformed the art of baking and baked goods, bakeries remain important community spaces for gathering and defining neighborhood identity.
The state of Florida, in the United States, is bordered to the south, east, and west by the Atlantic Ocean, with a coastline of over two thousand kilometers in length, and is characterized by extensive areas of lakes, rivers, and ponds. Land booms during the early and mid-20th century resulted in the development of new communities and the expansion of low-density suburbia across many parts of the state, which frequently incorporated the abundant water resources, sometimes failing in their efforts.
Quebec Wood Export Bureau is adding another tool to your arsenal: a free BIM plugin on Revit. With the help of its wood-producing members, the nonprofit group has stepped into the free software world to put a growing suite of structural wood system components at architects’ fingertips.
As we look back at the architecture projects we have published in 2020, as part of our yearly review, we were able to distinguish many recurring elements and solutions in terms of materials, programs, and functions.
Since the architecture industry moves slightly slower than others, we found that many things in the construction and design that have been building up these past years have come out making strong statements this 2020. We believe, therefore, that trends in the architecture world could be defined not only by what has been recurrent and popular but also, what has proven to be relevant and substantial.
Chicago architecture is empty without Chicago architectural journalism. From the 1880s launch of the black-and-white publication Inland Architect, which covered the rebuilding after the Great Chicago Fire, to a 1985 critique of the James R. Thompson Center by Paul Gapp in the Chicago Tribune titled “Masterpiece or Ego Trip?” which set the course for the public reception of the building, coverage, and criticism of architecture in local newspapers and architecture publications has provided a critical link to how Chicago maintains its reputation as a city of extraordinary architecture. Architectural criticism and journalism have and continue to help Chicago understand how we arrived at this built environment and what the future holds.
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 architect Stanley Saitowitz to discuss his design philosophy, office, upbringing in South Africa, and education and how he ended up in San Francisco, why the practice of architecture is much more challenging today, how architecture relates to cities, and more. Enjoy!
In the dense urban fabric of India’s Mumbai, Studio Symbiosis upgraded the ID Origins Headquarters into a new visual marker of the city, using organic strokes to merge old and new into one revitalized project. The HQ has been under construction since October 2019 and is a historic landmark for the company, as it was where the owners first initiated their business in the 1980s. The 18,750 sqm project was awarded the WA World Architecture Community Awards for its unique design approach.
Ever wondered (or forgotten) the difference between open plans and free plans? In this video, architectural designer and professor Stewart Hicks breaks down what makes Open Plans a unique form of ‘open concept.’ It is part of a series that explores terms from real estate using contemporary, historical, and theoretical examples from architecture. In this case, the spatial strategies of Mies van der Rohe are explained, beginning with his early unbuilt houses, through the Barcelona Pavilion, to the Farnsworth House. Each one features a particular, but evolving, use of walls, columns, and roof planes that add up to what we call ‘Open Plans.’ Other videos in the series are dedicated to things like Free or Organic Plans and can help anyone sharpen their understanding of architectural concepts.
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