Cities: The Latest Architecture and News

When examining the world of African cinema, there are few names more prominent than that of Senegalese director Ousmane Sembène. His films ‘La Noire de…’ and ‘Mandabi’, released in 1966 and 1968 respectively, are films that tell evocative stories on the legacies of colonialism, identity, and immigration. And whilst these two films are relatively slow-spaced, ‘slice-of-life stories, they also offer a valuable spatial critique of the setting where the films are based, providing a helpful framework to understand the intricacies of the post-colonial African city, and the contrast between the African and European metropolises.

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The 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP 26) debuted yesterday in Glasgow, bringing together more than 190 world leaders, with the aim of accelerating action to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement and UN's Convention on Climate Change. Leading architecture organizations and figures are attending the two-week summit to show the AEC's industry's commitment to reduce carbon emissions and urge decision-makers to implement clear targets to achieve global climate goals.

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

On a recent day in Santa Monica, California, visitors sat in the shaded courtyard outside City Hall East waiting for appointments. One of them ate a slice of the orange she’d picked from the tree above her and contemplated the paintings, photographs, and assemblages on the other side of the glass. The exhibit, Lives that Bind, featured local artists’ expressions of erasure and underrepresentation in Santa Monica’s past. It’s part of an effort by the city government to use the new soon-to-be certified Living Building (designed by Frederick Fisher and Partners) as a catalyst for building a community that is environmentally, socially, and economically self-sustaining.

In Metropolis this week, author Annie Howard explores Chicago's Architecture Biennial, which opened to the public on September 17th, showcasing a series of 15 site-specific interventions. Arguing that "a tour of the Damen Silos and a celebration of the Wall of Respect show a biennial struggling to achieve longer-term engagement with the city it calls home", the editor questions how much work is needed in order to make the city fully usable to its residents.

The 15-minute city urban theory receives the 2021 Obel Prize in recognition of the concept's value for creating sustainable and people-centric urban environments. First coined in 2016 by Sorbonne professor Carlos Moreno, the term defines a highly flexible urban model that ensures all citizens can access daily needs within a 15-minute distance, thus breaking the hegemony of the car and reintroducing the qualities of historic cities within contemporary urban planning.

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We talk a lot about sound treatment for architecture but normally for new projects. In projects that are already built, either a rented apartment or small commercial space, we often have to deal with noises that we can't control, affecting our physical and mental health. In this article, we explore practical tips on how to manage and reduce these noises and improve the quality and atmosphere of these environments.

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Created in association with the Seoul Biennale Of Architecture And Urbanism 2021, the documentary CROSSROADS: Life in the Resilient City pieces together five stories illustrating how individuals appropriate the rapidly changing urban environments of New York, Seoul, Mumbai, Paris and Nairobi. Created by cinematographer Nils Clauss, together with filmmaker and videographer Neil Dowling, the film captures architecture and urban landscape as both the backdrop and the protagonist of these narratives blending reality and imagination.

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Lucía Nogales is the general coordinator of Ocupa tu Calle (Occupy your Street) —an UN-Habitat, Avina Foundation-supported initiative promoted by Lima Como Vamos— which focuses on 'citizen urbanism' for inclusive and resilient cities in Latin America.

Andreas Ruby, Director of the Swiss Architecture Museum shares his thoughts on the wrapped Arc de Triomphe installation by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, in a 3 part essay, converting a monument glorifying war into a monument of decolonization. The temporary installation opened to the public on September 18, 2021, and will be dismantled starting October 3, 2021.

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On a clear fall day in 2005, a group of friends and collaborators from the art collective Rebar commandeered an 8-foot-wide by 20-foot-long metered parking space in downtown San Francisco. This two-hour guerilla art installation evolved into Park(ing) Day, a global public art and design activism event that has been celebrated every year since. In 2009, Rebar and other design studios were approached by the City of San Francisco to prototype a more permanent version of Park(ing) Day. In response, we created one of the world’s first parklets in San Francisco (we called our version walklet), and through the diligent efforts of Andres Power in the Mayor’s Office and City Planning, San Francisco’s pioneering parklet program was born.