Archinect - News

World Monuments Fund pushes back against new international airport in Peru's Sacred Valley of the Incas

2021-02-11T13:42:00-05:00

The World Monuments Fund (WMF) has called on the Peruvian government to halt the next phase of construction of an airport outside the Andean town of Chinchero and conduct a heritage impact assessment to prevent irreversible damage to treasured Incan sites. The WMF designated the Sacred Valley of the Incas, which stretches from the city of Cusco to Machu Picchu, the crown jewel of Inca heritage, a 2020 World Monuments Watch site.

Previously: Archaeologists protest new international airport near Machu Picchu

Archaeologists protest new international airport near Machu Picchu

2019-05-24T16:20:00-04:00

Among the Inca archeological sites that abound in Peru, none draw nearly as many tourists as the famed citadel of Machu Picchu. [...] Now, in a move that has drawn a mixture of horror and outrage from archaeologists, historians and locals, work has begun on clearing ground for a multibillion-dollar international airport, intended to jet tourists much closer to Machu Picchu .

"In an effort to manage growing visitor numbers, Peru has tightened entry requirements to the site, limiting visits to morning and afternoon shifts after Unesco threatened to place Machu Picchu on a list of world heritage sites in danger," reports The Guardian.

Severe flooding in Peru exposes vulnerable architecture and infrastructure

2017-03-22T12:23:00-04:00

The worst flooding in two decades has struck Peru, causing a death toll of 72 people since the beginning of the year. The floods are caused by a series of “highly unusual rains” produced by the warming of surface waters along the country’s northern coasts. The waters have inundated hospitals and left villages in isolation, and are expected to continue to ravage the country for another two weeks.

The toll on the built environment has been severe. 115,000 homes have already been damaged. More than 100 bridges have been destroyed. The flooding has caused the drainage systems in cities along the coast to fail, creating pools of water that host dengue-carrying mosquitoes. In response, the Peruvian government has started to fumigate. Meanwhile, Lima hasn’t had water service since the beginning of the week.

The disaster has also caused a spike in prices—up to 5 per cent. Meanwhile, 22 inmates at a juvenile detention center have escaped. In the city of Trujillo, a cemetery flooded, exhuming b...

Grafton Architects' UTEC “vertical campus” wins inaugural RIBA International Prize

2016-11-23T19:02:00-05:00

RIBA awarded their inaugural International Prize today to The Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología (UTEC) in Lima by Grafton Architects and Shell Arquitectos. Open to architects worldwide, the Prize is RIBA's very own recognition award for “civil architecture that empowers people and societies to innovate and progress”, RIBA President Jane Duncan said. The grand jury, led by architect Richard Rogers, traveled to visit all six finalist buildings before making their final decision.

Irish practice Grafton Architects and Shell Arquitectos from Lima designed the brutalist vertical campus for UTEC, a 50-year-old engineering university that enables young Peruvians to gain engineering qualifications, and therefore encourage social mobility. The jury praised the UTEC building as a bold, masterful project that depicts Grafton Architects' years of experimenting with space and form.

“The vertical structure provides open circulation and meeting spaces in a succession of platforms that compose th...

Dispatch from the Venice Biennale: Glimmers of hope ‘beyond the banal and self-harming’

2016-06-01T17:14:00-04:00

Reporting from the Front seeks to also explore which forces—political, institutional or other—drive the architecture that goes “beyond the banal and self-harming”. The 2016 Venice Biennale calls for entries that not only exist in and of themselves, but that are a part of a larger social transformation. As Alejandro Aravena suggests, “improving the quality of the built environment is an endeavor that has to tackle many fronts: from guaranteeing very concrete, down-to-earth living standards […] to expanding the frontiers of civilization.” Pavilions that go down this path exhibit very specific examples of how architecture expands its frontiers.

The Ireland Pavilion’s installation, Losing Myself, explores the different layers of a building as experienced by people suffering from dementia. Co-curator Niall McLaughlin contextualizes the experience of this condition: “when you have dementia you lose the capacity to remember, to find yourself… a little bit like what happens in Venice after w...

Dispatch from the Venice Biennale: rewarding obscurity

2016-05-31T17:22:00-04:00

Much will be published over the coming days about the Biennale's national pavilion winners—Spain’s “Unfinished” (with the Golden Lion) and Japan’s “en: Art of Nexus” and Peru’s “Our Amazon Frontline” (with special mentions). It is a phenomenon that conceals the terrain, limiting the perspective of the majority, and inaccurately reduces the dynamism of the lived experience. At the same time, after the fascination with the nominations wears off, it garners those passed over with a certain mystique. In the interest of representation and curiosity, then, it seems fitting to acknowledge a (very) small sampling of the more and wider.

Oh, Canada. This year, per curator Pierre Bélanger, the Canadians overcame “a list of every possible bureaucratic, logistical, and material blockade imaginable multiplied times three” in order to participate in the Biennale. With their permanent pavilion closed for construction and an agitator’s stance, the “Extraction” team’s contribution is all fight. They t...

Archinect Sessions Episode #26: Modernism - Peru's Common Denominator; A Conversation with Lima Architect Sebastián Bravo

2015-04-23T15:39:00-04:00

This week on the podcast, Paul shares an interview he did in Lima with Sebastián Bravo, a local architect and maker of award-winning pisco. Studying and practicing architecture in a city with a very fresh history of terrorism and ongoing political corruption is no easy feat, and the rapidly urbanized/urbanizing city makes practicing all the more challenging, but Bravo is up to the challenge.

We also briefly discuss a recent workshop Paul attended with the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, which took a close look at why enrollment rates at architecture schools are falling, and the stereotypical misunderstandings of what skills high schoolers need to study architecture. In the news, we consider what it means for George Lucas to be building affordable housing in Marin County, whether metal really can move by itself, and briefly look to the deluge of Whitney Museum reviews.

Listen to episode twenty-six of Archinect Sessions, "Modernism - Peru's Common Denominator":

iTunes:...

A Cultural Center in the Peruvian Amazon

2012-07-07T12:25:00-04:00

...Sandra Burga, the project’s client and coordinator, gave an introduction on the scope of the design project, discussed her background in Peru, t... and the project directives to be accomplished within the time period for the design charette and the duration of the project (projected to be completed around 2014, 2015)... 'provide sustainable, innovative, and transformational development to various areas in need, building structures, in which people live, work, learn, heal, and gather…'

We are Lamas Cultural Center design team and we invite you to participate in our next meeting, Thursday, 12th, July, 2012. We will be reviewing our design schemes for the new 6000 sf to 6500 sf Cultural Center in Lamas, Peru. We will showcase our sustainable design scheme with passive ventilation techniques and a renewable water collection system all in one expressive roof structure. For more information you can visit us at: lalesa.org, or on facebook.