Archinect - News

Airbnb responds to need for emergency housing with the launch of their new non-profit arm

2020-12-16T18:27:00-05:00

After Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012 an Airbnb host reached out to the billion-dollar online vacation rental company to propose an idea. The host asked if she could offer her home to people who had been evacuated to stay free of charge. Since then the team from Airbnb has evolved the host's selfless act and transformed it into a new method for "sharing space."

Fast forward to 2020 Airbnb has collaborated with hosts from across the globe to help provide shelter during natural disasters. During the Australian brushfires, hosts offered assistance to close to 1,000 people impacted by the fire. June led to the launch of the Open Homes initiative where the company "doubled down on its housing efforts" to assist those impacted by disaster or conflict. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit healthcare workers and first responders were provided housing while the donation component of Airbnb's Open Homes initiative continued to grow.

This month the company established Airbnb.org, a non-profit extensio...

Archinect Sessions: Conversations with the Architecture Community, Part 5/6

2020-06-11T11:23:00-04:00

This is the fifth installment of Archinect Sessions six-part series of conversations we've had with architects, designers, and others in the industry. The discussions address the challenges experienced navigating these uncertain times, from the stay-at-home orders due to the coronavirus, to the toll it's taken on jobs and the economy.

Conversations in this episode include Will Galloway, an architect/firm-owner and educator who has been stuck in Canada, his country of citizenship, while unable to return to Tokyo, his home of residence. We also speak with Sobia Sayeda, an architect in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Dillon Jones, a Portland-based architect who has been sheltering-in-place in California since getting furloughed.

Listen to episode 156 of Archinect Sessions, “Conversations with the Architecture Community, Part 5/6”.

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Archinect Sessions: Conversations with the Architecture Community, Part 4/6

2020-05-27T16:56:00-04:00

This is the fourth part of Archinect Sessions six-part series of conversations we've had with architects, designers, and others in the industry. The discussions address the challenges experienced navigating these uncertain times, from the stay-at-home orders due to the coronavirus, to the toll it's taken on jobs and the economy.

Conversations in this episode include four architects and designers based in New York - Brandt Knapp & Jerome Haferd of Brandt : Haferd, Arielle Lapp, and Emma Greenberg.

Listen to episode 155 of Archinect Sessions, “Conversations with the Architecture Community, Part 4/6”.

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Archinect Sessions: Conversations with the Architecture Community, Part 3/6

2020-05-22T13:43:00-04:00

Today we share the third part of Archinect Sessions six-part series of conversations we've had with architects, designers, and others in the industry. The discussions address the challenges experienced navigating these uncertain times, from the stay-at-home orders due to the coronavirus, to the toll it's taken on jobs and the economy.

Conversations in this episode include Nicolai Kruger, an architect and illustrator in Portland, Oregon; Charles Pifer, a practicing architect and teacher of architectural ethics, in Tucson, Arizona; and Michele Grace Hottel, an architect/sole-proprietor in La Mesa, California.

Listen to episode 154 of Archinect Sessions, “Conversations with the Architecture Community, Part 3/6”.

iTunes: Click here to listen, and click the "Subscribe" button below the logo to automatically download new episodes.
Apple Podcast App (iOS): click here to subscribe
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RSS: subscribe with any of your favorite podcasting apps via our RSS fe...

Archinect Sessions: Conversations with the Architecture Community, Part 2/6

2020-05-15T10:30:00-04:00

Today we share the second part of Archinect Sessions six-part series of conversations we've had with architects, designers, and others in the industry. The discussions address the challenges experienced navigating these uncertain times, from the stay-at-home orders due to the coronavirus, to the toll it's taken on jobs and the economy.

In this second part, we feature the perspectives of Autumn, a commercial interior designer in Chicago; Daniel, a project architect/project manager in Oakland; and Casey, an American architect working in Berlin.

Listen to episode 153 of Archinect Sessions, “Conversations with the Architecture Community, Part 2/6”.

iTunes: Click here to listen, and click the "Subscribe" button below the logo to automatically download new episodes.
Apple Podcast App (iOS): click here to subscribe
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Download: this episode

...

Archinect Sessions: Conversations with the Architecture Community, Part 1/6

2020-05-05T14:55:00-04:00

Today's installment of Archinect Sessions introduces the first of six episodes sharing conversations we've had with architects, designers, and others in the industry. The discussions address the challenges experienced navigating these uncertain times, from the stay-at-home orders due to the coronavirus, to the toll it's taken on jobs and the economy.

In this first part, we feature the perspectives of Zachary, a recently laid-off unlicensed architectural designer in Oshkosh, Wisconsin; Nancy, an architect-turned-architectural-consultant in New York; and an architect in Glasgow, Scotland, who wishes to remain unnamed because of the potentially-illegal layoffs he's been the victim of in recent months.

Listen to episode 152 of Archinect Sessions, “Conversations with the Architecture Community, Part 1/6”.

iTunes: Click here to listen, and click the "Subscribe" button below the logo to automatically download new episodes.
Apple Podcast App (iOS): click here to subscribe
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David Chipperfield on the crisis of architecture

2018-05-15T14:15:00-04:00

“I think architecture is in a sort of crisis,” he says. “We’ve lost our social purpose. What we are seeing now is construction as a product of investment. We are building a lot, but we are building big investment projects, as if we’re doing architecture without architecture. It’s more about investment than it is about urbanism. We used to be involved in planning and building cities, building societies. But now we are discussing housing as if it were a strange product like washing machines [...]

In Jan Dalley's FT piece, the soft-spoken British architect expresses his concerns about architecture as a mere tool of the free market, the shrinking role of architects as society builders, and why we are building "horrible cities."

Do Israelis have any idea how bad it is in Gaza?

2015-02-18T15:30:00-05:00

I’m extremely concerned that if you leave Gaza in the state it’s currently in, you’ll have another eruption, and violence, and then we’re back in a further catastrophe, so we’ve got to stop that,-Tony Blair

Even a hawk like Tony is worried.

"The scope of destruction in Gaza remains enormous. According to the UN, over 96,000 homes were either damaged or destroyed by Israeli air strikes. The donor states that have pledged to transfer money have yet to do so, re-building is going nowhere, many are still seeking refuge in UNRWA schools and the winter storms have only increased the damage to the homes and neighborhoods that survived. "

Editor's Picks #383

2014-09-05T00:39:00-04:00

Sean Smith published the first in a series of articles in which "three architects (two designers and one licensed architect) discuss their transition from student to professional, their changed perceptions of the career and the challenges and joys of their current work".

The interview with Elizabeth Christoforetti looks back at her time with DEGW, her time at Harvard's Graduate School of Design and her work at Utile, where she tackles everything from "front-end design work" to "entrepreneurially-oriented master planning".

After reading this interview and others like it, Chris Teeter is convinced studio education "of the architect should not be the dominant method for training an architect...somehow salary means working like studio and the only reason we work so long when we start is we learned very little on how to be an architect and know even less on how to offer additional non traditional input on projects that get sourced out to construction managers, lawyers, specialists, etc......

How Spain’s ‘guerrilla architect’ is building new hope out of financial crisis

2014-08-18T15:25:00-04:00

As the state has withdrawn, Santiago Cirugeda has stepped in to turn abandoned sites in Seville and other Spanish cities into dramatic art spaces that are inspiring a new breed of architect

Humanitarian Crisis Emerges in Ukraine

2014-08-06T13:17:00-04:00

A senior U.N. official warned the Security Council at an emergency meeting Tuesday that the humanitarian situation in eastern Ukraine is steadily worsening as power and water supplies are scarce, homes are destroyed and health workers flee. John Ging, director of U.N. humanitarian operations, said that violence, especially in urban areas, will put more people at risk and lead to "an increase in the numbers killed" if a political solution can't be reached.

World Faces Water Crisis in Less Than 30 Years

2014-07-30T14:05:00-04:00

The world will face “insurmountable” water crises in less than three decades, researchers said Tuesday, if it does not move away from water-intensive power production. A clash of competing necessities — drinking water and energy demand — will cause widespread drought unless action is taken soon [...] “There will be no water by 2040 if we keep doing what we’re doing today,” researcher Benjamin Sovacool, director of the Center for Energy Technology at Aarhus University said... Tuesday.

Home truths: architects tackle the housing crisis

2012-07-12T19:41:00-04:00

As Britain's housing shortage deepens, we asked top architects for their solutions to the affordable living dilemma

UK's The Guardian taps Charles Holland from FAT architects, Glenn Howells of Glenn Howells Architects, Sarah Wigglesworth of Sarah Wigglesworth Architects, Lynsey Hanley, author of Estates: An Intimate History (Granta), Kevin McCloud, designer, presenter of TV's Grand Designs, and Dickon Robinson, Chairman of Living Architecture and Building Futures at RIBA, for some ideas.

Currently on view in NYC: Desired Sync: Global Crisis & Design ver.1.5

2012-05-29T17:46:00-04:00

If you're in New York City these days, make sure to check out the exhibition Desired Sync: Global Crisis & Design ver.1.5. Organized by the Korean Cultural Service New York and presented by the Institute of Multidisciplinarity for Art, Architecture and Design (I:M), Desired Sync is the second of a series of exhibitions honorable selected from the official ‘2012 Call for Artists’ program organized by the Korean Cultural Service NY.