At the opening to the 2015 Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (UABB) we took a moment to speak with Hubert Klumpner, one of the event's six curators. A professor from the ETH Zurich Swiss Institute of Technology and partner at Urban Think Tank, Klumpner, together with Alfredo Brillembourg, spearheaded the curation of "Radical Urbanism," a sub-theme of the entire Biennale's wider theme, "Re-Living the City."

"...we believe that we have enough buildings, enough construction, enough infrastructure. And it is now time to consolidate it and find the qualities within the built. This is not against future production, it is more about a consideration of what we really want in cities." - Hubert Klumpner

Read on to learn how the "Radical Urbanism" exhibition reveals what we can learn from the interventions and ad-hoc, bottom-up initiatives. Also, don't miss Klumpner and Brillembourg's essay, "The Evolution of Radical Urbanism: What Does the Future Hold for Our Cities."

Sou Fujimoto Architects' "Architecture is Everywhere" was among the ArchDaily editors' favorite exhibitions in the Chicago Architecture Biennial. The thought-provoking, entertaining collection of mundane objects truly embraced the idea that the public—not solely architects—should be included in the Biennial's celebration of architecture.

Before the fruits of architectural labor are realized, we rarely revel in the seeds cultivated in the minds of architects. It's hard to capture these formative ideas, much less present them in a way that seizes the satisfying moment in which architecture is "found." 

The deceiving simplicity of displaying "found architecture" actually imparts a deeper, thoughtful lesson, which Fujimoto has inscribed on an accompanying placard "Architecture could come into being from anywhere. I believe fostering that architecture-to-be into real architecture itself is also architecture."

From the Metro Line 4 in Budapest to the Faculty of Health Sciences in Granada and the Hotel Steingerberger in Berlin, CEMEX has revealed a diverse list of international finalists for the XXIV Building Awards. The awards aim to recognize the best architecture and construction projects internationally, honoring projects completed during 2014 that stand out for their constructive solutions, aesthetics and innovative techniques.

The finalists span five categories: housing, institutional/industrial, infrastructure/urbanism, sustainable building and accessibility congruence. The winners will be announced on November 5. See all of the finalists after the break and check out the winners of last year’s awards here.

Watch Álvaro Siza celebrate the opening of the exhibition "Corner, Block, Neighbourhood, Cities. Álvaro Siza in Berlin and The Hague" and the arrival of the Siza archive at the CCA. You can also follow the conversation on Twitter using #SizaCCA.

PA#51 - Immeuble Home, Paris 13 por Pavillon-Arsenal

Our friends at the Pavillion de l'Arsenal have shared a collection of videos from their "Paris Architectures" series. Dive into these short films that document remarkable architecture around France's capital city. 

This week we get a glimpse of Hamonic + Masson & Associés' Bâtiment Home.

How well do you know the works of the Swiss master Charles Edouard Jeanneret (aka Le Corbusier)? Take our quiz to find out!

Videos

Google is in the unique position to truly understand what people want. As millions key in their questions, the search giant is actively working to provide better answers. When it comes to questions about solar energy, Google wondered, “If people are lost trying to get answers about solar, why don’t we give them a map?” And so, the tech company announced the beta launch of Project Sunroof: a tool “to make installing solar panels easy and understandable for anyone.”

In a post on Google’s Green Blog, engineer Carl Elkin addressed common misconceptions about the viability of solar energy for the average owner by saying “many of them are missing out on a chance to save money and be green.” Sunroof hopes to be the answer that gives people clear, easy to understand answers.

BLUEPRINT is the latest exhibition on display at the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York. Curated by Sebastiaan Bremer, Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu, the exhibition features 50 blueprints from participating artists and architects, ranging from as far back as 1961 to 2013.

UPDATE: OMA has released new images of the Norra Tornen project (previously named “Tors Torn”), as the close-to 300 apartments planned for the residential towers have been put on the market. The ground-breaking of the Stockholm towers is currently set for May 2015.

OMA has won the design competition for Tors Torn in Stockholm, beating out four competing practices for the opportunity to build the third tallest twin skyscrapers in Sweden.

Existing urban guidelines call for a gateway to the new Hagastaden area of Stockholm, and OMA’s proposal accommodates a mixed-use program with a set of “rough-skinned” towers. The protrusions and inversions at different heights produce an alternating pattern of indoor living spaces and protruding outdoor spaces. OMA explains that their design “challenges the expected uniformity and homogenous façade treatment that is often assigned to tower structures. Instead, it extends the skin to expose the individuality of the separate living units in the two blocks - a true vertical, urban agglomeration."

More on OMA’s winning proposal after the break…

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Performative spaces must now be designed to evolve as rapidly as the needs of those that occupy them. This new publication provides detailed design strategies, case studies and the latest advances in the use of new technologies to illustrate the ways in which evidence can be integrated into the design process.

Driven by enormous advances in ICT, the world is experiencing a period of unprecedented social change—one that has placed extraordinary demands on our built environments, and on our understanding about how they work for the people that actively occupy them. The impact of social interaction on our health and sense of wellbeing is now also recognised as a significant driver in the design of new environments and the need for ongoing research. 

Online Master Class
The Versatile Workplace
Date: September 25th
Speakers: Primo Orpilla and Verda Alexander, Founders Studio O+A
Registration: click here to register to the event.
Brought to you by: IE School of Architecture & Design

The component parts of Monditalia, the 41 projects that line the vast corridor of the Arsenale, provide contextualization for architecture operating within larger systems, be it politics, media, border control, religion, etc. When we spoke to Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli of AMO, Monditalia's head curator, he stressed that "the exhibition is a method, more than anything. This idea of the scanning through the country, selecting case studies, selecting another way to represent the case studies…it's a method that can be applied also elsewhere."

Monditalia mobilizes the other sectors of the Venice Biennale -- Cinema, Dance and Music -- in order to capture a "polyphonic" portrait of a European country with what Laparelli describes as "extreme conditions." Infographics produced in preparation for the exhibition demonstrate the statistical disparities between Italy and other nations. The scan of Italy begins from the south and continues to the north, allowing "different topics to collaps[e] or collid[e] onto each other, such as you would find when you travel through a real territory."

Monditalia's events have been programmed to take place between June and November in conjunction with a series of 21 Weekend Specials that allow further exploration of the issues/topics/case studies brought forth in the exhibition at large.

Watch Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli explain Monditalia in the video above, read on after the break for the curatorial statement, and see the rest of ArchDaily's Biennale coverage here.

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During the frenzied press preview of the Venice Biennale, the ArchDaily team received an unexpected and delightfully odd request. Rem Koolhaas, the subject of interviews with countless media outlets, was going to turn the tables. This time, he would be the one asking the questions. He wanted to show his appreciation for the work of Charles Brooking and The Brooking National Collection.

A collector from a young age, Charles Brooking was encouraged by a tutor to pursue his love of rescuing discarded building parents (elements of architecture, if you will). He founded the collection in 1966 and, in the process, has "chart[ed] the evolution of Britain’s constructional elements over the last 500 years." Though Brooking's collection of approximately half a million items contains everything from fire grates to stairs and shoe-stoppers to postboxes, the OMA exhibition highlights the evolution of the window. 

With the development of better-insulated alternatives, Brooking's collection of windows continues to grow. In fact, it is precisely this dialogue between old and new that is emphasized in the Windows room in the exhibition: Brooking's window collection graces a wall that surrounds current high-tech window-building machinery. As we (architects, clients, users) engage in a relentless pursuit of uniformed comfort, especially when it comes to architectural detailing, Koolhaas asked Brooking what he thought this meant for the "the very things we want to preserve." He asks Brooking, "Are you willing to suffer for the principle of authenticity and preservation?"

Watch Brooking and Koolhaas in conversation in the above video, and be sure to check out our coverage of the Elements of Architecture exhibition at the 2014 Venice Biennale.