Architect Carlos Zapata has unveiled a new, mixed-use residential tower in Quito, Ecuador. Located on the northern edge of La Carolina Park, the design has become one of the city’s tallest buildings. The 24-story tower is defined by a three-story opening at its midpoint that creates an communal pool and lounge area, as well as a series of vertical gardens. The new tower was made to embrace Quito’s open sky and striking views of the Andes mountains.
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When designing in times of quick and constant transformations, one must keep a close eye on the surge of new demands, and one must design spaces that embrace such mutability.
Flexible furniture is a reflection of this contemporary behavior because they can be moved around easily, they have great adaptability, and because they can perform different functions in a single piece. These pieces enable several different layouts, being able to adjust their shape according to specific requirements and changes, which helps optimizing interiors.
We have selected eight Brazilian projects that combine versatility and flexibility in furniture design.
Revit is a parametric and multidisciplinary design software that can virtually create and insert any building within a BIM process. Revit is not a true modeler, but an aggregator of construction components governed by a series of specific rules. In order to avoid issues within the Revit project, it must be set up carefully. Since each project has different characteristics and requirements, there is no standard procedure when starting a new one. However, becoming familiar with various situations and their necessary steps will greatly help.
In the introduction of Cities for People, Jan Gehl stated clearly that most cities have neglected the human aspect when planning the built space. While technologies have allowed us to build large, our focus shifted from creating architecture for humans to erecting structures that look like they are meant for a different kind of species. Top-down urban planning decisions have ignored scales adapted to the senses and organic growth, and new ideologies prioritized speed, functionality, and profitability.
Dictating our city experience, scale, this major spatial component related to the human dimension, stimulates our senses, and influences our well-being. In this article, we lay down historical changes and underline scientific facts to highlight how scale can impact our daily city life, guided by Eden of the Orient, a series of photos by Belgian photographer Kris Provoost, portraying a battle of scale in Hong Kong.
Snøhetta has revealed its first built project in Hong Kong, Airside, a 176,000 square meters mixed-use building. Located in the center of the former Kai Tak airport, the project commissioned by Nan Fung Group comprises a 200-meter tower merged seamlessly with its base.
Paul Revere Williams’ incredible architectural career spanned the growth of Hollywood. Artist Ibrahim Rayintakath illustrated 43 of Williams’ most notable California homes for HomeAdvisor, including addresses and an illustrated map so architecture buffs can check out these historic buildings in person. Between the 1920s and his retirement in 1973, Williams designed over 2,000 private homes - many for Hollywood creatives such as Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, and Johnny Weissmuller.
Vernacular architecture can be defined as a type of local or regional construction, using traditional materials and resources from the area where the building is located. Consequently, this architecture is closely related to its context and is aware of the specific geographic features and cultural aspects of its surroundings, being strongly influenced by them. For this reason, they are unique to different places in the world, becoming even a means of reaffirming an identity.
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On November 3rd, 2020, after successfully holding the Award Ceremony and the Shanshui City Theme Forum in Lishui, the site of the competition, the Future ShanShui City • Dwellings in Lishui Mountains International Urban Design Competition finally came to a successful conclusion after more than seven months.
Now that traveling is restricted and mobility is limited, having the ability to get a sense of the space in person is somewhat impossible. Naturally, if we were to choose between being present in the project or skimming through images online, the choice would be the former. But luckily, we still have books and architecture websites to keep us well-informed.
In a new Youtube video, Archimarathon’s Kevin Hui and Andrew Maynard explain how we can understand architecture without being physically present in the project, but by letting our visualization skills and imagination do the investigations instead.
A radial concentric city plan is formed by streets that extend outward from a defined center and reach the outer edge of the city, together with concentrically arranged roads that connect the radial streets to the lots. This pattern traces back to ancient times and continues even to this day.
Depending on the historical context, location, or purpose of the city planning, the element found in the center may vary. Plazas, churches, or government buildings are among the most common elements and this is no accident, nor is the urban design pattern. Basically, the radial arrangement of streets is intended to highlight a particular element or location that has great political, religious, financial, or symbolic value to the city as a whole.
Oyler Wu Collaborative and Taiwanese partner Ren Lai Architects have won a competition to re-envision the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts in Taiwan. Selected among finalists including Asif Khan with C.M.Chao Architects, Sou Fujimoto Architects with WSAA Design Team, and Liao Architects and Associates, the winning project proposes a newly renovated exterior that seeks to reconnect the building with its evolving context.
Architecture practice Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios (FCBStudios) has won the competition to design the next building at the Paradise site in Birmingham. The £700 million Paradise redevelopment is being made through a private-public joint venture with Birmingham City Council. The team's vision for Three Chamberlain Square is to create a new standard for a sustainable workplace in the city.
On November 18, the Panamerican Architecture Biennial of Quito announced the winning projects of the 2020 Oscar Niemeyer Award for Latin American Architecture.
Architecture is defined by its context. This holds especially true when buildings are located in harsh climates and must respond to natural conditions. This week’s curated selection of the Best Unbuilt Architecture focuses on designs located at the intersection of nature and the built environment. Drawn from all over the world, they represent proposals submitted by our readers.
The article features a range of building types and locations, including many coastal proposals, from a regeneration plan on the South Coast of England and a proposal to link the famous Turku archipelago, to a dockside timber tower in Dublin. Also included are more extreme ideas, from an overlook on the Algarve coast to a vertical city with greenhouses located along a cliff on Mars.
When designing the Nordic Pavilion in Venice, Sverre Fehn incorporated Nordic architectural elements in unusual ways. One of the most attention-grabbing elements of the building is its laminar roof cover of white concrete, which is broken by trees planted inside the building blocking the sun's rays and filtering the light. Depending on the angle, the roof blades allow visitors to see the colors of the sky and the canopy of the trees, bringing dynamism to the pavilion's lighting and movement. In fact, the use of parallel slats on facades, walls, and roofs is a tradition that comes from Nordic architecture and has spread throughout the world. In this article we will cover some examples that use this element, including its variety of possibilities and the best ways to amplify their effect.
Foster + Partners has just unveiled its winning design scheme for a new urban destination in China, the Guangming Hub located on the high-speed rail connecting Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou. In fact, the Transport Oriented Development proposal generates a “smart city that supports the flow of people and goods with robust infrastructure, effective transport networks, reliable public services, and lush greenery”.
Design practice Sasaki has begun a transformation and renovation of the historic Boston City Hall Plaza. As one of the city's most-used civic spaces, the project aims to make the plaza more welcoming and accessible for everyday life and special occasions. The design team is working with Mayor Martin J. Walsh and the City of Boston on the seven-acre plan to deliver updated programming capabilities, new infrastructure, and improved sustainability.
The gable roof house is not only a children's drawing of a home, it is also one of the most popular solutions in Brazilian residential architecture. Besides being very appealing and easy to build, this type of roof helps the rainwater flow along its two pitched surfaces that meet at a central line, hence the name duas águas (lit. two waters) in Portuguese.
There’s nothing green about your back-up generator. Manufacturing it released tons of CO2 into the atmosphere; so did shipping it from the factory to the dealership to your backyard. There it will sit, idle, waiting to be deployed only when the much cleaner—but underfunded—public infrastructure fails. At that point, it will fill the air with additional pollutants. There may be perfectly good reasons to buy an emergency generator but being green—that is, protecting the environment—isn’t one of them.
As the forces shaping our built environment have shifted, engaging technology, networks, and complex systems, architects need to envision more than the physical space but produce narratives on how to best operate within this new societal landscape. In this context, speculative architecture seems to have never been more critical; therefore this article takes a closer look at the mediums that currently question the existing conditions of the built environment and explore new architectural possibilities.
When it comes to the design process behind architectural projects, brainstorming is never the same for everyone. Some find inspiration in crowded rooms with loud music in the background, some walk around public spaces and observe people’s behaviors, and some need almost no resources whatsoever, just a pen, paper, and complete silence.
In an interview with architecture filmographers Spirit of Space, Steven Holl shares how being completely isolated in the Watercolor Hut contributed to some of his office’s most notable creations.
This past summer, the nonprofit design practice, PennPraxis, in partnership with The Fresh Air Fund, piloted a new program, Virtual Design Studio, that sparked the imaginations of nearly 150 students to show how design has the power to change the built environment. Their courses, which were taught by University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design graduate students, generated multiple designs for a nature center operated by The Fresh Air Fund and public spaces in New York City and offered children an introduction to explore future careers in design that could have a lasting impact on their communities and the design professions for years to come. Over the course of seven weeks, these students committed over 150 hours to the program while also receiving a stipend.
Adjaye Associates has unveiled its design for a new historical center for African consciousness, the Thabo Mbeki Presidential Library in Johannesburg. Named after the previous president of South Africa, the project is an opportunity to realize the dreams of Thabo Mbeki to advance and empower an African renaissance, according to the 2021 RIBA Royal Gold Medal winner Sir David Adjaye.
.jpg?1606323402 "Courtesy of Carlos Zapata")
.jpg?1605991358 "Nüwa City on Mars. Image Courtesy of ABIBOO Studio")
.jpg?1605991377 "Nüwa City on Mars. Image Courtesy of ABIBOO Studio")
.jpg?1605822515 "Surface Ex-Tension by Jonathan Craig, Luis Arjona, Marco Nieto & Philip Elmore. Image Courtesy of Arch Out Loud. Image Courtesy of Arch Out Loud")
