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Since the first civilizations, nature has been a fundamental pillar to serve humanity as a natural habitat, offering shelter, food, and medicine. In modern times, industrial and technological revolutions have taken over the landscape, reshaping the way humans interact with nature. However, today and due to the events that we have experienced as a society, it is necessary to focus on creating cities and spaces that integrate nature into everyday life.
During the 19th century, efforts to improve the quality of urban life focused on creating gardens and parks, marking the beginning of the evolution of landscaping as a modern discipline. However, despite remarkable examples worldwide, excessive structure and artificiality in urban parks have gone against the motivations that gave rise to them. In many cases, their design has resulted in decontextualized and inefficient public spaces that are highly demanding on resources and far from being truly sustainable.
The strict use of geometry and the imposition of species that are difficult to adapt and care for are gradually giving way to a more organic approach to landscaping, tailored to local ecosystems and more efficient in its development and conservation. Native forests embody all these positive aspects. They not only ecologically restore degraded areas but also improve air quality and retain rainwater, creating biodiverse green spaces that deeply connect people with nature. We spoke with Magdalena Valdés, founder and director of Bosko, who explains why native forests are the right path towards conscious and truly ecological landscaping.
“How do we ensure new parks don’t cause ‘green gentrification,’ which can lead to the exclusion and displacement of underserved communities? How can we ensure we don’t displace the communities that new parks are meant to serve?,” asked Dede Petri, CEO of the Olmsted Network (formerly the National Association of Olmsted Parks), during an Olmsted 200 event.
New parks are meant to be accessible to everyone, but in many urban areas, developer-driven parks mostly attract wealthier Americans. Cities benefit from increased development adjacent to these new parks, bringing in higher tax revenues, but that raises questions about whether these spaces can, in effect, lead to community displacement.
Have you ever considered the sounds of cars and buses whizzing down the road as you walk downtown? Or the feeling you get when heading toward the theater? Each scenario has a certain something that appeals to big-city living. Streams of music wafting from the window, people having conversations, horns honking, and people running to their next destination are pieces of a city no one can deny — they make up the foundation of urban living.
Although big-city living offers many excellent benefits, there are times when peace and quiet can be a welcome respite to everything going on. Sometimes, people want to get away and bond with nature without driving for miles.
Besides reflecting the aspirations of a society, public spaces also configure the scenarios in which new ideas of coexistence and the collective can emerge from their qualities. Thinking about the streets, squares, parks, and even nature is a way of dealing with common ideals and ensuring the social dynamics in the relationship between bodies and the environment.
As farmers water crops by moonlight, undocumented children head to school and villagers scan the sky for surveillance airplanes—these are glimpses of a complex culture that emerges in south Lebanon after dark. In collecting some of these nightly practices, Mohamad Nahleh—lecturer in architecture and urbanism at MIT—journeyed across the landscapes of Jabal ‘Amil hoping to build a new alliance between architecture and the night. His "Path of Nightrise" research has turned into a construction to revive a forgotten river path and was published by Places Journal. The interview with Nahleh argues for a new nocturnal imagination in design and reveals, not only how the night has changed in Lebanon over time, but also how he has changed alongside it.
Taking care of a plant is not always easy. There are species that must be watered daily, while others can go for a longer period without any contact with water. By looking for the latter, it is possible to design landscaping that considerably reduces maintenance - including the amount of pruning and watering, for example - and water consumption, making it easier for greenery to exist without major headaches: a dry garden.
The International Placemaking Week, presented by Project for Public Spaces (PPS) is an inspiring and engaging event designed as a global gathering of placemakers from different sectors to discuss thoughts and share strategies in order to push forward the concept of placemaking in the host city and on an international level. Previous editions took place in Vancouver in 2016, Amsterdam in 2017, and Chattanooga, Tennessee in 2019.
PPS, the nonprofit organization behind Placemaking Week, helps people create and sustain public spaces that build strong communities. In 1999, they elaborated “How to turn a place around”, a book that defined the placemaking movement, creating a guideline of 11 principles to follow in order to create vibrant community spaces.
In urban centers, houses rarely have a large backyard to create a leisure or living area, that's why we have gathered some examples that have managed to occupy these areas, improving the connection between interior and exterior and enhancing their users' comfort.
After two weeks of voting in our 14th edition of the Building of the Year Awards, our readers have narrowed down over 4,500 projects to just 75 finalists across 15 categories, casting over 100,000 votes. This year's awards celebrate the very best in design, innovation, and sustainability from around the globe, with the shortlist featuring an exceptional range of projects, from a house in a favela to cutting-edge cultural centers and innovative public spaces that are sure to impress. As a crowdsourced award, we are proud to say that your selections are a true reflection of the state of architecture, and this year's finalists are no exception.
The ArchDaily Building of the Year Awards is brought to you thanks to Dornbracht, renowned for leading designs for architecture, which can be found internationally in bathrooms and kitchens.
One plant makes all the difference with its color, texture, movements, and the celebration of its flowering. The green inside the homes offers several benefits. However, besides knowing which species are easier to grow, looking for more effective ways to blend the plants with the room can enhance the spatial experience. That is why we've selected some tips for placing the vases and planters around the house (or not).
With the exception of some areas, within the three principal regions of Peru--coastal, mountain, and rainforest--the climate is characterized as tropical or subtropical and the differences in summer and winter temperatures is minimal, rarely reaching beyond 15 °C and 27 °C. This mild climate has thinned the line between exterior and interior spaces, a fact evident in the region's architecture.
Green corridors, or biodiversity corridors, are large portions of land that receive coordinated actions to protect biological diversity. According to Brazil’s National System of Nature Conservation Units, they strengthen and connect protected areas, encouraging low-impact use by implementing a more comprehensive, decentralized and participatory conservation alternative.
Indoor landscaping can be possible in different ways. Bringing greenery into indoor environments has demonstrated several beneficial factors for the quality of space and its users. Living rooms and offices usually have a dedicated space for plants, but this is not always the case for bathrooms. Therefore, we have listed some ways to bring vegetation to this often underestimated room.
One of the first decisions to be made when designing a house is where to place it on the site. Whether it's a large or small plot, house placement impacts the architecture of the building itself and its relation with the neighborhood. Therefore, it must be carefully thought out and designed.
