Archinect - Features

A Cut Above the Streets: Robert M. Hayes, Co-Founder of Coalition for the Homeless, in Conversation with Lluís Alexandre Casanovas Blanco

2019-05-01T09:57:00-04:00

Expelled from domestic spaces through cuts to social subsidies, layoffs, and the speculative real estate policies of the 1970s, the population of homeless individuals in New York has ballooned with the perpetuation of income inequality and long-term lack of affordable housing in the city. Despite increasing numbers, this social crisis has become less and less visible throughout the last decades [1]. In February 2017, the Department of Homeless Services estimated that 3,892 individuals spent the night in New York City streets [2]. Although the accuracy of this estimate has been contested [3], a comparison to the number of individuals sleeping in one of the 236 facilities of the city’s shelter system—a total of 62,435 [4]—makes us reconsider the “exposure” of public space as the privileged site of contemporary homelessness, and turn instead to a different architectural device: that of the shelter.

Suburbicide

2019-01-17T10:23:00-05:00

I. The United States Air Force does not publish statistics on suicides committed by pilots of their unmanned combat aerial vehicles, otherwise known as drones, but it is the most significant bodily risk they face. In general, suicide ranks as the biggest killer of all Active Duty airmen, and surpassed war as the leading cause of death for the entire military in 2014 [1,2]. Contrary to common assumptions, these suicides are not necessarily preceded by trauma from battlefield experiences. In fact, 68% of members of the Air Force who committed suicide were never deployed [3].

DATA-AND-MORTAR; Will the Technological Revolution Render Architects Obsolete?

2018-11-10T11:43:00-05:00

Globally, multinational tech companies are moving beyond the digital realm to enter the physical domains of where, when, and how we will produce our cities in the future. Grounded in the interdependency between us (citizens) as “users” and tech corporations as “providers,” we have no other choice than to open the doors to the core of our cities if we wish to remain “connected.” However, rather than simply accepting the imposition often dictated by tech companies and political policy-making, how can architecture’s response move beyond the current trends of uncritically adapting technology and, instead, begin to reclaim agency over architectural and urban development? What role can architects play in this seemingly-inevitable technical evolution, with their knowledge and sensitivity to the relationship between the body and space? It is undeniable that architecture will have to run much faster to catch up (with Silicon Valley) or the design of our cities will remain in the territory of...

The User’s Right to the City

2018-11-03T10:14:00-04:00

The “right to the city” has become a rallying call for social movements worldwide [1]. While the slogan serves as a generic container for a variety of issues that might otherwise go ignored, its origins pertain to a certain idea of revolutionary politics. More than symbolic negation, the right to the city was originally meant to signify an ongoing struggle at the level of everyday life. As such, the terms of the right to the city must be continuously renewed, today in regard to the advanced technical infrastructures that shape everyday life, in cities and beyond.

Designing on Unstable Ground #2: an Interview with Yoshihiro Kato Atelier from Japan

2018-10-18T11:30:00-04:00

We are never so aware of architecture as when it breaks down. Our lives require that buildings slip into the background, that we can trust their promise to shelter. But when the ground trembles, when cracks appear in the walls, and the foundation itself shakes, suddenly the frailty of this promise emerges in stark relief. An earthquake is the black mirror to architecture: the memento mori of its claim to firmitas.

Designing on Unstable Ground #1: an Interview with Vin Varavarn Architects from Thailand

2018-10-17T11:30:00-04:00

Cooking Sections Explains Their Efforts to Adapt to Changing Ecosystems Through Food and Architecture

2018-10-04T09:10:00-04:00

At low tide, a cluster of cages emerge from beneath the recessing waters of Loch Portree. The emptying water gives way to a rocky floor, and with the addition of cushions, the familiar infrastructure of oyster farming in aquaculture is elevated beyond a site for collection to a site of exchange. Facilitating this transformation are Alon Schwabe and Daniel Fernández Pascual of the London-based studio Cooking Sections, who have created this lightweight architectural installation to examine the changing nature of these waters due to historical forms of aquaculture, and to reimagine their potential future. At the installation, the duo leads a series of performative tastings showcasing the preparation of various bivalves and seaweeds to a group of Scottish locals from the Island of Skye. CLIMAVORE: On Tidal Zones is both performance project and a form of responsive eating—a model Schwabe and Fernández have developed as a possible method for adaptation to the precarious conditions of clim...