The concepts of autonomy, collaboration, and participation have gained relevance in architecture and urbanism through collaborative actions involving the community, architects, urban planners, and designers. As the number of climate disasters has significantly increased - doubling in the last 40 years according to a report released in 2016 by CRED (Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters) - in addition to conflicts and other tragedies, the demand for the rebuilding of houses and infrastructure in affected areas has grown simultaneously. This has called for a major collaborative effort in architectural and urban reconstruction.
Peter Zumthor, in one of his most emblematic works, gives concrete an almost sacred dimension. The work in question is the small Bruder Klaus Field Chapel, located in a small village in Germany, a construction that is both robust and sensitive. Built with white cement, which was mixed with stones and sand from the region, the chapel is composed of 24 layers of concrete that were poured day after day by local labor, and compressed in an unusual way. The building's flat and smooth exterior contrasts with its interior, which was initially made of inclined wooden logs forming a triangular void. To remove these internal forms, the logs were set on fire in a controlled process, reducing them to ash and creating a carbonized interior that varied between black and gray and retained the texture of the negatives of the logs. The result is a masterpiece of architecture, a space for reflection and transformation, in which the same material appears in diametrically opposing ways.
While all public spaces around the world are trying to innovate and implement safety measures to open during the coronavirus pandemic, Domino Park has introduced a series of painted social distancing circles. This strategical urban design intervention ensures that people are “following proper social distancing procedures recommended by the CDC and government”.
The Miller Hull Partnership has earned a Living Building Challenge Petal Certification for the renovation of its San Diego studio. The renovation is the first project certified under the fourth version of the Living Building Challenge (LBC 4.0), which continues the standard’s mission of visionary building goals. Now all of Miller Hull’s offices are Petal certified.
SCI-Arc’s Master of Science in Design Theory and Pedagogy is a one-year program that addresses the growing ambiguity between practice and academia and prepares students for the new hybrid career that has emerged in architecture: the architect-theorist-educator. As shifting political, social, cultural, technological, and ecological paradigms redefine architecture, the program speculates on how architects will practice in the future, interrogates current pedagogical models, and focuses on what needs to be rethought, advanced, or challenged. One of five master’s programs within SCI-Arc EDGE, Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture, Design Theory and Pedagogy prepares young architects for new forms of architectural practice.
New Orleans is a city unlike any other. Defined by a rich cultural history, the Big Easy has been shaped by it's geography along the Mississippi Delta and the local climate. After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, designers and architects looked to the city with a renewed focus to build a better future. From the Lower 9th Ward to the French Quarter and beyond, modern designs were created within a diverse urban fabric.
Our lives as architects and designers revolve around inventing new ways to change both the profession in which we practice, and the world for which we build. From the individual buildings, all the way to the urban planning strategies that we propose, the way that we consider a project's longevity and impact on the world play an immense part in how we think about design.
To further explore how we can design cities, environments, and buildings, we are excited to announce the lineup for ArchDaily x LifeCycles: The Future of our Cities; a three day (May 26-28) series of panel discussions featuring architects from around the world who will be sharing their ideas and experiences for how we can build a better future.
https://www.archdaily.com/940034/archdaily-x-lifecycles-stream-the-panel-discussions-liveAD Editorial Team
The profession mourns the loss of a trailblazer. Robert Coles was the first African American chancellor of the AIA's College of Fellows, and a founding member the National Organization of Minority Architects https://t.co/eTCHv7S6AO
American architect Robert Traynham Coles, a founding member of the National Organization for Minority Architects (NOMA) has passed away at the age of 90 on Saturday, May 16, 2020. Considered one of the lead advocates for diversity in architecture, he was the first African American chancellor of the AIA's College of Fellows.
The East County Office & Archives by Miller Hull. Image Courtesy of Chipper Hatter
Back in February this year, the American architectural community was scandalised by a draft executive order from the White House threatening to make neoclassical or traditional regional styles compulsory for all new federal buildings. The initiative fails to recognise the specificity of the architectural expression and the innovation that stems from understanding the local context. Metropolis Magazine has gathered together several examples of civic architecture that succeed in expressing the needs and aspirations of their communities, thus building a compelling argument against a mandated, unified architectural expression.
JOA is honoured to participate in the 2019 Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (Shenzhen). We have always taken the research led perspective as the starting point of the design, trying to discuss the story behind the architecture in greater depth, and present it to the public through the exhibition. Our understanding of the future world is more based on the perspective of architecture rather than sci-fi movies. The premise of envisioning the future is actually to discuss the current social pain points, and then come up with critical reflections in a future dimension, which we call "The Post Anthropocene” project.
https://www.archdaily.com/939698/the-post-anthropocene-joas-exhibition-envision-life-in-hard-futureJust Open Architecture
As the world is slowly reopening, easing lockdown measures, everyone is adapting to new realities. Imposing drastic adjustments to our lives, the coronavirus has introduced a new “normal”, changing our perceptions and altering our priorities. Driven towards questioning and evaluating our environment, we are constantly reacting and anticipating a relatively unknown future.
A casual conversation between two editors at ArchDaily generated this collaborative piece that seeks to investigate the current trends, predict the future, and offer insights to everyone/everything related to the architectural field. Tackling the evolution of the profession, the firms, and the individuals, especially young adults and students, this article, produced by Christele Harrouk and Eric Baldwin, aims to reveal what is happening in the architecture scene.
Kiruna, a Swedish town within the Arctic Circle, has had to relocate owing to geological instability brought on by mining. This unusual circumstance is the focus of Kiruna Forever, an exhibition at ArkDes. Ingenjörsvillan, a house in Kiruna, was one of the structures moved. In the town’s new location, a circular city hall designed by Henning Larsen plays centerpiece. Courtesy Jessica Nilden
Kiruna Forever, an exhibition at ArkDes, traces the town's relocation due to geological instability.
“Kiruna is on the move,” says Carlos Mínguez Carrasco, curator of the new exhibition Kiruna Forever. Kiruna, a 125-year-old Swedish town that sprouted around the iron mine of the same name, started an official relocation process in 2018 after decades of discussion with the state-owned mining company LKAB. Today, as the expansion of the mine destabilizes the ground surrounding it, nearby buildings are being demolished or loaded onto flatbed trucks and moved to the new city center nearly two miles east.
Emergencies include a variety of contemporary scenarios ranging from natural disasters to extreme poverty or isolation due to social and political conflicts. In all cases, the disruption of normality and the requirement of basic needs for maintaining a decent quality of life become the basis for finding quick and efficient alternatives to respond to this type of urgency.
Architecture can be a tool for social change, and the belief in this statement is what motivates the work of many architectural NGOs who strive to address the lack of adequate shelter, generate social and economic change and build resilience in communities. These NGOs operate in two major areas, disaster relief and community development, with many organisations pursuing both types of actions. This article rounds-up several architecture-related foundations that act in emergencies, covering their expertise, past involvement in humanitarian crises, as well as the means to join them in their efforts.
The City of Montreal had launched a national, multidisciplinary landscape architecture contest, in order to generate an innovative scheme to reinstate natural habitats in the city. A team of four firms, civiliti, LAND Italia, Table Architecture, and Biodiversité Conseil, have won the competition, by creating a corridor that will enable the transition from a mostly asphalted, fragmented territory to a diversified urban landscape, connected to all living beings.
We visited Clément Blanchet in his Paris studio, located in Villa Seurat, a small Parisian street flanked by modernist buildings. Inside a beautiful loft by Maillard et Ducamp, the team of Clément Blanchet Architecture was working hard on a master plan in China.
After going through diverse education programs, that included the AA in London, the Chulalongkorn Mahawitthayalai Architectural School in Bangkok, and the University of Illinois in Chicago, Clément started his career at OMA, “a long therapy [...] to discover who I was”. During his career at OMA, he became the director of OMA France, participating in projects such as the Caen Library, the Parc des Expositions in Toulouse, the Lab City CentraleSupélec, among others.
The practice is structured as a laboratory, researching, informing and generating architecture and urbanism in all its forms and sizes. From a series of carefully designed interiors for restaurants, playing with a diverse palette of materials, to large scale multifunctional buildings and master plans, adapting to the fast-changing needs of society.
UNStudio has recently designed the masterplan for Gyeongdo Island, a new sustainable leisure destination in South Korea. Driven by nature, the 470,000 m2 buildings and public spaces are centered on the qualities of a green environment.
Architecture practice Cobe has created a new design center concept for multinational organization and automaker Geely in Sweden. The 14,000-m² project is made in part to form the setting for Geely Design’s development of the new electric car brand Lynk & Co. The center will be a multi-purpose building designed to perform as a four-story machine.
New York City is the pinnacle hybrid between the vibrant and granular neighborhoods that Jane Jacobs once envisioned and the sweeping urban innovations of Robert Moses. However, its diverse population has experienced hardship over the last twenty years, forcing the city into a recursive wave of self-reflection to reevaluate the urban strategies, design trends, and global transportation methods that it had grown so accustomed to. After the September 11th and Hurricane Sandy tragedies, the delicate balance between promoting a sense of individual culture and the strength in unity that New Yorkers are so often known for served as the lifeblood for revitalization. New York City has consistently handled adversity, by always rethinking, redesigning, and rebuilding this city for a better future.
As an aftermath of natural disasters, viruses and wars, in society, we often require emergency architecture. In this round-up, we explore how emergency architecture can accommodate educational needs and how it can bring together a community that has suffered social and economic hardship.
Emergency architecture can occur under a variety of circumstances and through the recent COVID-19 pandemic we have started to get a glimpse of the urgency for certain types of architecture across the world. What we sometimes take for granted in regards to socialising — a sense of community and access to quality education — some countries go without for large periods of time due to natural disasters, viruses and war.
Architecture can ground both healing and wellness. Whether mitigating and reducing the transmission of disease, or simply providing a tranquil space for solace, the buildings of our daily lives directly shape our experience. In the case of emergency architecture, spaces are built to address issues of health and shelter. As architects continue to rethink designs for housing and basic human needs, they've also extended their focus to mental, physical and spiritual well-being.
Flickr user: MONUSCO Photos Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. ImageAerial view of the refugee camp in Burundi
Floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, war, economic and social conflicts, pandemics. The number of refugees in the world is setting records year after year. Immediate and temporary solutions, produced in batches in response to crises, mark the difference between doing what is possible and doing what should be done, always doing a lot with what's at hand. But how temporary is emergency architecture? Is it more permanent than we think?
We want to offer our readers the possibility to openly express their opinions and experience on the matter. If we were aware of the difficulty of coping with major losses, that result in the temporary becoming "permanent", would it change the way we design emergency architecture? Would we demand a higher quality emergency architecture? Would we propose other types of solutions?
We invite our readers to fill out the following form and share their ideas on this topic -- the opinions will be collected and processed by our team to form a future article.
Courtesy of K-12 Education team at Perkins and Will
The K-12 Education team at Perkins and Will designed a blanket fort to help family members tune each other out during COVID-19. Easy to reproduce, the architects released a series of rendered images and plans to assist people at home in creating this space.
Built in a flood plain along the Fox River, the Farnsworth House, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is endangered again. Floodwaters are threatening the modernist house once more, as water levels are rising to reach the top of the house’s steel columns, covering its lower terrace.
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