Sometimes an architect’s best intentions get lost along the way. Sometimes they get value-engineered out; sometimes they were never really there to begin with. That's where Ugly Belgian Housescomes in. The blog, run by discerning Belgian Hannes Coudenys, documents some of his home country's architectural misadventures - all with a sense of humor, of course!
Today, to celebrate Belgium's National Day, we asked the man behind the blog to select some beautiful Belgian houses. His choices - with a few words from him and the architects - after the break.
The process of becoming an architect can be as confusing as it is extensive. In this article, we'll demystify a crucial component of the path to a career in architecture: what degree you should get. Specifically, we’ll lay out the difference between two common, somewhat comparable degrees: the B.Arch and the M.Arch.
When learning about architecture, there is no replacement for practical experience: seeing how materials can be joined together, how structural elements respond to the stresses placed upon them, or how construction techniques can alter the finished project. For this reason, it is a good idea to give students a chance for some hands-on experience building real structures—something that, due to budgetary constraints and the academic culture of many architecture schools, has sadly been uncommon in the past.
However, in recent years, this culture has started to shift, with increasing numbers of architecture schools finding ways for students to be involved in construction projects, from small, temporary interventions and pavilions, to larger permanent buildings. In order to show the excellent work that can be done in an educational context, for the fourth timeArchDaily is calling on students and professors to submit the design-build projects they have completed in the past year. As always, we're teaming up with allofArchDailyen Español,ArchDaily Brasil, and ArchDaily China, in the hope that we can present the best work from students worldwide to a worldwide audience. Read on to find out how you can take part.
https://www.archdaily.com/898457/the-foster-plus-partners-led-trailblazer-apprenticeships-bring-overdue-relief-for-disenfranchised-architecture-studentsNiall Patrick Walsh
Book presentations, or book launches, are holdovers from ages long past. One could argue that the same applies to books in print themselves; but we still read and write books, never mind in which shape and form, while I do not see many reasons to keep presenting them in brick-and-mortar bookshops, or similar venues. Friends in the publishing industry tell me that a single tweet, or a successful hashtag on Instagram, can sell more copies than a book launch—and at a lesser cost, for sure. Besides, one of the most baffling aspects of book launches is that, traditionally—and I remember this was already the case when I was a student—a significant fraction of the public in attendance tends to be viscerally and vocally hostile to the topic of the book being presented. Why would readers who dislike a book as a plain matter of principle take the time to read it in full then vent their anger at its author, I cannot tell; but this is to say that having published a book last fall titled The Second Digital Turn: Design Beyond Intelligence, I had plenty of opportunities, in the course of the last few months, to glean a vast repertoire of technophobic commonplaces. Chiefly noted among them, due to its sheer outlandishness, was the objection that digital innovation would by now have fully run its course: having adapted to, and adopted, some new tools and technologies, architects would have moved on, free at last to get back to things that really matter to them (whatever they might be).
Before deciding on a career in architecture, plenty of questions can cross one’s mind: Which school should I choose? Should I study abroad or choose a local school? Would enrolling in top international universities cost me a fortune? How long will it take for me to finally be able to build my own structure? At the end of the day, the making of an architect is pretty simple: half a decade of architecture studies, and then some.
Whether you are considering studying abroad or staying home, you'll need to know how long it takes to become an architect in your country of choice. Take a look at how long it usually takes to earn that degree in different countries from all over the world, and what you'll need to do (aside from attending school) before becoming a certified architect.
Light is an important, if complex, tool in architecture. Not only does it lend atmosphere, texture, and vibrancy, but it is increasingly essential in an age where technology alienates us from nature. In this excerpt from Mary Guzowski's new book, The Art of Architectural Daylighting, she introduces the science and art of daylighting - and details six ways the masters approach the challenge.
In the ten years since our site was launched, ArchDaily has grown into the world’s most visited architecture website; it is now a project with greater reach and scale than the site’s founders could ever have anticipated. Thanks to our readers, contributors and leadership, the initial iteration of the site (based in Chile and known as Plataforma Arquitectura) has evolved into a global architecture media network that includes the English site you’re reading right now as well as region and language-specific sister sites in Brazil,China,Colombia, Mexico, and Peru.
The story of ArchDaily's growth is one of the many topics covered in a new 114-minute interview with ArchDaily’s co-founder David Basulto on this week’s episode of the Midnight Charette podcast. Hosted by David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, the podcast features weekly discussions on design issues of the day and interviews with figures in the architecture community. In their talk with Basulto, the conversation wanders from the story of our company and some behind-the-scenes trivia about how our site works (did you know our custom content management system is named after the biblical Tower of Babel’s designer?) to insights on how architects will shape our future cities and the ways that data collection and analysis could shape the designs of tomorrow.
In Luis Barragán’s poetic imagination color plays as significant a role as dimension or space. Rough textures and water reflections heighten the impact of bright sunlight in his colorful buildings. But where does such vibrancy come from and how is it heightened by the architecture itself?
After completing Town Square, a mixed-use, double-tower complex in the heart of St. Paul, Minnesota in 1980, the late architect Donald Smith of SOM told Architectural Record magazine, “We must reorient our attention to the center [of] cities to save them.”
Smith’s words were prophetic, it turns out, but not in the way he may have expected.
Last month, Town Square—now known as UBS Plaza—captured the attention of the globe as a scraggly, wayward raccoon climbed up its southern tower’s 25 stories.
Imagine a sports stadium that could expand and contract with its fan base and team’s fortunes, one that could pick up and move to greener (and more lucrative) pastures.
Given team owners’ history of playing fans against each other, making stadiums more mobile isn’t likely to give pennant-wavers a sense of security, but the concept is an incredible breakthrough for building technology. Endlessly modular and made of ultralow-impact mass timber, this vision of low-carbon construction, conceived by engineered-wood manufacturer Rubner Holzbau and prefabricated stadium designer Bear Stadiums, could soon materialize at a soccer pitch near you.
Both today and in centuries past, it is a reality of building that not every project is destined for success. Financial issues or unrealistic timetables can complicate a building’s construction but, while usually the final result eventually meets the initial expectations, other times the worst-case scenario of a building being abandoned during construction becomes a nightmare come true. Unfortunately, these failed projects have an extensive history. Economic factors are the most common cause of unfinished construction, but buildings have also been stranded in limbo by wars, geopolitical shifts, epidemics of disease and other unpredictable obstacles, leaving partial structures as haunting reminders of what might have been.
Whether partially completed and left as ruins or still under construction decades (or centuries) after initial groundbreaking, unfinished buildings offer an alternative history of our built environment, promising long-delayed gratification or examples of design so ambitious that they prove impossible to realize. Initiated by civilizations across the globe, the following list details just a few examples of history’s most interesting and infamous unfinished construction projects.
In his ongoing photo-series "Façades," French photographer Zacharie Gaudrillot-Roy a series of images in which he removes the mass and depth of buildings, and leaves behind the mere fragments of exterior skin. The photos, which resemble deserted Hollywood sets, illustrate roadways, towns, apartment complexes, and other environments without giving away the ideas of anything beyond the superficial image of the facade—leaving much to the imagination.
Videos
via Graven Hill Village Development Company
“Self-build”: no mention of an architect, or anyone else for that matter. Maybe it’s a prehistoric urge that makes this idea so enticing; our earliest ancestors constructed their primitive huts to suit their unique needs and reflect their status or style. “Self-build” promises to physically re-connect people to the homes they live in.
However, the romantic notion of "self-build" housing is rarely compatible with the modern reality we live in. Building has become increasingly clouded by the difficulty of procuring land, excessive governmental red-tape, and an increase in building complexity. While self-build remains the purest form of this dream, there are now a series of nuanced processes that can help us achieve similar results. As a new generation of communities that encourage this dream emerges, we must look at the role the architect plays within them.
Arena das Dunas, Brazil by Populous. Image Courtesy of Populous
As an industry populated by creators, the business of design is continually reconsidered and reshaped by processes of reinvention and experimentation. Rarely content with yesterday’s innovations in anything from modeling software to building materials, architects naturally look for strategic ways to gain maximum advantage in both building and business. Taking just such a creative approach to the challenge of improving athletic venues within the stringent time frame of a team’s offseason, the dominant Kansas City-based sports architecture firm Populous recently launched a standalone service that employs the efficiency advantages of a design-build firm to simplify and expand the process of implementing stadium upgrades without any disruption to the fan experience.
Architecture is often seen as something which provides a place-marker in history, reflecting the zeitgeist of an era. But how do we design architecture in a world that is changing faster than ever before, where entire types of buildings disappear seemingly in a flash? Here, we round up six types of buildings that came into existence in modern times and are fading as fast as they appeared. Mostly banal and previously ubiquitous, the nostalgia associated with the disappearance of these buildings taps into something emotional, rather than intellectual admiration.
Memory and architecture are closely linked, with Juhani Pallasmaa in his book The Eyes of the Skin describing how “the body knows and remembers. Architectural meaning derives from archaic responses and reactions remembered by the body and the senses.” Some of the structures below have become obsolete within half a lifespan—an interesting point to consider in a discipline that has historically valued permanence above all. If structures no longer serve a social function, will they be remembered?
It only takes a pen, paper, and an innovative mind to create remarkable structures. Bringing these architectures to life, however, is where challenges arise. While some architects have shown their creativity and ambition by designing and constructing some of the craziest structures the world has ever seen, other architects were only left with an ambitious drawing. Whether due to financial limitations or designs that are way ahead of their time, some projects never saw the light of day.
Although you won’t be visiting these structures anytime soon—or ever, as far as we know—take a virtual tour of what could have been 7 of the world’s most iconic, innovative structures, courtesy of renders produced by Onward, the blog from Onstride Financial.
From the Fundación Arquia Blog, architect José Ramón Hernandez brings us an article that reflects on projects that can only be appreciated because of who they were created by. If it weren't for the fact that they bear the signature of their illustrious creator, they most likely would have gone completely unnoticed or even despised.
.jpg?1531492981)
.jpg?1531136109)
