Archinect - News

UN Studio brings a responsive solar skin to an existing office tower in Seoul

2020-05-08T16:10:00-04:00

Dutch architects UNStudio have recently completed the top-to-bottom renovation and re-skinning of an existing office tower in Seoul for corporation company Hanwha.

The eye-catching project is notable due to the fact that the extensive renovation and re-cladding were executed while the building remained occupied by the company and its workforce. According to a press release describing the project, construction teams worked three floors at a time, starting at the ground floor lobby and surrounding landscaped spaces and moving up to the tower's new top-floor restaurants and office suites.

The tower offers variegated facades and a ground level plaza. All photographs ©Rohspace.

Gansam Partners served as the Executive Architect while Loos van Vliet provided landscape design services for the project. Additionally, ARUP Hong Kong provided facade and sustainability expertise and AG Licht acted as lighting consultant.

View of the construction on the project. All photographs ©Rohspace.

For the...

“Sunlight was weaponized”: How shade has been an index of inequality in LA's urban design

2019-04-24T11:30:00-04:00

Shade is often understood as a luxury amenity, lending calm to courtyards and tree-lined boulevards, cooling and obscuring jewel boxes and glass cubes. But as deadly, hundred-degree heatwaves become commonplace, we have to learn to see shade as a civic resource that is shared by all. In the shade, overheated bodies return to equilibrium. [...] Shade is thus an index of inequality, a requirement for public health, and a mandate for urban planners and designers.

In this longform piece, writer Sam Bloch delves into the history of how shade has served as an index of inequality in the urban design of Los Angeles, and how the city (and perhaps other locations) should learn to consider shade as an important public health requirement.

“People living in poor neighborhoods, many of them black and brown, are exposed not only to higher levels of air pollution, soil toxins, contaminated water, and flood risk, but also to higher temperatures on unprotected streets. [...] Maybe we ought to start talking about shade deserts, just as we talk about neighborhoods without grocery stores as food deserts,” Bloch writes.

“Look at what happened to Pershing Square, where sunlight was weaponized to clear out the ‘deviates and criminals,’” Bloch adds.

Phoenix may become a lot more green

2016-08-02T13:31:00-04:00

According to the Los Angeles Times, the sunny city of Phoenix, Arizona might become a little cooler, as the city develops a plan to give 25% of the city a tree canopy by 2030. Currently, the city has about half as much shade.

The city plans to use a mix of steel 'trees', native plants like mesquite and palo brea, and non-natives that have proved tough enough to weather the grueling heat. Already known for its high temperatures, Phoenix is trying to prepare for even hotter temperatures as global warming heats the planet up.

The plan is intended to do more than just make for more pleasant strolls. "Aesthetically, it’s quite pleasing," notes forestry supervisor, Richard Atkins. "It can bring commerce to any business that had it out front because, you know, people are drawn to nice vegetation and shade."

For more news from the hot and dry American Southwest, check out these links:

Editor's Picks #338

2013-10-22T11:45:00-04:00

Michael Abrahamson currently a doctoral student in Architecture History and Theory at the University of Michigan provided a review of "Air Rights" – an exhibition by the Drone Research Lab (DRL) at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning...Responding either to the author or to projects found in the exhibition (perhaps both?), Darkman criticized "The BLDGBLOG type inquiry walks a fine line between futurism and self-indulgance"

For the latest edition of the In Focus series, dedicated to profiling the photographers who help make the work of architects look that much better, Archinect spoke with Stockholm-based English photographer Robin Hayes.

Plus, Michael Abrahamson currently a doctoral student in Architecture History and Theory at the University of Michigan provided a review of "Air Rights" – an exhibition by the Drone Research Lab (DRL) at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Therein he explains "The exhibit seems to argue that the site of misbehavior and appropriation is shifting from the tagged surfaces of graffiti to aberrant spatial practices of collection and documentation...The show is a mixed bag, displaying everything from a metaphoric play on US intelligence procedures to a pragmatic consumer drone kit. Notably absent is any attempt at using drones for the fabrication of habitable spaces".

Responding either to the author or to projects found in the exhibition (per...