Archinect - Features

A well, a windmill, a mirror: Sigil's real and symbolic interventions in Syria

2016-09-27T12:30:00-04:00

“Hospitals, water and electricity are always the first to be attacked,” states a doctor from Anadan, a city in Northern Syria, as quoted in an Amnesty International report. “Once that happens people no longer have services to survive.”

One student's solution to the permanent limbo of refugee camps

2016-06-08T08:37:00-04:00

As conflicts continue to rage in the Middle East, North Africa, and elsewhere, millions of people have found themselves without papers, a state, or a home. Architecture is directly implicated in this humanitarian crisis—providing shelter is, after all, a primary onus of the disciple—and it’s taken notice, as the projects rolling out of Venice make clear.

Rendered reality: the VR journalism of Emblematic Group

2016-01-25T11:15:00-05:00

“We took all the 911 phone calls – because this is all we know, I mean everyone is conjecturing and everything, but this is all we know – and we animated them,” explained Michael Licht, co-founder and executive producer for the Emblematic Group, sitting in his Santa Monica laboratory. Helmed by Licht and the journalist Nonny de la Peña, the Group has pioneered the use of virtual reality technologies for journalism, using original audio and other information from real events as the source material for virtual reconstructions.

Water Wars: the Islamic State and the Mosul Dam

2014-08-28T14:48:00-04:00

Water has become a central focus for both the Islamic State and its combatants in the current struggle being waged over the large geographic area of northern Iraq and southern Syria. Previously overshadowed by the conflicts in Gaza and Crimea, the rapid emergence and expansion of the Islamic State (IS) has recently become the focus of international media attention, accelerated by the release and dissemination of a video depicting the execution of American journalist Steven Foley, allegedly by the IS.