Archinect - News

Reimagining the convent typology to blend spirituality and social engagement

2023-06-12T15:27:00-04:00

Italian architecture and landscape firm Mixtura has designed a wood-structured conventual complex in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, that provides both a space for worship and philanthropic services.

Image: Cesare Querci

The approximately 57,000-square-foot building, called the convent of the Franciscan Fraternity of Bethany, was completed as part of a social project that the Bethany Foundation Onlus has been carrying out in Brazil since 2010.

Image: Cesare Querci

The initiative has so far seen the construction of a kindergarten for 120 children from the neighboring favelas. It also includes the construction of a school complex for more than 500 children living in conditions of serious hardship.

Image: Cesare Querci

The complex’s design was formed via a participatory method that involved architects and clients with the shared goal of creating a space that would establish a positive relationship between the users, the built environment, and nature.

Image: Cesare Querci

"As architects, we s...

How will Clubhouse impact the architecture community?

2021-02-02T12:11:00-05:00

Clubhouse is a new invite-only audio-chat social networking application. The company describes its platform as a place "where people around the world come together to talk, listen and learn from each other in real-time." It has been exploding recently.

Elon Musk popped into this comedy show on Sunday before his big interview on "Good Time."

Elon Musk on Clubhouse

The booming news around the app has recently been on Elon Musk's appearance in one of the rooms this past Sunday. I made it into one of the "overflow" rooms to listen to Elon speak in real-time about several topics stemming from future life on Mars to artificial intelligence to cyborgs. Were you there? What'd you think?

But before that, I was spending my time in rooms focused on architecture and design. I've been surprised at the large architecture community on the platform and the positive nature of many conversations. And I have been wondering how an application like Clubhouse might influence fields like architecture.

Sc...

Grace Farms' Design for Freedom movement seeks to eradicate forced labor from the production of building materials

2020-10-28T12:48:00-04:00

Sharon Prince, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Grace Farms Foundation, announced this week Design for Freedom, a new movement to eradicate modern slavery from the built environment by addressing the systemic use of forced labor in the building materials supply chain.

"Examining our building materials supply chain is a moral and legal imperative,” said Prince in a statement. “Almost all modern construction projects are subsidized with slavery, due to unchecked forced labor that permeates thousands of raw and composite materials sourced both locally in the United States and globally. While initial attention concentrated on developing ethical labor practices on construction and job sites, we now seek to extend these regulations to the building materials supply chain, including oversight of sub-contractors, manufacturers, and commodities-level providers in such areas as forestry, fiber, and mining."

Design for Freedom began back in 2017, when Prince and the late Bill Menking, Fo...

Survey discovers few architecture firms seem to care what users think of their buildings

2020-07-22T11:41:00-04:00

The 2020 AJ100 survey found that post-occupancy evaluation is ‘always’ done by just 4 percent of AJ100 practices and ‘frequently’ done by 22 percent, while a quarter of firms never do so and around half (48 percent) only seek to evaluate the performance of their projects ‘occasionally’.

Philip Watson, director at HLM Architects, reflected on the survey, writing, "Too often it seems, architects want to design a building, take pictures prior to its occupation – without the messy inconvenience of having people and their clutter in them – and move on to the next project." Post occupancy evaluations allow architects to understand the implications of their design to the user. This, Watson argues, would be a powerful way to utilize an evidence-based approach to understand the value of design, which in turn could aid architects in communicating that value to clients.

To address the issue, RIBA and the University of Reading have recently launched the Social Value Toolkit for Architecture to help the profession understand the social impacts of design.

Winners of this year's 2019 Fairy Tales competition use the power of storytelling to address issues on immigration, sustainability, and the future

2019-04-08T13:16:00-04:00

As architects and designers creating narrative through the built environment is what helps create discussion for awareness and change. Since its inception in 2013, the annual Fairy Tales competition challenges architects and designers to drive design innovation through the power of storytelling. Today Blank Space announces the winners of the sixth annual "Fairy Tales" competition. With submissions from over 65 countries, the award-winning entries explore current events and the creative process through wonderfully crafted shot stories and artwork. This year three prize winners were selected as well as 12 honorable mentions.

The competition jury consisted of more than 20 leading architects, designers, and storytellers including Moshe Safdie, Tatiana Bilbao, Jurgen Mayer, Julia Koerner, among many other distinguished judges.

Francesca Giuliani, co-founder of Blank Space shared her thoughts on this year's competition winners, "This year's winners utilize the power of narrative to expl...

David Adjaye and his take on identity and narrative in architecture

2018-12-06T09:24:00-05:00

At this year's World Architecture Festival, David Adjaye spoke towards the festival's theme:identity. Recognized as a prominent force in the architecture community, Adjaye's own design style and focus has played towards architecture's social responsibility. During the 45-minute lecture in Amsterdam, Adjaye discussed his own design process explaining how a narrative can be derived from form and materials. "I'm always interested in forgotten stories - to lift something between comfortable and uncomfortable." Projects like the Smithsonian Institute National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) and the National Cathedral of Ghana were brought up as examples.

Smithsonian NMAAHC Image © Adjaye Associates

However, the high point of the talk was when Adjaye provided his views regarding where the industry is headed. Commenting on how costly architecture is becoming, especially in the West, Adjyae pointed out "projects now cost billions and its kind of crazy." Although some ...

Watch Theaster Gates give moving speech as he receives Honorary Doctorate from UAL

2018-07-20T15:15:00-04:00

Receiving an Honorary Doctorate this morning from the University of the Arts London, American artist, curator, urbanist and facilitator Theaster Gates gave an unforgettable address about the functions of creative practice. Known for his long-running work of socially engaged art in the South Side of Chicago, his work focuses on space theory and land development, sculpture and performance.

In the following speech, Gates talks about what it means to be an artist and the importance of its continued pursuit. “I have never felt more confident that to be an artist is one of the greatest vocations in the world," he said. "You guys have the capacity to dream and fight and this world needs you right now more than it’s ever needed any creative class.” Watch the full speech below!

End Stages: The Future of Hospice Design

2018-05-15T16:38:00-04:00

As hospice design becomes more formally ambitious — and standardized — we should remember there is no universal model for ‘dying well.’

What is the ideal setting for the end of life? The dominant templates of the mid-century mega-hospital and the domestic hospice set the rational spaces of medical institutions against the familiarity of home. Yet, we are increasingly seeing hybrid forms that deviate from these two distinct models. Nitin Ahuja looks ahead to the future of palliative architecture, and argues that in one's final needful hours, the most comforting hearths are those that feel serendipitously constructed.

Rigorous Design and Socially Engaged Practice Go Hand-in-Hand at Washington University in St. Louis

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

This post is brought to you by Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis

With its tree-lined streets and stately architecture, Shaw is among St. Louis’ oldest and most elegant neighborhoods.

It is also among the city’s most integrated. According to U.S. Census data, in 2010, Shaw’s population was 51.7 percent white and 41.9 percent black.

But neighbors can be feet away and worlds apart.

Building typologies in Shaw. Courtesy Cierra Higgins, Ashley Holder, Danning Liang, and Suyin Yao.

“In Shaw, segregation is social rather than spatial,” says Cierra Higgins, who is pursuing dual master’s degrees in architecture and urban design in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.

Last fall, Higgins spent months researching and exploring Shaw as part of Segregation by Design. The class—developed by Sam Fox School assistant professor Catalina Freixas and Mark Abbott of Harris-Stowe State University, with funding from The...

Is the architecture in 'Blade Runner 2049' really Brutalist?

2017-12-05T14:32:00-05:00

This fall Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner 2049 was released as the long awaited sequel to the original 1982 film, and has since sparked much conversation around the film's architecture. There is no denying that Blade Runner 2049's construction was considerably influenced by Brutalist forms, but is the architecture really Brutalism?

Cinematographer Roger Deakins looked to London's Brutalist architecture to create his film, and director Denis Villeneuve said he wanted the "Brutalist feel" with severe concrete design.

'Blade Runner 2049' trailer still.

While serving as inspiration to the filmmakers, Brutalism's core philosophy does not align with Blade Runner 2049 and its architecture. The extremely capitalist society and unpopulated scenes found within the film contradict the original socialist intentions of Brutalist architects whose focus was on material rawness and honesty in order to create the ideal form of dwelling.

'Blade Runner 2049' trailer still.

Read the full essay by Alice Sw...

Harvard Graduate School of Design announces Richard Rogers Fellows

2017-02-22T16:01:00-05:00

Harvard’s GSD has announced the 2017 winners of the Richard Rogers Fellowship, a new residency program to be hosted at the Wimbledon House. The Wimbledon House was designed by acclaimed architect Lord Richard Rogers for his parents in the 60s and generously gifted to Harvard.The landmarked residence will house the fellows with the goal of bringing together experts and practitioners across disciplines who are focused on the built environment and its capacity to advance the quality of human life.

Central to Rogers' life and career were the questions of urbanism, sustainability and how people use cities. “The spirit of the Fellowship” said Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design at Harvard GSD “is intended to carry forward and expand on Richard’s deep commitment to cities not as ends in themselves, but as a fundamental means to bettering human life. At the GSD, our work is organized around the urgent issues cities are facing globally, a pedagogical a...

Does Jeanne Gang's architecture inspire social justice?

2016-07-21T12:36:00-04:00

In this New York Times interview with Ginia Bellafante, Jeanne Gang discusses the importance and challenges of designing work that isn't simply aesthetically pleasing, but that influences positive changes in social behavior and policy. In addition to her work on waterways, she discusses her idea behind designing a fire rescue station in one of New York City's poorest and most violent neighborhoods:

You feel like you trust a firefighter, a rescue worker. And those doors on the building are often open. And we even put a bench in the front of the building so people can actually sit there instead of taking this approach of creating a fortress, which I think is a contrast to what we see in the design of police stations.

And so really designing this Fire Rescue 2 started me thinking about, are there ways that design could help improve the relationship between community members and police if we looked at the architecture? Not that it can solve everything. But I think, you know, maybe it can ...

Chile's local hero: Michael Kimmelman profiles Alejandro Aravena

2016-05-23T12:59:00-04:00

Aravena polished off his beer when a stranger sidled up to the table. It happens all the time now. Drivers in passing cars stop him in the street. Shop clerks, politicians, long-lost acquaintances and schoolteachers ask for selfies with him. They all say the same thing. “Thank you,” the stranger said to Aravena, who smiled and posed arm in arm with the man for a picture. Thank you — as if the Pritzker prize...had been awarded on behalf of everybody in Chile.

Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic for the New York Times, profiles Alejandro Aravena's projects in his native Chile, on the cusp of this year's Venice Biennale opening (which Aravena is also directing). The profile largely focuses on Aravena's social practice, and its attempts at coordinating efforts among the Chilean government, construction companies and actual citizens – most prominently, after the 2010 earthquake in Constitución.

For a comparative take on Aravena, from before he won the Pritzker or was named director of the 2016 Venice Biennale, check out Carolina A. Miranda's (art critic for the Los Angeles Times) piece profiling Chile's emerging group of promising and talented architects.

For more on Aravena and the Chilean architecture scene:

What makes an age-friendly city? Older citizens worldwide speak out

2016-04-28T20:35:00-04:00

“I believe it’s important for all ages to interact on a day to day basis. It...hopefully removes the labelling of people as ‘elderly’ or ‘past it’ and the self-fulfilling behaviours that are often generated by this.” “Cities need cross-generational activities...People living alone of whatever age can become isolated, lonely and then mental health problems can develop.” “Teach young people that we are not going to move over, nor do we have to.”

How do you define an age-friendly city? Share in the comment section below.

Lessons learned: The complex realities when designing communal social housing

2016-01-05T15:18:00-05:00

What went wrong in Winnipeg was not just about architecture, and 5468796 were stuck trying to make the best of a bad situation. The pulling out of government support to make Centre Village an actual co-operative changed the [project's direction]...'It’s time to get the peanut butter off our fingers,' said Ross McGowan, former chief executive and president of CentreVenture...He admits that a failure to understand the needs of the community took a considerable toll on the project.

Despite good intentions to help families in need, perhaps the worst nightmare an architect can face when designing affordable housing is realizing that the project — which would of course already be fully built — doesn't meet the actual demands of the community, and then some. That's basically what happened to the 5468796 architecture-designed Centre Village project in Winnipeg.

More about affordable housing on Archinect:

California to decrease parking requirements for affordable housing

Cutting across the Chicago Architecture Biennial: Tatiana Bilbao's solution to Mexico's housing shortage

Up to 50% of all renting London households are living in poverty

The promising affordable housing of Hunters Point South

Poor Doors of Perception: discriminatory design, collapsing balconies, and virtual realities on Archinect Sessions #36

Assemble wins Turner Prize, becoming first architects to win "UK's most prestigious art prize"

2015-12-07T16:20:00-05:00

The 18 members of London-based Assemble were named winners of the 31st Turner prize on Monday night, receiving their £25,000 prize from the Sonic Youth co-founder and artist Kim Gordon at an awards dinner broadcast live on Channel 4 from Tramway, Glasgow. Assemble are the first non-artists, in the strictest sense of the word, to win the prize. They were nominated for their work tackling urban dereliction in Toxteth, Liverpool...

Assemble, the architecture-ish collective known for their direct action urban interventions, has just won the prestigious Turner Prize. Working "across the fields of art, architecture and design," they are the first non-artists, in the strictest sense, to win the prize, and the first whose work so directly contends with the urban environment.

Specifically, Assemble was praised for their work in Toxteth, Liverpool, that involved using design to improve the living conditions and the houses of a derelict area called Granby Four Streets.

"[Assemble] draw[s] on long traditions of artistic and collective initiatives that experiment in art, design and architecture," the judges stated. "In doing so they offer alternative models to how societies can work. The long-term collaboration between Granby Four Streets and Assemble shows the importance of artistic practice being able to drive and shape urgent issues.”

With their Granby Four Streets project, Assemble created a showroom to display product...

Venice Biennale director Alejandro Aravena: "Our challenge must be to go beyond architecture."

2015-11-20T12:04:00-05:00

As architects, we are living at a time of shifting paradigms. [...] It’s why I’m so interested in how architects and urban planners engage with other fields – economics, security, the environment and so on. Our challenge must be to go beyond architecture and speak the languages of these other disciplines, before translating our discussions into formal design proposals. [...] Our ultimate focus is still on form, but what informs this has expanded dramatically.

Just a few key takeaways from Alejandro Aravena's piece for The Guardian:

"As curator of Reporting From The Front, I want to reverse the idea that the Biennale only deals with issues that are of interest to other architects. We have begun by identifying problems that every citizen can not only understand but actually has a say in: immigration, water, land capacity, waste and so on."
"Unlike military wars where nobody wins and there is a prevailing sense of defeat, however, on the frontlines of the built environment there is a sense of vitality, because architecture is about looking at reality in a proposal key. We should never forget that design can be a very powerful tool in mobilising people to act."
"There are new actors in this story – not least those property developers who use buildings to chase huge profits. But we are interested in how architecture can introduce a broader notion of gain: design as added value instead of an extra cost; architecture as a shortcut towards equality...

Architecture as urban regeneration: Theaster Gates, Art + Practice, and Assemble

2015-11-03T18:19:00-05:00

Most architects don’t build economic engines into their projects, and [Assemble's Anna] Lisogorskaya is quick to note that this type of intervention doesn’t make sense everywhere. [...] But she does argue that things such as economic sustainability and local jobs are inherently interconnected with any effort to rehabilitate a neighbourhood. The architecture is only part of the project, and can only do so much on its own.

Building a collaborative practice: Caroline Bos of UNStudio lectures at LACMA

2015-10-30T16:00:00-04:00

Students and professionals nearly filled up the Bing Theater at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Tuesday night to listen to guest lecturer Caroline Bos, co-founder and principal urban planner of UNStudio. Bos spoke about UNStudio’s design process that continues to shift even after her 27 years of practice with co-founder Ben van Berkel and their growing international office. In highlighting a selection of the firm's projects, she outlined their focus on collaborative, research-driven design, with the ultimate goal to consistently create inventive, inclusive and “socially aware” architecture.

↑ Caroline Bos and Ben van Berkel of UNStudio.

To frame the discussion of UNStudio's design methods, Bos began her lecture by quoting from Richard Sennett’s 2008 book, The Craftsman. “Knowledge is gained in the hand through touch and movement," and, "Technical understanding develops through the powers of imagination”. According to Bos, the quotes in an architectural context describe the int...

"Reporting from the Front" is the title of the 15th Venice Biennale of Architecture

2015-09-02T13:19:00-04:00

The President of la Biennale di Venezia, Paolo Baratta, accompanied by the curator of the 15th International Architecture Exhibition, Alejandro Aravena, met today at Ca’ Giustinian with the representatives of 48 Countries. The 15th Exhibition will take place from May 28th to November 27th 2016...in the Giardini and the Arsenale and in various other venues in Venice. The title chosen by Alejandro Aravena for the 15th International Architecture Exhibition is: REPORTING FROM THE FRONT

"There are several battles that need to be won and several frontiers that need to be expanded in order to improve the quality of the built environment and consequently people’s quality of life," Alejandro Aravena states in the announcement. "More and more people in the planet are in search for a decent place to live and the conditions to achieve it are becoming tougher and tougher by the hour. Any attempt to go beyond business as usual encounters huge resistance in the inertia of reality and any effort to tackle relevant issues has to overcome the increasing complexity of the world."

Employing a militaristic tone, Aravena is signalling an aggressive positioning for next year's Biennale, as well as a clear political stance. "Unlike military wars where nobody wins and there is a prevailing sense of defeat, on the frontlines of the built environment, there is a sense of vitality because architecture is about looking at reality in a proposal key," he states.

The Chilean architect is know...

Süha Özkan Looks Globally to Find Architectural Innovation

2015-02-20T11:12:00-05:00

What is the architectural legacy of May 1968? The question framed Süha Özkan’s talk last Tuesday at SCI-Arc, which he began by invoking his own memories of being a young man in Paris during that year's turbulent month of student-worker protests. “Let us be reasonable and ask for the impossible,” Özkan said, quoting the famous slogan that was “uttered in the streets of Paris while stones were thrown.”

For Özkan, the demonstrations of ’68 introduced a new set of values into “the architectural agenda.” He described the preceding parts of the twentieth century as defined by “polarities and oppositions”: west vs east; capitalism vs communism; developed vs underdeveloped; blue vs red; north vs south; conservative vs progressive; right vs left. With ’68, a set of new values were introduced, disrupting this binary structure. According to Özkan, these new values included participation, plurality, freedom, non-discrimination and peace. Today, during the beginning decades of the 21st century, Ö...

Peabody housing competition shortlist shares future ideas of affordable housing

2014-01-17T14:58:00-05:00

With the help of young UK architects, London housing association Peabody is already looking to the future of social housing with their "Small Projects Panel" competition launched this past November. Peabody recently announced 20 shortlisted proposals that have advanced to the last stage. Each team will be interviewed before the jury picks 6-8 firms by the end of January. The winning firms will help Peabody develop new housing schemes that have a maximum of 20 homes.

Check out some of the shortlisted projects.

Project author: Coffey Architects

Project author: Studio Octopi

Project author: Stephen Taylor Architects

Project author: Allsop Gollings Architects

Project author: Studio Sam Causer and Geraldine Dening

Project author: Paul Archer Design

See more of the shortlist and other competition details at Bustler.

Images courtesy Peabody Short Projects Panel competition.

Korean Diaspora by Carlos Zarco Sanz - 3rd-prize entry from Re-thinking The Future Thesis Award 2013

2013-12-06T19:05:00-05:00

Carlos Zarco Sanz from the University of Madrid recently sent us his proposal, "Korean Diaspora" from Re-thinking the Future's International Architectural Thesis Award we previously featured. His design won 3rd place in the Public/Institutional category. Sanz's "Korean Diaspora" reimagines Manhattan's Koreatown as a shifting social and commercial space built for the neighborhood's present and future.

For full details, head over to Bustler.

Images courtesy of Carlos Zarco Sanz.

Dune X exhibition at the 18th Biennale of Sydney

2012-07-17T11:35:00-04:00

Constructed on Sydney’s Harbour’s Cockatoo Island, the interactive 42 meter-long landscape installation, entitled Dune, is composed of hundreds of fibres that brighten according to human sounds in what Roosegaarde describes as “techno-poetry”.

Dune X is an interactive landscape of light for the 18th Biennale of Sydney that visibly reacts to the behavior of people that come into close proximity. Hundreds of sensors detect motion, and optical fibers dim and brighten in response to the movements of people passing by.

Dune X is being exhibited at the dark Dogleg tunnels on Cockatoo Island in Sydney. For those unable to visit, Studio Roosegaarde made a video, especially for the Biennale of Sydney, that is supposed to give an impression of what to expect with 'Dune X'. The movie (below) resembles a real-life ‘Alice in techno-land' and is displayed all around Sydney during the Biennale.

Studio Roosegaarde (Rotterdam-The Netherlands) is the social design lab of artist and architect Daan Roosegaarde. By creating interactive designs that instinctively respond to sound and movement, Roosegaarde explores the dawn of a new nature that is evolving from technological innovations. The studio is well known for its awarded interactiv...

A critical shift in urban policy

2012-04-12T17:42:00-04:00

Medellín has turned itself into a model Latin American city, with good transport, dynamic public spaces, new schools and a culture of civic architecture. The real design project, however, was one of social organisation, with a section of society grouping together and deciding to rewrite their city's story.

Justin McGuirk analyzes the "social urbanism" of Medellín's "self-consciously iconic" architecture. Efforts by politicians such as Sergio Fajardo and architects like Giancarlo Mazzanti to focus on public space and civic architecture, were he finds part of a larger program of "social architecture" which saw all members of society focusing on ensuring that "future development outcomes are as equitable, sustainable and pro-poor as possible".

For more on these developments in Columbia make sure to visit the exhibition Colombia: Transformed/Architecture=Politics at The Instituto Cervantes of Chicago (put on in collaboration with MAS Studio). The exhibit features ten recently built social projects by five leading voices in contemporary Colombian architecture. The projects all "demonstrate ideas of social inclusion as well as innovative architectural forms and spaces, which have been steadily transforming Colombian cities and the nation".