Archinect - News

The nature of place: Petra Kempf on architecture, virtual media our shifting urban terrains

2021-12-01T12:13:00-05:00

Pink umbrellas tumble on hidden winds. IP addresses cross like city streets. Bright islands of community float like balloons tethered to gray infrastructural networks.

In her wall-sized drawing “Confronting Urbanization: The Interactive Tissue of Urban Life Pro[log]ue,” Petra Kempf, assistant professor of architecture and urban design in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, combines copious data and mischievous symbolism to explore how smartphones, online commerce, and global connectivity are reshaping the urban terrain.

Hires scan of Petra Kempf’s “Confronting Urbanization: The Interactive Tissue of Urban Life Pro[log]ue.” The full drawing, which measures roughly four meters in length, is featured in the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale. (Photo: Courtesy Petra Kempf)

Some two years in the making, “Confronting Urbanization” is featured in the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale, one of the world’s premier architectural showcases, as part o...

UAE awarded Golden Lion for Best Pavilion at the 2021 Venice Biennale

2021-08-30T15:45:00-04:00

The United Arab Emirates has been awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation at the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale. The pavilion, titled “Wetland,” was curated by Wael Al Awar and Kenichi Teramoto and demonstrates the potential of natural salt as an alternative to Portland cement.

“Prior to the pandemic, we started looking into sabkhas, a sturdy ecosystem of natural salt flats nascent to the United Arab Emirates,” the curators explained. “This inspired us to explore a renewable resource for construction, one that can replace Portland cement. The crystallisation of salt in the sabkhas offers a blueprint for an alternative to Portland cement, the production of which accounts for 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions.”

Philippines Pavilion. Photo: Andrea Avezzù

The pavilion was selected by an international jury composed of Kazuyo Sejima (president, Japan), Sandra Barclay (Peru), Lamia Joreige (Lebanon), Lesley Lokko (Ghana-Scotland), and Luca Molinari (Italy). In their ...

Shaped Touches by Sean Lally features an interactive video game for the Venice Biennale

2021-07-22T20:03:00-04:00

As part of this year’s Venice Biennale, architect Sean Lally of Switzerland-based Sean Lally Architecture has paired a physical installation with an immersive simulation video game.

Shaped Touches is an investigation into the ways architecture and space can be perceived, showcasing the inherent subjectivity of the craft. The project is centered around climate change, specifically the impact it will continue to have on the way future environments are experienced. Using a virtual platform, Lally provides unfamiliar and potential perspectives to its users.

“Architects are in a position to foreshadow the opportunities and implications these pressures will have on shared public spaces,” reads the project description. “Shaped Touches offers a proposition for how architecture will define its shape and the relationships of people and communities touching that space.”

Within the video game, players explore a design space. Every minute, the game restarts in the same space but with new senso...

Zaha Hadid Architects and Block Research Group unveil world's first 3D-printed concrete footbridge built without any reinforcement

2021-07-19T20:34:00-04:00

A first-of-its-kind arched masonry footbridge composed of 3D-printed concrete blocks and assembled without mortar or reinforcement is now open in Venice. The project, called Striatus, is being showcased at the public park Giardini della Marinaressa during the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale until November.

Photo: © naaro

The approximately 40-by-52-foot pedestrian bridge was developed through a collaboration between the Block Research Group (BRG) at ETH Zurich and Zaha Hadid Architects Computation and Design Group (ZHACODE), in collaboration with Incremental3D (in3D) and made possible by Holcim. The project combines traditional masonry techniques with advanced computational design, engineering, and robotic manufacturing technologies. It aims to demonstrate an alternative, more sustainable, and ecologically responsible approach to building with concrete.

Photo: © naaro

Striatus is composed of a new type of 3D-printed concrete, which the researchers developed together with in3D. In ...

RUR Architecture will premiere two films at the 2021 Venice Biennale

2021-05-18T16:00:00-04:00

RUR Architecture will premiere two films at this year’s Venice Biennale. Responding to the social, political, cultural, and environmental upheavals of 2020, the two ten-minute films, Grassroots Institution and Carbon’s Cultural Footprint, came from the mind of firm principal and Princeton University professor Jesse Reiser.

RUR Architecture's Taipei Music Center Performance Hall. Photo courtesy of RUR Architecture

Frustrated with architecture’s tepid responses to the events of 2020, Reiser began exploring ways the field could more forcefully position itself culturally and politically, while mobilizing the full breadth of its expertise.

“As architects, we should apply our hard-earned knowledge and mobilize the full cultural force of architecture to larger issues,” said Reiser. “In the films, we respectively use the example of the Seagram Building and architectural programming to show that architecture, particularly good architecture, plays a critical role in our society, and much is ...

The 2021 Venice Biennale announces its International jury

2021-05-17T21:08:00-04:00

News of this year's Venice Biennale exhibitions, awards presentations, and pavilions has kept the architecture and design community busy with anticipation. On May 13, the Board of Directors of La Biennale di Venezia announced its 17th International jury members. Each recommended by the Biennale's curator Hashim Sarkis this year's jury will be led by esteemed architect and Pritzker Prize winner Kazuyo Sejima of SANAA.

Sejima is joined by Sandra Barclay, Lamia Joreige, Lesley Lokko, and Luca Molinari. The jury will be responsible for awarding the Biennale's official prizes: The Golden Lion for best National Participation, Golden Lion for the best participant in the International Exhibition, and Silver Lion for a promising young participant in the International Exhibition. In addition to the official prizes, the Jury "may also award a maximum of one special mention to National Participations and a maximum of two special mentions to the participants in the International Exhibition How ...

Rafael Moneo awarded Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement

2021-04-28T17:00:00-04:00

Famed Spanish architect, educator, critic, and theoretician Rafael Moneo is the recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. His illustrious career is comprised of several projects like the transformation of the Villahermosa Palace into the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, the Kursaal Auditorium, the Los Angeles Cathedral, and his involvement in the Giudecca housing project of 1983. Hashim Sarkis, 2021 curator of the 17th Biennale Architettura, shares, "Rafael Moneo is one of the most transformative architects of his generation."

After graduating from the Escuela Técnica Superior of Madrid in 1961 Moneo soon worked for architect Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza from 1958-61 and Jørn Utzon from 1961-62. He was awarded a fellowship at the Spanish Academy in Rome and soon opened his own office in Madrid while teaching at the Escuela Técnica Superior.

Rafael Moneo: Murcia City ...

She exemplified 'the perseverance of the architect,' Lina Bo Bardi awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement

2021-03-10T16:30:00-05:00

The late Lina Bo Bardi is a prolific architect, designer, editor, and curator. Even after her passing, her work continues to be an example for others to take note of. Her legacy reminds the industry that at the center of design is bringing communities together. Hashim Sarkis, 2021 curator of the 17th Biennale Architettura, stated, "it is her powerful buildings that stand out in their design and in the way that they bring architecture, nature, living, and community together. In her hands, architecture becomes truly a convening social art."

Familiar with her impactful career spanning decades of iconic work, it was no surprise that the famed multi-talented architect had been awarded the Special Gold Lion for Lifetime Achievement. Sarkis, who recommended her for the award, shared, "if there is one architect who embodies most fittingly the theme of the Biennale Architettura 2021, it is Lina Bo Bardi. Her career as a designer, editor, curator, and activist reminds us of the role of the a...

Norwegian firm Helen & Hard present their experimental cohousing model at the 2021 Venice Biennale

2021-01-26T14:54:00-05:00

While the 2020 Venice Biennale was postponed, many look forward to what 2021 has to offer with the announcement of the event's opening date on May 22.

Carrying on with the theme "How will we live together," Hashim Sarkis, curator of the exhibition, shared, "the world is putting new challenges in front of architecture. I look forward to working with participating architects from around the world to imagine together how we are going to rise to these challenges."

With this in mind, exciting projects and exhibitions make way for their debut at the Biennale. Take the Nordic Pavilion, for example. They've announced the Pavilion's participation in an experimental cohousing project led by Norwegian firm Helen & Hard. The firm's expertise in wood use and experimental housing projects will come to life in their exhibition titled, "What We Share."

Vindmøllebakken co-living project by Helen & Hard. The project was b...