Archinect - Features

Perceptions of Safety: Weronika Zdziarska Questions Urban Design and Its Impact on Gender-Based Violence Experienced by Women in Cities

2021-09-27T11:43:00-04:00

How safe can one feel in a city? To be more specific, how safe do women feel in the city? While discourse around public space and the perceptions of women's safety in urban and rural areas have been an ongoing topic, one student utilized her appointment as the 2021 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship recipient to expand on these issues. Weronika Zdziarska's research proposal, "Don't Stay Out Alone: Addressing women's perception of safety and freedom in cities by design," focuses on urban safety and how better design strategies benefit the well-being of women as well as others. She adds, "special attention is devoted to design solutions that successfully evoke the sensation of safety and freedom."

Zdziarska explains the reason for her research stemmed from conditioning women around the world are all too familiar with when it comes to public spaces and cities. During our interview, she shared that her intention was to explore a topic important to her. She dives into her own exp...

Architects of Social Responsibility: Views of Humanitarian Architecture in Practice

2017-05-24T12:11:00-04:00

Last month, Airbnb announced they had hired former Architecture for Humanity co-founder Cameron Sinclair to lead their project to supply temporary housing to 100,000 people in need, shortly after launching a program to secure refuge for members of Chicago’s homeless community. Users of the online hospitality service can now register as ‘hosts for good’, and architects are stepping in to make that happen. IKEA’s recent drive to create flat-pack temporary homes for refugee camps through their Foundation in collaboration with UNHCR is another example of how companies are exploring philanthropic interests through the medium of architecture. This month’s feature engages with architects adopting a range of business models to pursue social responsibility and looks deeper into ways the profession is engaging with building for a common good.

The Impossible Innocence of Architecture

2017-05-16T13:34:00-04:00

There are as many definitions of architecture as there are architects. It is something that will never be set in stone, and that’s a good thing. At the same time, ‘What is architecture?’ is an essential question—a question that every architect and others in the field should continue to ask themselves to, at the very least, fully assume the position they have taken on, both in their profession and in society.

Who Builds Your Architecture? A Critical Field Guide

2017-03-17T11:53:00-04:00

Who Builds Your Architecture? (WBYA?) asks architects and allied fields to better understand how the production of buildings connects their design and consulting practices to the workers who ultimately build them. As a primer, the WBYA? Critical Field Guide introduces key terms, questions, case studies, and proposals that locate architecture within the complex transnational networks of contemporary building construction and connects it to the problems faced by construction workers who exist within the same system. It aims to shift the focus from how buildings are conceived by architects to how they are materialized by a broad network of people including architects, construction workers, and a host of other actors.

To each their own home: A peek into the “HOME(less)” exhibition at USC

2016-01-19T09:30:00-05:00

For many of those who regularly navigate the streets of Los Angeles, seeing at least one homeless person is not only common, it’s expected. So normal is the sight of homelessness in the city that residents can easily become desensitized to it, making them less likely to question it, and at its worst, making the homeless population effectively invisible. Local designers and Colorblock partners Sofia Borges and Susan Nwankpa wanted to address this in their co-curated photo exhibition, “HOME(less)”, currently on display at the University of Southern California. The photos raise awareness of L.A.’s glaring homelessness crisis, while simultaneously highlighting the impactful relationship between people and their personal spaces in the urban environment.

Cutting Room: We talk with Patrick Creadon, director of "If You Build It", about the documentary and the power of design education in post-recession U.S.

2014-05-14T12:33:00-04:00

If You Build It documents a year in the classroom of Project H, an experimental design-build workshop for high school students in Windsor, North Carolina. Guided by designer Emily Pilloton and architect Matt Miller, the creators of Project H, ten high schoolers set out to design and build a farmers’ market hall for their town, in the hopes that it will help invigorate the local economy and inspire other community-minded projects.