Archinect - News

Carles Enrich Studio wins the AR Emerging Architecture Awards 2020 for their dynamic approach to heritage

2021-11-26T10:00:00-05:00

The Architectural Review has announced Carles Enrich Studio as the winner of the AR Emerging Architecture Awards 2020. The Barcelona-based practice was chosen from a shortlist of 16 young architects and designers around the world recognized as “the architectural stars of tomorrow.”

Founded in 2013, Carles Enrich Studio focuses on interventions in Catalonia’s historical landscapes. Their celebrated works include the Merola Tower in Puig-reig, which saw a 13th-century stone tower reactivated by a contemporary timber structure. The firm’s previous accolades include nominations for the EU Mies Award in 2017 and 2019 and participation in the 2012 and 2016 Venice Biennale.

The 16 shortlisted firms for the 2020 awards were published in October of last year.

The award judges, which included previous Emerging Architecture alumni Manuel Aires Mateus, Sameep Padora, and Maria Smith, commended Carles Enrich Studio for reconnecting history with the future and for viewing heritage as infrastructu...

2021 Jane Drew and Ada Louise Huxtable Prizes awarded to Kate Macintosh and Lesley Lokko

2021-01-21T16:37:00-05:00

The work and leadership of female architects continue to impact the industry thanks to their relentless efforts and passion for architecture, equity, and progress. The Architectural Review and Architect's Journal awards two women whose exemplary work in architecture has deemed them winners of the 2021 Jane Drew Prize for Architecture and the Ada Louise Huxtable Prize for Contribution to Architecture.

Kate Macintosh's South London housing project in Dawson's Heights (1972). Image © Abi Jones

Pioneering British architect Kate Macintosh is the recipient of the Jane Drew Prize award. Focusing on social housing and activism her legacy within the profession is built upon her tenacious commitment to housing and social justice. Macintosh's accomplishments include her work on designing the South London housing project Dawson's Heights at the age of 26. Macintosh is part of a legacy of trailblazing women in the field of architecture whose work has paved the way for many.

Macintosh shares in a...

The 2019 AR Emerging Architecture Award goes to Comunal Taller de Arquitectura of Mexico

2019-12-06T19:03:00-05:00

With 16 architects announced as shortlist winners back in October, the Architectural Review has announced Comunal Taller de Arquitectura as the winner of Architectural Review's 2019 Emerging Architecture Award.

The Mexico-based architecture firm was applauded for a project submission that focused on their community-driven work within the rural village of Tepetzintán in Mexico. According to this year's AR judging panel, the practice was recognized for its "fight against a political lobby that is vastly supportive of replicable, commercial housing development over housing seen as a human right."

Comunal Taller de Arquitectura recieving the award for 2019 AR Emerging Architect Award. Image courtesy of WAF via/Twitter

Founded in 2015 in Mexico City by Mariana Ordóñez Grajales, who was later joined by Jesica Amescua Carrera, Comunal Taller de Arquitectura focuses on building in Mexico's rural and indigenous communities. The duo explained to AR during an interview that "architecture is n...

"Design and power, locked in an uncanny embrace": Ian Vollner on the Chicago Architecture Biennial

2015-12-02T14:30:00-05:00

Look closely and you might find that the two operations are connected: Bureaucracy turns out the statistical slurry, and architecture reconstitutes it into built form. And since the actual process of making architecture occupies the lower half, as it were, of this digestive cycle, it is generally held to be an ancillary thing, tedious and occult.

"Given the popularity of this perception, it’s understandable that the field of design is seized by a sneaking inferiority complex—which is why, from time to time, architects must meet up to remind the world, and one another, that what they do is Important Shit."

After some linguistic judo and a slew of qualifiers aimed primarily at tenuous power relations and poorly-disguised disciplinary insecurities, Volner concludes, "CAB has a fighting chance to emerge as the leader in its field."

In case you're not already glutted from all the reviews of the CAB, here's some more:

Archinect rounds up critical reactions to Koolhaas' biennale

2014-06-19T11:42:00-04:00

This year's Venice Biennale of Architecture, curated by Rem Koolhaas, officially opened on June 7, under the theme "Fundamentals". The deluge of criticism and reporting coming out of the Biennale will surely continue until it closes November 23, but so far reactions from the architectural journalism community seem pretty consistent. Critics seem at once relieved that the biennale is not given away to preening and doting upon architectural personalities, but instead focused on "architecture, not architects", as per Koolhaas' design. The flip-side of this could be seen as replacing objects of starchitectural value with a too-safe generalism, imbued with the self-importance of Koolhaas' cult of personality. Responses seem largely concerned with interpreting the man at the same time as his Biennale, rather than investigating the interplay of national pavilions' personalities under a unifying theme. But we've got many months to go, and this is only the beginning.

But with the sheer mass o...