Archinect - News

Brazilian architect Márcio Sequeira's latest Mola Structural Kit makes understanding the structural behavior of buildings fun

2019-06-17T11:19:00-04:00

Before launching the Mola Structural Kit 1 in 2014, Brazilian architect Márcio Sequeira spent ten years developing the Molar design model before it hit the market. He initially came up with the Mola Structural Model while he was a postgraduate student in architecture school. Since then, Mola has not only become Brazil's most successful crowdfunded campaign, it has found its way into classrooms and major universities across like MIT, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), and Technical University Madrid (UPM). In 2016, Sequeira and his team launched a second campaign, Mola 2. The goal was to help fund the production of additional products and expand the line.

Mola Structural Kit 1 launched in 2014 and Kit 2 launched in 2016. Image © Mola Structural Model

Now the company releases its latest model, the Mola Structural Kit 3. According to the Mola team, the kits are used as"a learning tool with a modular construction system that allows those interested in architecture to easil...

The power of play, how childhood toys inspired architects and their designs

2019-04-08T20:14:00-04:00

Everyone can recall their favorite toy as a child. For some, these childhood toys inspired interests and passions that led to specific career pursuits as an adult. Thinking back on one's own experience with toys like LEGO and Lincoln Logs, these simple pieces of wood and plastic led to endless amounts of fun and creative possibility. As a child, I recall spending hours playing with Little Tykes Waffle Blocks and Playskool's colored wooden blocks.

1982 Vintage Playskool Colored Wood Blocks

Play-based learning, especially with blocks or other building-focused models, enhances a child's ability to problem solve and stimulate creative decision making. These simple, tactical objects allow for children to experience and understand the world around them, especially the built environment. Through stacking and connecting, these types of educational toys enable children to experience trial and error through forms of continuous self-assessment. The anticipation of stacking one more block on t...

Thinking with a box, to think outside the box.

2017-12-07T14:50:00-05:00

FreelandBuck has recently completed an 8,000-square-foot (or square-cubed) office interior/exterior for Hungry Man Productions headquarters in Los Angeles. Hungry Man asked FreelandBuck to potentially think outside the box and evaluate the traditional organization of an office. The result being a design just as playful and inviting as Hungry Man's own identity.

Drawing by FreelandBuck

The parti of the project creates a composition party of stacked, unstable cubes and playfully composes them through informal arrangements creating a diversity of stable and flexible working configurations while maintaining the scalelessness of discovery and fragility. Feigning randomness, the cubicles are calibrated to support specific relationships between staff while leaving adjacent breakout spaces open and flexible.

In addition, cubicle boxes pile up to make visually prominent display and projection areas that take full advantage of the generous ceiling height of the warehouse shell.

Photos by E...

Build your own U.S. Capitol with LEGO Architecture Studio's latest kit

2016-08-18T15:45:00-04:00

LEGO Architecture Studio celebrated its big launch in retail stores everywhere back in 2013 with the monochromatic Architectural Toolbox and a collection of LEGO-brick model kits of the world's most famous buildings. Although LEGO Architecture retired some of the kits over time, they recently unveiled their latest icon: the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C.

The neoclassical Capitol has undergone several construction phases and restoration since George Washington laid its foundation on September 18, 1793. But with this LEGO kit, you get to call all the shots.

For $99 a set, the LEGO reinterpretation contains over 1,000 pieces, including all the essentials like the columned façade, the two-tiered dome, colonnades, the north and south wings, and steps and lawns. The dome can be removed to reveal a detailed interior of the National Statuary Hall, complete with columns, a tiled floor, and statues.

You can also brush up on the Capitol's architectural design and history in an accompanying bookl...

Designing a transparent chair for toy storage

2016-02-17T17:05:00-05:00

The "Mom" chair is a kid-sized acrylic seat with an opening on top where kids can drop their toys. It makes the dreaded toy clean-up exceedingly simple—and looks damn good to boot—but the true genius is in its transparency. Unlike opaque storage systems, toys can be easily spotted and dug out from within its clear walls.

Anyone who has lived through the chaos of a child playing (the point of which can seem to be to maximally distribute their toys across a given floor area) will appreciate this inventive, highly functional design by Carlo Contin:

For more of Furniture February:

Wired gets Snøhetta, SHoP and SOM to push the limits of LEGO

2013-10-31T12:33:00-04:00

After a freewheeling round of discussions, Snøhetta’s New York office settled on a unique challenge: building a Lego structure that captured the plastic bricks’ unique relationship to gravity. “A Lego building has a lightness that a real building doesn’t have to contend with,” says Craig Dykers, Snøhetta’s co-founder. “We thought wouldn’t it be interesting to capture the feeling of gravity in a Lego block, where gravity actually has very little influence in many ways on its structure...”

Snohetta found a delicate equilibrium with this boomerang-shaped tower. Photo: Gregory Reid

SOM froze its unique LEGO infrastructure in a solid block of ice. Photo: Zack Burris

LEGO® Architecture Studio now in stores

2013-08-02T12:47:00-04:00

You can never be too old to play with LEGOs. Yesterday, the beloved brand released its latest series, LEGO Architecture Studio.

Endorsed by REX architecture, Sou Fujimoto Architects, SOM, MAD Architects, Tham & Videgård Arkitekter, and Safdie Architects, the set includes a guidebook written in collaboration with leading architects and edited by Christopher Turner. Click here for a preview (PDF).

Every toolkit includes over 1,200 monochromatic LEGO bricks, slopes, planes, and more that let you learn the fundamentals of design in a LEGO context. And instead of the usual step-by-step manual, the kit has a 272-page guidebook full of tips, techniques, inspiration, and even intuitive exercises to really get your creativity flowing.

At $150 a set, the price is pretty steep. But in comparison to actual building costs and having complete freedom with your project? It's probably worth it.

The Free Universal Construction Kit

2012-03-19T12:02:00-04:00

F.A.T. Lab and Sy-Lab are pleased to present the Free Universal Construction Kit: a matrix of nearly 80 adapter bricks that enable complete interoperability between ten* popular children’s construction toys. By allowing any piece to join to any other, the Kit encourages totally new forms of intercourse between otherwise closed systems—enabling radically hybrid constructive play, the creation of previously impossible designs, and ultimately, more creative opportunities for kids.

This is totally brilliant.

What can a toy do for architecture?

2011-11-21T18:59:12-05:00

Opinion seemed to be divided along generational lines. Simon, FAIA, shared Berman’s sentiment. Simon founded San Francisco-based SMWM, once the region’s most successful woman-owned firm. (SMWM has since joined Perkins + Will where the formidable Simon is now a design principal.) She thinks “Architect Barbie” trivializes the profession and objectifies its female practitioners.

Blueprint for Architect Barbie! Think pink – and give her a monster home

2011-08-17T18:33:28-04:00

It's fun to design – even when you have to work for free ! In fact, a freebie “conceptual design” is what two Harvard-educated women produced for Barbie’s new home in a competition to build a dream home for the Mattel doll, sponsored by the American Institute of Architects.