Archinect - Features

'AI Is a Dangerous Distraction From the Pressing Issues Defining Our Generation'; A Conversation with Liam Young

2023-07-17T08:21:00-04:00

Liam Young was once described by the BBC as “the man designing our future.” In 2023, with open letters penned on the risks of extinction posed by artificial intelligence, such a role should be in high demand.

Young’s speculations on the future take the form of fictional stories that join the dots between culture and technology; a skill which he believes should sit at the core of the architecture profession. Amid the media frenzy on generative AI tools such as Midjourney and ChatGPT, Young stresses the vital need for a creative discipline that measures the dangers of AI against those of climate change: a crisis which Young sees as more dangerous both for its scale and deceptive ubiquity.

In June 2023, Archinect’s Niall Patrick Walsh spoke with Young about his career across design and media, as well as his views on artificial intelligence, climate change, and the role of the architect in addressing both topics. The discussion, edited slightly for clarity, is published below.

This arti...

‘Every Piece of Architecture is First a Work of Fiction’; A Conversation with Ole Scheeren

2023-01-20T07:51:00-05:00

For the past 30 years, Ole Scheeren has built a career defined by an internationalist outlook. The German architect has lived in 10 countries, and worked in 25, always guided by a philosophy that recognizes "the power of bringing people, cultures, and practices closer together."

Nowhere is Scheeren's philosophy better encapsulated than through Büro Ole Scheeren; the firm that Scheeren founded in 2010 having previously served as a Partner and Director at OMA. Today, his 100-person-strong studio operates offices across Hong Kong, Beijing, Bangkok, New York, London, and Berlin, designing and delivering schemes throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Despite their varying typologies and geographies, the projects are united by Scheeren's belief that architecture can instill an emotional anticipation of narratives and stories.

In December 2022, Archinect’s Niall Patrick Walsh sat down with Scheeren at the 2022 World Architecture Festival in Lisbon, Portugal for a wide-ranging discussi...

Soapbox: Fiction

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

Soapbox is a weekly series delivering a curated set of lectures, talks and symposia concerning contemporary themes but explored through the archives of lectures past and present. With the plethora of lectures, talks, symposia and panels occurring world wide on a daily basis, how can we begin to keep up and if not, find them once they are gone? Soapbox looks to assemble a selection of recent, archived and outlier lectures surrounding a given theme. Soapbox looks to curate this never-ending library of ideas into an engaging and diverse list of thoughts and provocations. Soapbox is just that, a collection aimed at discovering the occasional needle in a haystack.

Fear & Wonder: Orienting Ourselves Through Fiction

2017-11-15T12:31:00-05:00

Fear & Wonder was a symposium surrounding the possibilities of world building and pondering of what would be possible and yet, nothing seemed impossible, nothing seemed out of our grasp and in fact, forced us to reckon with how much of our own world we are not aware of.

Architecture of the Anthropocene, Pt. 2: Haunted Houses, Living Buildings, and Other Horror Stories

2014-11-25T10:09:00-05:00

In horror fiction, a house is usually haunted in one of two ways: either a building is inhabited by the ghosts of dead humans, or the structure itself is animated by a strange, non-human life. Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “The Fall of the House of Usher,” an influential achievement of the genre, falls into the latter camp; the horror of the House of Usher can never be properly pinned down because it pervades the setting itself. But what’s so scary about a living building?

Screen/Print #5: Portal 9's "Fiction"

2014-01-15T09:47:00-05:00

Screen/Print is an experiment in translation across media, featuring a close-up digital look at printed architectural writing. Divorcing content from the physical page, the series lends a new perspective to nuanced architectural thought.

For this issue, we’re featuring Portal 9's Fiction: Contemporary Arabic and Russian Pursuits.

Do you run an architectural publication? If you’d like to submit a piece of writing to Screen/Print, please send us a message.