In 2002, Magda Mostafa, a then-PhD student at Cairo University, was given an exciting project: to design Egypt's first educational centre for autism. The young architect set herself down to the task of researching into autism design, certain she'd soon find guidelines and accessibility codes to direct her through the process (after all, about one in every 88 children is estimated to fall into the autism spectrum).

But, as Mostafa told me, "I had a rude awakening; there was virtually nothing."

So she started setting up studies to gather the evidence she'd need to come up with her own guidelines. And she was breaking ground: a study she completed in 2008 was "among the first autism design studies to be prospective not retrospective, have a control group, and measure quantifiable factors in a systematic way."

Since those uncertain beginnings, Mostafa has positioned herself as one of the world's pre-eminent researchers in autism design. Her latest work, summarized in "An Architecture for Autism," the journal IJAR's most downloaded article in 2012, outlines Mostafa's latest accomplishment: the Autism ASPECTSS™ Design Index, both a matrix to help guide design as well as an assessment tool "to score the autism-appropriateness of a built environment" post-occupancy. In the following interview, we discuss the Index, the potential of evidence-based design for architecture, and what it's like to break ground (and try get funding) in a country where "black-outs, security threats, water shortages and unbelievable traffic" are everyday occurrences.

I don’t mean to poo poo the US Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon project, but the more I hear about it the more I wonder if this isn’t an indication of just how far behind the United States is in terms of energy policy and the design of smart environments. Are we really that far behind that we need a program like this to prove this stuff really works? Are people still disbelieving? Do they really need demonstration homes to show how photovoltaics produce electricity or how sustainable principles can be applied to architecture? I suppose it makes sense in a country that still obsesses about the Case Study Houses and has debates about climate change.

The purpose of the Solar Decathlon is primarily to educate the public on high-performance building practices. Since 2002 when the DOE held the first one, it’s been putting “green” building in front of people who otherwise would not get to experience it—or, in reality, a self-selecting population of people who are probably already into such things.

“Designing Recovery,” a competition focused on the planning and rebuilding of resilient and sustainable communities, has announced its three winning entries, by sustainable.to Architecture + Building, GOATstudio LLP, and Q4 Architects.

The competition, which was a collaboration between the American Institute of Architects (AIA), Make It Right, Architecture for Humanity, the St. Bernard Project, and Dow Building Solutions, was envisioned to aid communities affected by devastating natural disasters – in this case, New York City, New Orleans, and Joplin, MO.

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Last week, we noted how the American Institute of Architect's (AIA) participation with the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), as well as it's many other initiatives, signify the organization's commitment to putting resiliency on the agenda. The following article, written by Brooks Rainwater, the Director of Public Policy at the AIA, outlines these efforts and emphasizes how architects are tackling today's most pressing global challenges.

Architects are increasingly demonstrating their ability to help solve large-scale problems in the areas of resilience and health. At the same time the continued ascendancy of social impact design has helped elevate the conversation and prescribed a needed emphasis on equity considerations, uplifting global populations, and the idea that design should be for and impact all people. 

With more than 1,000 global leaders convened in New York last week for the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting it is an ideal time to ask the question, how does design fit into the global conversation?

Interiors is an online film and architecture journal, published by Mehruss Jon Ahi and Armen Karaoghlanian. Interiors runs an exclusive column for ArchDaily that analyzes and diagrams films in terms of space.

The Golden Age of Television has made way for shows that run counter to the traditional, expected narrative model. In the course of its five-year run, Breaking Bad has effectively transformed its protagonist into an antagonist, placing its hero/anti-hero in a distinctive landscape. In this sense, the use of space and location in Breaking Bad, filmed in Albuquerque, is noteworthy, from the use of actual locations that serve as the backdrop for businesses (car wash, Los Pollos Hermanos) to constructed sets that are used for characters’ homes (Walter White’s house, Jesse Pinkman’s house).

In our analysis, we focus on the three different spaces where Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) cook meth: the RV, Superlab and makeshift labs across Albuquerque. These spaces, much like the character of Walter White himself, a chemistry teacher who uses his teaching as a cover for his new life as a drug lord, disguise themselves with their exterior appearances, blending into their surroundings.  

At the last day of the World Architecture Festival, the winners of each category had their chance to showcase their projects in front of the jury and the audience. The jury, which included Ken Tadashi Oshima (University of Washington), Ken Yeang (Llewelyn Davies Yeang), Patrick Bellew (Atelier Ten), Jeanne Gang (Studio Gang Architects) and Dietmar Eberle (Baumschlager Eberle), gave the World Building of the Year Award to the new Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, by Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp (FJMT) and Archimedia.

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Picture this: self-assembling blocks that, when given a task, have the ability to reorganize themselves into new geometries. 

This is precisely what research scientist, John Romanishin, at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) has long envisioned for a near future — robotic modules known as M-Blocks. Romanishin has teamed with his professor, Daniela Rus, and colleague, postdoc Kyle Gilpin, to prototype robotic cubes with no external moving parts, able to climb over, around and even leap onto each other.

Till now, robots have depended on arms or attachments to move themselves. "We wanted a simpler approach," says Romanishin, that uses fewer moving parts. Inside each M-Block is a flywheel that spins at 20,000 revolutions per minute, creating enough angular momentum when it brakes that the blocks assemble themselves in new configurations. On each face and edge of the cubes are magnets, naturally connecting the cubes when spurred by the flywheel.

Learn more after the break...

32BNY in collaboration with Spirit of Space has released its fifth videopolemic, entitled Firminy: José Oubrerie. In this video José Oubrerie, a French architect and protégé of Le Corbusier, currently teaching at the Knowlton School of Architecture at Ohio State University, remembers his time working for Corbu, working on the Church in Firminy.

Night photographs of the Brazilian capital created by architectural photographer Andrew Prokos are among this year’s winners at the International Photography Awards competition. Entitled “Niemeyer’s Brasilia” the series of photographs capture the surreal architecture of Oscar Niemeyer, who shaped the Brazilian capital for over 50 years.

More fantastic photographs and information on the awards after the break.

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The first two days of the World Architecture Festival 2013 have been intense. Keynotes by Charles Jencks and Dietmer Eberle, and several other lectures, have filled the auditorium and the festival hall stage, while hundreds of architects watch the live "crits," where firms present their projects in front of the jury and the audience. As a jury for the Health and Future Education categories, I've seen architects from firms from all ranges, sizes and trajectories present their shortlisted projects, a very strong selection of buildings.

After these two days the winners of each category have been announced, and today the super jury will choose the World Building of the Year, followed by a lecture by Sou Fujimoto. Stay tuned for updates via Twitter!

"From the subtle to the spectacular, from a four room house to an 80 storey tower, the sheer quality and diversity reflected in the array of projects shortlisted today demonstrates the increasingly global nature of the event. All eyes are now on the festival’s venue, the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, where the architects will battle to win their individual categories, with the victorious projects competing for the coveted World Building of the Year award" - Paul Finch, Director of the WAF.

Check out the full list of winners, highly commended entries and the jury's comments:

In recent weeks both the national papers and the London Evening Standard have been reporting dramatic increases in the price of houses in the capital. Up 8% in a year they say. This isn’t great. Rents are also rising sharply. Soon, many, particularly young, Londoners will be trapped, unable to rent or buy.  No doubt this is increasingly the case in many big cities. But England is still arguably in a recession, the worst for nearly a century. 

In an attempt to find affordable homes people move further away from their work, especially those on low wages, and spend too much of their salary and their time commuting. The cost of housing affects what we eat, whether we exercise and how much spare time we have. It affects our quality of life.

So, this is not about business or property. It’s more important. This is about home. Home is a refuge. It’s our emotional harbour. In fact it is a human right. As the UN Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights states: it is 'the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate ... housing'. 

Can architects help? Yes. As architects, we need to ask what home actually is, and, how it fits into the city. Indeed, the answer is as much anthropological as it is architectural, as it lies in re-thinking the house itself, in creating - not housing - but homes.

Following the news that the 2013 RIBA Stirling Prize was been won by Witherford Watson Mann for Astley Castle at a ceremony in London last week, the critical response to the project has been extremely positive. Joseph Rykwert (who recently won the RIBA Gold Medal) said that "Witherford Watson Mann have been gentle surgeons, saving the essential, eliminating the incidental". Check out the critical responses from The Financial Times' Edwin Heathcote, The Guardian's Oliver Wainwright, Building Design's Ellis Woodman, and the Architects' Journal's Rory Olcayto after the break...

The 2013 RIBA Manser Medal has been awarded to Carl Turner Architects for Slip House in Brixton, London. The Manser Medal is awarded for the best newly designed private house, and this year was announced in a ceremony at Central Saint Martins in London, along with the winners of the 2013 RIBA Stirling Prize. The jury's citation for Slip House noted that "inside and out this house is immaculate in its detail, coordination and execution."

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Starting your own firm is a daunting task, especially if you're not completely sure of what you're getting yourself into. Author Mark LePage, founder of Entrepreneur Architect knows this firsthand. This guide, originally published on Entrepreneur Architect, discusses the financial implications of starting your own firm and acts as a guide through the challenge, leading you to success.

How much will it cost to start my own architecture firm?

That is a question that many of my readers ask me each week. The answer will certainly differ depending on whom you ask. When architects ask me how much it will cost to launch an architecture firm, I say, “as much as you need.”

Below I will discuss the very basics required to launch a sole proprietor architecture firm. Depending on your circumstance and the region in which you live, the numbers may vary for you.

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As young people migrate to cities in ever growing numbers, so grows the concern for the future of agriculture. Prototypes for urban/vertical farms have been developed and, considering projected urban growth, seem a likely forecast for our future.

In the offices of Pasona, the future has already arrived. The Tokyo based recruitment agency has dedicated 20% of their 215,000 square foot office to growing fresh vegetables, making it the largest urban farm in Japan.

In the year 1940, Armour Institute and Lewis Institute merged in Chicago to create the Illinois Institute of Technology. The merging of these two schools called for a new master plan for the university, and Mies van der Rohe was commissioned for the job. Mies’ plan for the IIT campus was one of the largest projects he ever conceived and he developed it for twenty years. Today the campus contains 20 of his works, including the famous Crown Hall. Enjoy the video and don't forget to check our AD Classics on the IIT Master Plan and Buildings.

In the 1970s roughly 20 percent of all US college courses were taught by adjuncts. In recent years, especially since the global financial meltdown, the number of adjunct professors has exploded to the point where they might be considered a floating population of migrant laborers. According to a report from the National Education Association (NEA), currently more than half of all US college courses are taught by adjuncts, or what Sarah Kendzior calls “Academia’s Indentured Servants.”

The 2013 American Association of University Professors annual report paints an even bleaker picture, finding that 76 percent of the academic workforce is made up of adjunct, part-time faculty, teaching graduate students, and non-tenure track, full-time professors. 

We have entered an era in higher education where many alarming forces are converging.