Architecture theorist, historian, and curator Beatriz Colomina has been awarded the 2020 Ada Louise Huxtable Prize for Contribution to Architecture from the W Awards. As the Howard Crosby Butler Professor of the History of Architecture and co-director of the Program in Media and Modernity at Princeton, Colomina is an internationally renowned architectural historian and theorist who has written extensively on questions of architecture, art, technology, sexuality and media.
Today's designers have inherited unprecedented global challenges, a legacy which will require radically new ways of fashioning the buildings, places, and landscapes that harbor our diverse ways of life. The College of Environmental Design offers several introductory and advanced programs for those interested in confronting these challenges in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture and environmental planning, urban design, and sustainable city planning. Please visit UC Berkeley's Summer Programs website to view images of student work and learn more about the CED Summer experience.
With growing awareness of the impact of fossil fuels on the natural environment and their common usage in buildings, architects are increasingly required to specify and accommodate alternative energy sources in their design approaches. Included in this portfolio of progressive energy sources is biomass, a scalable system that combines the usage of raw, sustainable materials with a lower resulting emission of CO2. As a method often heralded as the most transferable alternative to gas and coal, we answer a simple question: what is biomass energy?
Last week, The School of Architecture at Taliesin announced the closing of the school after 88 years. Both the school and the Frank Lloyd Wright foundation issued statements on the closure, and now the Student Body has created their own statement outlining the impact of the decision. The news of closure followed the conclusion of a multi-year struggle back in 2017, when the school was approved to maintain its accreditation as an institute of higher learning.
It is truly odd how we always find ourselves in a bad mood at work and our productivity keeps decreasing as the week passes by. To be fair, we can’t keep blaming our colleagues, clients, or Monday for our rough day; sometimes it’s the chair we are sitting on, the fluorescent lighting above our computer, or the constant “chugging” sound of the printer near the desk.
Other than the fact that people spend about 70-80% of their time indoors, almost 9 hours of their day are being spent at work; and studies have indicated that the environmental quality of an office has short and long term effects on the comfort, health, and productivity of the people occupying it. While research on the comfort conditions of workplaces is still relatively minimal, we have put together a list of factors that have proved to be highly influential on the comfort of individuals in workplaces.
Reparametrize Studio and Digital Architects have created an exhibition combining photography and 360-degree projection mapping, to showcase destroyed cities, part of the 2019/2020 Bi-City Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture. As Ziwar Al Nouri, Founder of Reparametrize Studio stated, the project underlines the different possibilities “when numbers meet Architecture and Culture and help us improve human life and the future of our city”.
Labor gives rise to design. As the aggregate of physical and mental effort used in the creation of goods and services, labor is tied to both what we create and our process. In a field shaped by production, architecture and design depend on labor from a broad range of professionals. But as workers increasingly put in longer hours and traditional measures of security change, questions of labor practices have arisen amid broader conditions of contemporary work culture.
China's Wuhan City has completed construction of the 1,000-bed Wuhan Huoshenshan Hospital in under ten days. Built to treat coronavirus patients, the hospital aims to build off the previous construction of Beijing Xiaotangshan Hospital in just a week's time back in 2003. The final project was finished by a 7,000-member crew, and the hospital received its first patients on Monday morning.
.jpg?1580807432)
Laka released the results of its competition that gathered over 200 entries. Aiming to diversify the outcomes, the theme focuses on architectural, urban, technological, or product design “capable of dynamic interaction with its social, natural, or built surroundings”. In fact, the subject revolves around interdisciplinary “solutions developed through a process of changes and adjustments”.
An international panel of judges went through the projects of 350 participants from 40 countries, and selected the proposals that “took advantages from disciplines such as robotics, mechanics, digital fabrication, biodesign and biofabrication, computational design, materials science, bioarchitecture, social sciences, industrial design, mobility, and more”. Read on for the complete list of winners.
While technology and construction have progressed rapidly in recent years, allowing structures to be built taller and faster than ever, remnants of colossal ancient monuments remind us that construction techniques from as long as hundreds of years ago had enormous merit as well. In fact, many of the innovations of antiquity serve as foundations of modern construction, with the Roman invention of concrete serving as a cogent example. Other essential ancient construction techniques, such as the arch and the dome, are now often considered stylistic flourishes, with designs like the Met Opera House reinterpreting classical typologies in a modern context. Yet perhaps the most relevant reinterpretations of ancient construction today are those that do so in the interest of sustainability, renouncing high-energy modern construction methods in favor of older, more natural techniques.
Does the Coronavirus concern us? Yes, it does. Beyond the rush for health cures, cities are seen to react by using both architecture and urban strategic planning as tools for the virus’ containment, shattering our notions of city and resilience planning.
New renderings were unveiled for Heatherwick’s first residential project in New York, currently under construction. The recently dubbed “Lantern House”, in West Chelsea’s neighborhood, will join a series of developments, expanding the High Line's facades.
The City Council of Perm, the planning commission, and members of the public gave their approval for a wHY-designed theater at the center of a major cultural revitalization initiative, led by the city’s mayor. The project will be a collaboration between wHY’s New York office and Buildings Workshop, and wHY’s Landscape Workshop, in order to generate a landmark for the emerging arts district.
Morphosis Architects designed a new conference center for the city of Nanjing in China. Located in the New Jiangbei District, the project is situated between China’s eastern coastal cities and the Yangtze River Delta region. The conference center design was made as a flagship project to embody a charter for sustainable and ecologically-sensitive development.
The Chinese megacity of Shenzhen bares all the hallmarks of a surging modern metropolis. Busy (and loud) five-lane motorways weave through islands of glittering glass skyscrapers, rising from podiums filled with designer shops, fronting vast squares and plazas, activated by screen-savvy young professionals fueling the city’s booming tech economy. Such a scene is truly remarkable considering that before 1980, Shenzhen was nothing more than a provincial fishing town of 60,000 people. Today, that figure has risen to 13 million.
This poses the question of how the urban environment accommodated such a rapid population explosion in such a short time. The answer lies in the city’s “Urban Villages,” remarkable manifestations of Shenzhen’s past and present, though likely not of its future.
Costing less than glitzier parks in Moscow, the Tatarstan initiative is revivifying the local design and manufacturing bases with a "teach a man to fish" approach.
In places without an established design force, there have historically been two opposing approaches at play: hire experts from abroad or nurture a local design community, a la “give a man a fish or teach him how to fish.” In the Russian republic of Tatarstan, located at the intersection between Europe and Asia, a recent Public Spaces Development Program has created over 350 parks in five years—by choosing the latter approach.
.jpg?1580392782)
Photographer Paul Clemence has shared with us a series of new photographs of a nearly completed 130 William development by Adjaye Associates. The firm’s first residential tower in the USA, topping out in the spring of last year at 800 feet, is located in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York.
Imagine the following scenario. It is 1902, and to the great shock and distress of the citizens of Venice, the beautiful campanile tower in its Piazza San Marco has just collapsed. That very evening, the city’s communal council votes to approve 500,000 Lire for the prompt rebuilding, “com’era, dov’era” — “as it was, where it was”. Future residents and visitors alike may now continue to enjoy this beautiful structure, which had also been restored and added to many times previously.
But then an authority from far away steps up to speak. “Our regulations do not allow this! Our funding policies require that ‘a project shall use contemporary design’ — which means that you may use only current styles of which we approve, and you may not use the local traditional styles of Venice. That would be a ‘falsification of history’, a ‘mingling of the false with the genuine’, and we decree that this would have harmful consequences!” The project does not go forward, and something entirely “contemporary” is built instead.
This article was originally published on Common Edge.
The field of architecture is not exactly a hot topic of study for most undergraduate students. The closest they might get to the subject is an art history survey course in which architecture is presented as a parade of styles across the millennia—just another form of visual expression.
The Midnight Charette is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by architectural designers David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features a variety of creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions. A wide array of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes provide useful tips for designers, while others are project reviews, interviews, or explorations of everyday life and design. The Midnight Charette is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.
This week David and Marina are joined by Leo Marmol, Architect and Founding Principal of the hugely successful design-build architecture firm Marmol Radziner. Leo discusses the benefits of design-build, the struggling profession of architecture, the perils of technology, smart homes, modernist thinking in design and much more. Enjoy!
Bruno Stagno from San José, Costa Rica, shares his contemplations for a free expressive code for tropical architecture.
Meetings of Design Students or MEDS is an international workshop, taking place every summer in a different country and tackling every year a new thematic. In its 10th edition, MEDS Workshop was held in Greece, on the island of Spetses, bringing together traditional craftsmanship and contemporary approaches, resulting in 14 interdisciplinary projects.
The barnyard typology is an endearing staple of rural architecture. Simple in construction, and traditionally shaped from necessity rather than aesthetic, barns have nonetheless continued to spark the imaginations of those seeking a contrast to the fast-paced, dense, globalized reality of urban life. They also spark the intrigue of designers. Whether it is refurbishing historic farms for modern use, or constructing an entirely new addition to the countryside, architects have drawn inspiration from the industrial origins of traditional barnyards to reinterpret elements such as modularity, timber expression, and refined ornamentation.
Diamond Schmitt Architects and KWC Architects have designed the Ottawa Public Library and Archives Canada Joint Facility. In partnership with municipal and federal institutions, the facility will create an “inspiring place for gathering, learning and discovery”.
_9546.jpg?1580726149 "BIG Offices. Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu")
.jpg?1580807775 "Honorable mention. Image Courtesy of Laka")
.jpg?1580807742 "Honorable mention. Image Courtesy of Laka")
.jpg?1580807458 "Laureate of Silver Prize. Image Courtesy of Laka")
.jpg?1580807984 "Honorable mention. Image Courtesy of Laka")
.jpg?1580807432)
.jpg?1580468377 "An embankment on Kaban Lake in Kazan, Tatarstan’s capital city. Kaban consists of three lakes stretching north to south, with connected ducts. These are the largest in area in Tatarstan. The concept of this project was based on the creation of a single Kaban Lakes Water Park, uniting the three lakes’ embankments.. Image Courtesy of Foundation Institute for Urban Development of the Republic of Tatarstan")
.jpg?1580389246 "© Paul Clemence")
.jpg?1580389418 "© Paul Clemence")
.jpg?1580389494 "© Paul Clemence")
.jpg?1580391840 "© Paul Clemence")
.jpg?1580392782)
