Archinect - Features

TALLER’s Luis Gil on Balancing Design Idealism and Development Pragmatism

2022-11-15T10:49:00-05:00

For some, architecture is a calling; for others, they're called to the profession in unexpected ways. This is the case for Luis Gil, architect and founder of the LA-based practice TALLER (tah-yehr).

For the latest installment of Archinect's Studio Snapshot series, we connected with Gil to learn more about the firm he established and his journey to architecture. We discuss the challenges and benefits of running your own practice, what he looks for in new team members, and what he strives to change when it comes to the industry's problematic work culture.

The University of Texas at Austin's Green Core Studio Explores Sustainable Energy Production in Residential Building Design

2022-09-29T12:35:00-04:00

Design studios are one of the core components of an architectural education. Through the guidance and expertise of dedicated faculty members, students are taught the skills and design perspectives needed to navigate architecture studios.

Studios encourage students to explore new ways to design, prototype, think, and build. To bring closer attention to architecture studios, their committed instructors, and the exciting work being developed, we present Archinect Studio Pin-Ups, a new series highlighting architecture studios focusing on new and thought-provoking topics.

To kick off the series, we dive into the University of Texas at Austin's Advanced Spring 2022 Studio - Green Core, led by Jing Liu (Visiting Professor and co-founder of SO–IL) and Claire Townley (UT Austin Alumn '19 and Associate Architect at Pollen Architecture & Design).

M.Arch Students From Washington University’s Sam Fox School Publish Studio Work Investigating International Housing From a Social, Cultural, and Environmental Framework

2021-05-10T09:00:00-04:00

The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis recently announced the publication of International Housing Studio: 2017-2019, which highlights the work of the 419 International Housing studio in the Master of Architecture program.

A core studio taken by all graduate architecture students, the 419 International Housing studio draws from the diverse expertise of Washington University faculty and visiting faculty, with project sites located in different parts of the world. The studio begins with a set of rotations, where students work for two weeks in one city with one instructor before moving to another city with a different instructor, with whom they develop their project for the remainder of the semester. Students explore how each city’s climate, history, and sociocultural particularities inform the making of collective housing.

To dive into the collection of student and faculty research, Archinect previews the publication that was published in Marc...

Connecticut Is In the Spotlight as a Housing Reform Hotspot

2021-04-30T14:55:00-04:00

When Dr. King came to Connecticut in 1944, he was astonished by the openness and inclusivity the sleepy town of Simsbury provided in contrast to the roiling hatred he knew from his youth growing up under the shadow of Jim Crow in Georgia.

The 16-year-old college freshman was changed forever by his experience working on a tobacco farm that summer, and wrote in his diary about misgivings he had on the train ride back to Atlanta, his memory fresh with integrated dances and dinners that left him with feelings of fondness and admiration for the welcome he received in the Nutmeg State.

But what King likely could never have imagined when he was touring the verdant and friendly Hartford-area communities he found inspiring was that the same problem he found sanctuary from in the towns and suburbs north of the capital was taking hold in silence all around him. A problem with roots in the Depression that still takes hold today.

Woodbury Graduate Isabel Rodriguez Explores Hybrid Housing Options for Los Angeles

2020-10-13T13:20:00-04:00

B.Arch graduate Isabel Rodriguez of Woodbury University explored alternative housing possibilities for Los Angeles in her thesis, E-Hauze. Rodriguez explains her project "explores the positive effects of hybridizing housing and an industrialized facility [...] The typical way we live in Los Angeles needs to change. The way we design our build environment should reflect our intention to integrate."

Students across the globe have persisted during a year filled with challenges due to the pandemic. To highlight their work, we connected with students like Rodriquez to learn about her thesis project and how it responds to Los Angeles's housing crisis, her perspectives on the industry, and her experience with hunting for a job after graduating.

Archinect's Spotlight on 2020 Thesis Projects: 2020 has been an extraordinarily challenging year for architecture graduates. Students were displaced as schools shut down, academic communities had to adapt to a new virtual format, end-of-year celebra...

Re-Imagining Housing Design with Marissa Kasdan, Director of KTGY’s R+D Studio

2019-10-17T13:30:00-04:00

With a rapidly aging population, an inward flux of new urban residents, and developmental pressures forcing displacement and homelessness on growing numbers of people, housing design finds itself at a critical nexus in the United States.

And while many architecture firms are surely working on innovative housing projects, few have dedicated teams focused on pursuing housing innovation from an integrated, transformational perspective. KTGY Architecture + Planning is one such firm, however. The R+D Studio at KTGY exists to "explore new and emerging ideas related to building design and technology," with an eye toward integrating new housing developments into their surroundings, re-thinking existing design paradigms, and prototyping cost- and time-saving construction approaches all the while expanding the realm of housing design to include co-living arrangements, contemporary senior housing models, and supportive housing.

We talked with Marissa Kasdan, director of KTGY's R+D Studio, to ...

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...

Australian firm Breathe Architecture is Changing the Way Residential Development is Done Down Under

2018-09-05T09:00:00-04:00

With a promise that every project would have fresh air and windows in each room, Jeremy McLeod founded the Melbourne-based practice Breathe Architecture almost twenty years ago. Since, the firm has been applying their concept of environmentally and socially sustainable urban design to a range of commercial and residential projects. More recently, McLeod and his team have begun cultivating their own housing projects, changing the model for multi-residential development in Australia. Frustrated with the way architecture was being dictated by developers, market forces, and financial structures, they started the Nightingale Housing movement to support, promote and advocate for high-quality housing that is environmentally sustainable, financially affordable, and socially inclusive.

Here, we talk with Lola Digby-Diercks, the Business Development Lead at Breathe Architecture and Nightingale, about the firm's innovative practices and the differences they are making within residential develo...

Commemorating 50 Years of the Fair Housing Act When We Still Have a Long Way to Go

2018-04-11T12:46:00-04:00

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act, a landmark piece of civil rights legislation that promised to provide equal access to housing opportunity for all. Signed by then President Lyndon B. Johnson on April 11th, 1968, the federal housing bill prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, or national origin, with protections against discrimination based on sex and disability or towards families with children, added in subsequent decades.

Dwelling in the Golden Years: Experiments in Senior Living

2017-12-08T12:21:00-05:00

Global populations are aging—according to the UN, by 2030 the number of citizens aged 60 years or over is projected to grow by 56%, a figure which by 2050 is expected to double again, to a total of 2.1 billion seniors worldwide, skewed towards 'greying economies' such as those of the US and Europe. Where and how will our seniors live in the future? This month I speak to architect and KADK professor Deane Simpson, who researches shifts in the built environment which are occurring as a consequence of population aging, and Stephen Bates of award-winning firm Sergison Bates who recently completed the Housing for Older Residents project in Hampstead, London. Is it possible to move beyond stereotypes to create an architecture which is functional, healthy and beneficial for the older generation?

Housing after Debt? A discussion with Alastair Parvin

2017-10-20T11:28:00-04:00

This month Archinect looks closer at our housing economy—how we commission and produce homes in today’s financial climate. This year a primary index tracking residential real estate value in major US cities revealed American house prices are now rising at a rate of 5.9% per annum—a three year high—significantly outpacing relative income gains. This growth now more than doubles the hourly earnings of the average American, pricing many families out of the market and out of the city. Similar trends can be found across major metropolitan areas in Europe and Asia, fueling acute housing crises such as the well documented situation in London, England. I speak to designer and civic entrepreneur Alastair Parvin of London-based studio Architecture 00 who, frustrated by a select number of poor quality homes for sale at sensational prices, is now actively looking for ways to reshape the market itself; starting by rethinking the business model.

The Open Workshop explores how housing density may have decided the U.S. 2016 Election

2017-07-21T13:11:00-04:00

Think about the American political landscape, and a highly partisan, Russian-government-colluding version may come to mind. But what about the literal American political landscape, as defined by housing density and building typology per acre? The project “Environment as Politics: From Identity to Density Politics” by The Open Workshop, originally presented on Places Journal, studied voting patterns in the 2016 election for the U.S. President and discovered that how closely people live together may be the soundest predictor of which candidate gets their vote.

Emergency Shelter: Housing for the Age of Mass Displacement

2017-07-20T11:30:00-04:00

Today, forced displacement affects more people than any crisis or conflict. According to the UN, 65.3 million people, or one person in every 113, is now internally or externally displaced. The average time families remain in emergency accommodation is now 17 years, longer than the average US house buyer will stay in their home. No longer temporary but not yet a city, these ‘camps’ are where millions of children will grow up. In this month’s feature we speak to architects working with the concept of emergency shelter to find out how they are approaching the issue. An overview will be provided by former UNHCR official Kilian Kleinschmidt, now director of Switxboard, who will discuss where and how input from the design disciplines would be most welcomed.

"I think of architecture as an act of writing in the city": Vishaan Chakrabarti discusses PAU's upcoming projects

2017-06-22T13:27:00-04:00

As the founder of PAU, Vishaan Chakrabarti is an architect and urban planner who considers every aspect of the city with foresight, but isn't as concerned with the culture of celebrity that has often dominated the profession. "Calling oneself a humanist over the last couple of decades was a real no-no," he explains via phone. "You're supposed to be a bad-boy, cape-wearing starchitect." He purposefully did not name the firm after himself in order to place emphasis on intelligent discussion, not hierarchy. Although he's excited about taking on more projects, he never wants PAU to grow beyond roughly 30 employees so that he will always know everyone in his office.

Moshe Safdie Reflects on the 50th Anniversary of Habitat 67, the Masterpiece He Completed at 25

2017-05-10T11:41:00-04:00

Fifty years ago, a young Canadian-Israeli architect got the chance of a lifetime: the opportunity to realize his senior thesis for the 1967 World Fair in Montréal. The resulting housing complex inspired generations of architects inside and outside of Canada, and its influence is visible in buildings built to this day. It wasn’t just formal innovation that determined Habitat 67’s significance—although that’s certainly part of it—but also the new way of life it imagined by way of affordable, dense urban housing with all the greenery, spaciousness, and privacy of the suburbs.

"The environment we design, designs us back:" A Conversation with Eran Chen of ODA

2017-02-16T12:53:00-05:00

Founded in 2007 by Eran Chen, ODA’s distinctive residential projects seem to ripple and blossom in the urban realm. From housing to libraries to mixed-use structures, ODA’s design philosophy is both socially inclusive and visually compelling. I spoke to Eran Chen about his ideal city, the challenges behind designing “permeable buildings,” and what he learned from his dealings with Donald Trump.

'Everyone deserves a decent place to live.' – minding London's development gaps with Mohsin Cooper

2016-08-14T05:59:00-04:00

Mohsin Cooper Architects is a young practice focused largely on housing, based in Brighton and London, and run by Justin Cooper and Abe Mohsin.

'Ethical Dwellings for Generation Y' explores new forms of living and owning in a changing London

2016-08-13T06:08:00-04:00

While an average of 100,000 people move to London each year, only about 25,000 new homes are built annually: a formula that has produced a critical lack in affordable housing. The median rent in the capital city is £1,400 and the average house price has passed £600,000. In other words, only the very rich can afford to live in London.

"Emergence: Home Beyond Boundaries" – a reader submission on Domesticity

2016-07-23T10:33:00-04:00

As one of the submissions to our Open Call for July's theme of "Domesticity," Duha Al Nasir tackled the challenge of envisioning her version of the next Case Study home, riffing on the realtor "ad" prompt with a rumination on the very nature of home. Al Nasir locates the essential home within the nexus of experience, likening it to an "emotional suitcase" and concluding that ultimately, one's home is not a physical enclosure but a metaphor for a sense of self.

Strange bedfellows: exploring shades of privacy in co-living

2016-06-20T12:18:00-04:00

From chaste bunking to on-site Pilates classes, co-living companies have as many versions as a cover band. But each incarnation raises the question: how do we architecturally define privacy in the 21st century?

paraSITE: the bandage over the nomadic wound

2016-05-27T11:04:00-04:00

Using the air discharged from publicly accessible HVAC units, artist Michael Rakowitz has created a series of inflatable temporary plastic shelters for the homeless he calls “paraSITE.” The work, which began in 1998 and was later added to the MoMA’s Architecture and Design online collection, is both a form of social protest and an ingenious, budget-conscious design (most units cost around $5 to construct).

Previewing the 2016 Venice Biennale: Anupama Kundoo's "Building Knowledge"

2016-05-26T12:14:00-04:00

In advance of the 2016 Venice Biennale, we've spoken with the curators behind a few select pavilions to check in on the status of their exhibitions. For this feature, we spoke with Anupama Kundoo about her project, Building Knowledge.

London's Bleak Housing

2015-12-18T05:00:00-05:00

The housing crisis in London has rumbled on for decades, its supply never quite catching up with the demands of its own population growth. Council stock has been sold off without being replaced, creating an un-developable green belt around it – a victim, in part, to its success as a hip, modern, international financial centre, and purveyor of “Olde Worlde” charm.

Finding "Shelter" in Los Angeles' housing chaos

2015-09-08T12:00:00-04:00

With all the media attention on California’s drought, the “atoning L.A.” narrative has gotten pretty common. The city’s gluttonous lawns, sprawling infrastructures and indulgent residents – in short, its sinful stereotypes – have become untenable as the drought, a housing crisis and pressing sustainability measures come knocking at the city’s door.

The Age Of The Plastic Chimney: How Cookie-Cutter Homes Drove Me to Despair… And Away from the Profession

2014-12-19T10:28:00-05:00

A UK architect berates the state of residential development across The Pond, and asks the question: How can we rock the status quo?

Student Works: Resilient Public Housing from Parsons

2013-11-06T15:05:00-05:00

Responding to a daunting list of post-Sandy urban concerns, M.Arch students at the Parsons New School for Design proposed a variety of affordable housing complexes in an under-developed patch of Manhattan’s Lower East Side.