Mass-produced from the 1970s to the 1990s, modular kiosks like the seminal K67, designed by the Slovenian architect Saša J. Mächtig, and similar systems – including the Polish Kami, the Macedonian KC190, and the Soviet ‘Bathyscaphe’ – could be found anywhere throughout the former Eastern Bloc and ex-Yugoslav countries, from bustling city squares to socialist-era housing estates. They served as hot dog and Polish zapiekanka joints, farm egg and rotisserie chicken vendors, funeral flower shops, newsstands, car park booths, currency exchange offices, and more.
Featuring over 150 kiosks – from Ljubljana to Warsaw, and from Belgrade to Berlin – this photobook provides previously unseen documentation of the remaining modernist booths that witnessed the socio-political transformation of Central and Eastern Europe at the end of the 20th century. While some remain active or have undergone refurbishment, others have been abandoned or have slowly faded from the urban landscape. The photographs in this unique collection were taken over the last decade by Zupagrafika’s founders, David Navarro and Martyna Sobecka. The book includes a foreword and an introduction, offering invaluable insights into the history of these mobile structures.
Rene Submissions
From Lowering Embodied Carbon to Super-Slim Solutions: What Is the Future of Insulation?
Insulation plays an essential role in today’s buildings—whether it is to provide thermal efficiency to reduce energy demand and cut carbon emissions, or to reduce noise transmission to provide acoustic comfort. Every building has different requirements for the type of insulation needed in floors, roofs, ceilings and walls, and to meet these varying demands Kingspan has developed a range of holistic insulation solutions fit for the future of the built environment.
From lower embodied carbon products to bio-based materials, reducing environmental impact is an area of increasing importance. Meanwhile, the pressing need to upgrade the thermal efficiency of existing buildings often demands insulation technologies that can work with existing structures without requiring excessive thickness. For cladding systems, reaction to fire can be every bit as important as thermal conductivity, and for acoustic panels that form part of the internal décor, aesthetics is as crucial as sound absorption.
Accelerate Concept Design: Faster Iterations and Smarter Decisions With Data
Transforming an initial idea into a concept design is a complex process. It requires understanding project requirements like context, program, budget, and functionality and rapidly iterating—usually with a team—to arrive at a concept, leading to multiple iterations at an early stage.
A common frustration among architects is that concept tools today are either too rigid for design exploration or don’t integrate well with BIM tools—forcing them to either constrain their design to the tool or spend days re-working a concept model on Revit to transition to schematic and detailed design.
Office Pods Can Respond to Key Commercial Real Estate Challenges
Following various studies and polls, a number of players in the US real estate market that focus on offices (CBRE, JLL, and Gallup) agree that managers and operators must offer flexible, amenity-rich offices to support the modern employee commute. Broadly speaking, we are all being called to do more with less space, and for many in the office space world, pods will prove part of the solution. Let’s consider the trends supporting this notion.