Archinect - News

UNStudio launches open source knowledge sharing

2013-04-11T17:21:00-04:00

In June this year UNStudio will launch the new organisation of its practice as an open-source knowledge-based practice operating projects around four specialised Knowledge Platforms. As part of the reorganisation of the studio a new interactive online knowledge platform will be launched, aimed at facilitating the open exchange of knowledge, with the ultimate goal of introducing and encouraging the expansion from a collaborative to a co-creative working model for architecture.

Henning Larsen Architects shares "Design with Knowledge" on Issuu

2013-02-05T20:29:00-05:00

In a cross-disciplinary research collaboration between The Technical University of Denmark (DTU), among others, Henning Larsen Architects has developed a knowledge-based design approach. The research has continuously been tested on real projects. By means of a number of articles and cases, the book presents the results, analyses and methods which make it possible to work with sustainability as a design parameter.

The Design Team Roman & Williams Gets Around

2012-12-07T13:26:00-05:00

Since the husband-and-wife team of Mr. Alesch and Ms. Standefer founded the architectural and interior design concern Roman & Williams in 2002, their aesthetic of a rugged Americana lifted from a make-believe past has gained dominion over swaths of New York, especially downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Yale's "Women in Architecture" reunion examines gender diversity

2012-11-30T11:59:00-05:00

From Friday evening to Saturday afternoon, 180 alumnae and current female students alike will gather at the school to discuss issues such as evolving design practices and the intersection of architecture and activism, School of Architecture Dean Robert A.M. Stern said. But the symposium’s larger goal is to allow graduates to share their experiences as women architects, he explained.

Survey Predicts Architect Shortage by 2014

2012-09-26T14:50:00-04:00

The recession decimated the architecture profession, with firms closing or laying off large numbers of employees, architects left jobless for months or years, and many leaving the profession entirely. But a survey recently conducted by McGraw-Hill Construction (Record’s parent company) came to the counterintuitive conclusion that some U.S. firms expect a shortage of qualified designers to meet their workloads by 2014.

David Chipperfield Deplores the “Impotence” of Contemporary Architecture at the London Design Festival

2012-09-25T18:30:00-04:00

Chipperfield lamented how architects have resorted to designing bars, cafes, restaurants, and interiors and criticized the propagation of the discipline as fodder for the “lifestyle pages” in popular media. To him, the role of architecture and design is diminishing into nothing more than an “anesthetic” and a “palliative” in a larger economic crisis, rather than stepping up as a means to address serious socioeconomic problems: “I feel more and more impotent in really doing things..."

Challenging the Standard / Conversation with Zhang Ke

2012-08-30T13:53:00-04:00

More than ten years at the center of the Chinese architectural avant-garde, the role of standardarchitecture as an architectural paradigm solidifies more and more on international ground. Not interested in defining the new Chinese, nor to perpetuate the role of the status quo of the architecture of the spectacle, its focus consistently remains to present a challenge to the establishment. Everything from a growing extensive oeuvre that goes from building contemporary masterpieces in Tibet, to the design of exquisite trays made in Milan, to the way that the office operates seem to be following no other direction than its own.

WAI Architecture Think Tank sat down with standardarchitecture’s founding partner Zhang Ke to converse about the origins of standardarchitecture, its critical role in contemporary China, and how to challenge the standard.

WAI: We would like to ask you to draw us a picture of the conditions in which you had your education.

Zhang Ke: Now looking retrospect...

It’s true: people don’t know what architects do

2012-07-19T14:53:00-04:00

Less than a fifth know architects prepare construction drawings, and only nine per cent understand that they control site budgets; 15 per cent don’t even know that architects design buildings.

Wide Open - emerging architecture professionals discusses real issues in contemporary practice

2012-03-27T11:44:00-04:00

Sometimes I think, as architects, we talk so little about buildings. That’s part of my issue with the profession — and part of why so many people leave it for other things. Architects don’t know how to define themselves. It makes us unnecessarily modest, as if we shouldn’t think of architecture as this big world-changing thing when we talk with other people. If you don’t find your niche, something that’s easy to explain, you feel engulfed in the “architect” stereotype.

Young designers discuss their professional horizons and architecture’s future.

It's so great to see young architects discussing important issues like these. We need more of this! It's especially great to see this moderated by Archinect blogger Nicole Fichera and starring Lian Chikako Chang, our blogger from the GSD, among others.

Lian has also shared this event on her blog.

Five architecture firms reveal how they got ahead

2011-12-12T14:47:50-05:00

We brought together five you firms of note - architects who've turned formative experiences with leading architecture practices into promising studios - together at the V&A+RIBA Architecture Gallery in London, asking them to reveal how they got started.