Archinect - Features

New Dog, New Tricks: Reflections on Construction, Robotics, and Artificial Intelligence

2023-05-29T08:00:00-04:00

What is the current relationship between humans, robotics, and construction? What is its future? To explore these questions in depth, Archinect speaks with both Boston Dynamics and the Applied Research + Development group at Foster + Partners for their experiences and perspectives in designing, building, and applying the latest innovations in robotics on construction sites.

This article is part of the Archinect In-Depth: Artificial Intelligence series.

UPenn Weitzman School of Design Architecture Chair Winka Dubbeldam on Architectural Education for the Future

2020-04-06T09:00:00-04:00

Archinect's 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 our latest installment, we spoke with Winka Dubbeldam, Miller Professor and Chair of Architecture of the Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. The Weitzman School is home to a range of academic design programs—including focuses on architecture, city and regional planning, fine arts, historic preservation, landscape architecture, and urban spatial analytics—and to a collection of think-tanks and research centers, including the Green New Deal and landscape urbanism-focused McHarg Center.

In our conversation, Dubbeldam, who is also a founding principal at Archi-Tectonics, highlights some of the latest research and academic endeavors at the Weitz...

The Technological Sublime of Non-Human Spaces: A Review of Liam Young's "Machines Landscapes"

2019-03-20T12:00:00-04:00

A significant number of buildings around the world are deliberately uninhabitable by humans. They are, however, designed absolutely towards the service of human needs. The unusual conditions of these buildings, including those of telecommunications networks, automated agriculture and data centers are explored in Machine Landscapes: Architectures of the Post-Anthropocene, a timely publication by Liam Young, the Australian-born architect operating in the spaces between design, fiction and futures, currently teaching at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc).

Liam Young and Geoff Manaugh will present their thoughts on the book at Architect Outpost March 23rd at 7pm, followed by a book signing. Machine Landscapes can be preordered from Archinect Outpost here.

You can RSVP here to reserve your spot at the event.

Prototyping: Developing fantastical habitats for the untamed in New-Territories' "DIY-Feral Child Workshop"

2014-05-20T10:33:00-04:00

True to its name, the DIY-Feral Child workshop is devised around an imagined feral child, found deep in the Thai Jungle and now being assimilated into human society. Spanning one summer month in the north-east of Bangkok, along the Kwai River, the workshop is a tri-fold effort of design, material experimentation, and film, where twenty student participants will create a fictionalized movie narrative alongside their architectural designs.