Archinect - News

Is anything left of Mosul?

2017-08-10T17:40:00-04:00

While UN satellite analysis suggests about 10,000 buildings have been severely damaged or completely destroyed, the real level of destruction is believed to be higher. Taking into account damage to multiple floors of buildings, not seen via satellites, the UN now estimates the real number of damaged buildings to be more than three times greater - about 32,000.

Lucy Rodgers, Nassos Stylianou & Daniel Dunford provide an in depth examination of the architectural/urban impacts (what to speak of the personal, loss of lives etc.) of the, nine months long, battle for Mosul.

The last view from Aleppo...

2017-02-15T23:46:00-05:00

My university became a hub of protest. Campus life alternated between classes and protests and raids by security forces...Yusuf, though trained as an architect, volunteered in all possible ways...We were desperate for the world to hear and help us. I had been frantically tweeting images and videos of destruction from eastern Aleppo.

Back in January architect and activist, Lina Shamy, penned an editorial. Wherein she reflects on, her first-hand experience, a witness to urbicide in action.

Previously, another Syrian architect talked about, the past and future of her destroyed hometown of Homs.

A Syrian Atlas, of Ruins

2015-03-09T00:17:00-04:00

Syria’s largest city was home to more than two million people before the war. Now most of its residents have left, and the city is divided between pro-government forces and rebels

Sergio Peçanha and Jeremy White reveal satellite image analysis by Unitar-Unosat, showing vast devastation in 4 cities across Syria from the civil war that started nearly four years ago.

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......

Law Number 66 and L'invraisemblable "politique d’urbanisme"

2012-10-18T23:56:00-04:00

“The authorities would have us believe this is urban planning when we are in the middle of a war”

Journalist Sarra Grira alerts us to the latest turn of events in the ongoing Syrian crisis. The government of Bashar al-Assad has begun selective implementation of Law Number 66. While the law’s official goal is demolition of buildings built in southern Damascus without state approval, for purposes of better urban policy/form. Ms. Grira wonders "Is it just a coincidence that the pro-rebellion suburbs are the first ones being targeted?".