Archinect - Features

Archinect's Guide to the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale: Part I — The National Pavilions

2023-06-06T14:17:00-04:00

With the opening week of the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale now passed, there has been much discussion and media coverage of the anticipated international exhibition. It's safe to imply that the high-profile event aims to highlight, unveil, celebrate, and at times, provoke new and further existing discourse surrounding architecture. It can, however, be daunting to navigate the scene as a whole, especially for those who are learning about the pavilions, installations, participants, and overall event programming from afar.

To help Archinect readers who can only experience this year's Biennale virtually, we've created a handy reference guide to provide visuals and added context. In this two-part mini-feature series, we provide a summary and context for this year's exhibition theme, The Laboratory of the Future. Our guide offers a breakdown of important figures that make up the event, a list of participants, pavilions and installations, and upcoming events, as well as critical takes...

The Brochures of the Venice Architecture Biennale

2018-07-28T09:00:00-04:00

For 16 nonconsecutive years, architecture has had a starring role at the Venice Biennale, located at the Southeast tip of Venice Italy. Countries from around the world represent their best architectural research and design; first within designated buildings on two campuses and second - if they strike a chord with visitors - throughout social media channels. What is often strewn across the internet are only the most daring designs and the most apparent research intentions: full-scale prototypes, immersive ephemera and provocative statements as big as the walls that contain them.

What the social media universe rarely gets to see from the Biennale, however, are the pamphlets that its visitors collect ravenously as they pass from pavilion to pavilion. These print documents reveal a significant amount of information relative to the individual pavilions (and significantly more than the photos of those pavilions themselves); some of them have short stories, a few are evasively poetic, whil...

Branch Studio Creates a Stunning Residential Extension With Raw Charcoal-Rammed Earth, Timber, Steel and Glass

2017-08-31T00:20:00-04:00

“A Pavilion Between Trees” in Balnarring, Australia stands out nicely in its rural landscape without being overbearing. Designed by the aptly named Australian practice Branch Studio Architects, the 85 m2-building is a new, private residential extension comprising a bedroom, an ensuite, and incorporated ancillary spaces that allow its occupants to take a breather and slow down. The structure's quiet atmosphere reflects on idyllic, simpler times long before the days of our tech-driven lifestyles.

Ball-Nogues Studio revives public space at Cedars Sinai hospital with their "Healing Pavilion"

2017-08-18T12:21:00-04:00

It's rare that underused structures in Los Angeles get a second chance at life, with most developers opting for the wrecking ball instead of an innovative redesign. In the case of an underused public terrace at the Max Factor Building at Cedars Sinai, Ball-Nogues Studio (who spoke to Archinect about this design at the Arroyo Seco Festival) has transformed the space into a destination spot with their signature blend of eye-catching aesthetics and nuanced materialism in the form of the "Healing Pavilion."

Listen to 'Next Up: Arroyo Seco Weekend' Mini-Sessions

2017-07-20T14:38:00-04:00

Recently, Archinect teamed up with Bureau Spectacular for the Arroyo Seco Weekend festival. Jimenez Lai and Joanna Grant designed a pavilion for the event, while Archinect's Paul Petrunia and Nicholas Korody held a series of interviews within it. Conversations focused on temporary architecture, installations, festival design and planning, and the festival's host city of Pasadena, CA, the results of which can be listened to below.

We'd like to thank the Goldenvoice team, and in particular Raffi Lehrher, for recognizing the importance of architecture and urban issues, their interest in engaging the community, and inviting us to take part in this inaugural event.

Oyler Wu Collaborative in ink, graphite and steel

2015-02-09T11:22:00-05:00

Painters paint, sculptors sculpt, and writers write, yet architects do not architect – they draw, model, and write. Architecture is one of the few creative fields that does not allow the artist to work in the medium where the final work will be produced. Yet Oyler Wu Collaborative makes productive use of that cognitive jump.

Student Works: Cellular Tessellation pavilion lights the way in Sydney

2014-12-30T13:15:00-05:00

Part of an 18-day arts festival in Sydney, Australia, the Vivid Lights pavilion explores the pedestrian dynamic in touch and light. A collaborative research effort led by the Abedian School of Architecture at Bond University, the Vivid pavilion Student Works puts a human scaled experience in conversation with local architectural icons.

ShowCase: Archaeological Pavilion by kadawittfeldarchitektur

2014-02-07T09:39:00-05:00

ShowCase is an on-going feature series on Archinect, presenting exciting new work from designers representing all creative fields and all geographies.

We are always accepting nominations for upcoming ShowCase features - if you would like to suggest a project, please send us a message.

Student Works: Singapore University of Technology and Design Library Pavilion

2013-06-13T20:30:00-04:00

The Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) library pavilion is located on a sloping lawn on the temporary Dover Campus.

Accommodating three mature trees and forming a noise barrier toward the Ayer Raja Expressway in the north, the gridshell structure of the pavilion harnesses the site constraints and activates an outdoor space behind the existing library building.

Slipstream: An Exploration of Spatial Turbulence; Inspired by the drawings of Lebbeus Woods and Leonardo Da Vinci

2011-06-07T14:00:00-04:00

Slipstream is compelling pavilion whose form emerged from an exploration of both spatial phenomena and digital design methodologies. A Slipstream, in essence, is a type of turbulence generated by a body moving rapidly within a larger body. As stated by Lebbeus Woods, “The slipstream is a highly dynamic space active with forces that impel a direction and that itself moves, together with the moving body continuously creating it...” This became the design intention: to express such a phenomenon experientially, to explore the implications of slipstreaming as a spatial construct.

Captain Concept - Archinect Interviews Michael Jantzen

2009-09-04T14:50:00-04:00

The artist and designer Michael Jantzen has added another structure to the surreal panorama made of his alternative-energy social and living spaces. This latest addition —Sun Rays Pavilion — is an oblique gathering area made of 12 precast concrete columns towering 150 feet tall. The Pavilion’s flat roof, as it were, faces south. Glazed with photovoltaic film, the structure generates its own electricity, with some to spare — providing the local power grid with surplus energy. Large glass sections and doors keep the space ventilated.

As it is with such projects, there are no production plans. Not yet, anyway. Nevertheless, in the fantastical landscape where many of Jantzen’s concepts reside, Sun Rays Pavilion serves its purpose: it is a gathering space, after all, visited in no small part by bloggers and magazine readers; it further broaches exactly those questions and concerns Jantzen hoped it would. Besides, as Jantzen tells me, the fate of a realized structure may be even harde...