Archinect - Features

Security, Resilience, and Stewardship: Studio Ma Collaborates with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Overseas Building Operations to Create Resilient, Forward-Looking Environments for All

2021-07-02T12:52:00-04:00

Phoenix-based architecture and environmental design firm Studio Ma works with The U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Overseas Building Operations (OBO) in their architectural research initiative that examines new applications for large-scale institutional buildings. This research explores the application of mass timber, rammed earth, and design solutions for extreme heat and drought conditions.

In an exclusive interview with OBO and Studio MA, Archinect dives into their research objectives and what steps can be taken to develop resilient buildings fit for the world's changing climate.

Embodied Carbon and the Aesthetics of an Ecological Age

2021-04-06T08:57:00-04:00

Modernism was said to have died in 1972 with the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing development. Well, many events since seem to contradict that declaration, one of which came as recently as last month with the announcement that the French architects Anne Lacaton & Jean-Philippe Vassal have been awarded this year’s Pritzker Prize. The committee brief states the two’s practice "renews the legacy of modernism." But this must be a reformed modernism, not the same movement that celebrated such starkness, such overdetermined streetscapes, and facades of mid-twentieth-century design. In fact, the entire tabula rasa methodology has yielded to a strategy today that is more gentle, one that emphasizes context and historical juxtaposition.

"Even Sound Changes in Darkness," PSU's Jeff Schnabel on Seizing Opportunity Where It Exists

2019-12-02T09:00:00-05:00

Deans List is an interview series with the leaders of architecture schools, worldwide. The series profiles the school’s programs, pedagogical approaches, and academic goals, as defined by the dean–giving an invaluable perspective into the institution’s unique curriculum, faculty, and academic environment.

For this installment, Archinect spoke with Jeff Schnabel, Director of the School of Architecture at Portland State University, a 400-student program offering undergraduate and Master of Architecture degrees, including the possibility of an Integrated Path to Architectural Licensure track.

We caught up with Schnabel to discuss the school's ties to local design practices and initiatives, the importance of designing with darkness and night, and how the school is working to make architectural education more affordable for PSU's sizable first-generation student population.

Striving for Clarity in all Aspects of Design with Waechter Architecture

2019-08-28T14:00:00-04:00

The work of Portland, Oregon-based Waechter Architecture is focused, in a word, on clarity.

Spatial clarity, compositional clarity, material clarity, systems clarity, experiential clarity—All play a guiding role in shaping the firm's eclectic output. The goal of this clarity, according to Ben Waechter, founder and principal of the firm, is to allow, in a way, architecture to fall away, to "heighten and inform the experience of community and landscape," and to create "environments in which we feel most alive, awake, and present; where the relationship of elements is apparent and intertwined."

Started in 2007, Waechter's eponymous practice has grown at a steady clip in the 12 years since, a trajectory that culminated recently with the firm's recent selection as one of the Architecture League of New York's Emerging Voices cohort for 2019.

For this week's Studio Snapshot, Ben Waechter discusses his firm's learning curve, its recent experiments with Cross-Laminated Timber, and the off...