Archinect - News

New RIBA manifesto urges lawmakers' action for better practices in the built environment

2023-10-04T16:54:00-04:00

A new "Manifesto for a Better Built Environment" has been published by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), calling on the country’s policymakers to make more urgent priority of the need for better safety, quality, and sustainability in the design and construction of buildings throughout the UK.

The publication was made in advance of the country’s political party conference season, saying that improved regulations, job training, and environmental standards are needed to help boost the national housing stock and achieve other benchmarks governing the whole-life carbon footprint of construction projects and retention of highly-qualified staff in local planning offices.

New RIBA President Muyiwa Oki said: "Well-designed buildings and places enrich our lives, positively impact the environment, and strengthen our communities. Our manifesto highlights the need for conscious and concerted policy action to deliver a built environment that meets peoples’ needs, both now and in t...

Norman Foster unveils San Marino Declaration of sustainability principles ahead of COP27

2022-10-04T17:40:00-04:00

Norman Foster is in San Marino this week to present what he says is a new set of sustainable urban design principles to the 83rd meeting of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s Committee on Urban Development, Housing, and Land Management.

The so-called San Marino Declaration appears as a sort of guidebook around which architects and urban planners can build cities that are “climate-neutral, safer, more inclusive, and resilient.” In it, a set of eleven interrelated principles are floated for universal adaptation based on past actions and directives taken by the UN Secretary-General that carry broad and direct implications to the built environment and ascending migration of populations into urban centers across the globe.

Previously on Archinect: At COP26, Norman Foster speaks about the primacy of cities in the fight against climate change

Speaking to Dezeen recently, Foster compared the plan to the Hippocratic Oath Western medical professionals typically sign, adding th...

An anonymous architect comments on the need for ‘degrowth’ in detailed manifesto

2022-08-15T09:00:00-04:00

Environmentalist blog Treehugger has published an exchange between the author of an anonymous new Twitter manifesto that outlines in 25 points the need to combat the capitalistic notion that endless growth is the only option for modern industrial societies. Patrik Schumacher and others are mentioned as examples of the industry’s bad side, with groups like Architects Declare and thinkers such as Tim Jackson, Jason Hickel, and Open City director Phineas Harper being cited as the clarions of a movement the latter says is more or less inevitable.

"We use 'degrowth' because, as architects, we sometimes get to control the consumption spigot a bit," shares the author and architect, who wished to remain anonymous during their conversation with Lloyd Alter of Treehugger. "Someday architects may be called upon, first and foremost, to make spatial interventions that create value for society and for future generations—more like caretakers or repairmen, and less as heroic form-givers who functio...

SoapBox: Manifestos

2017-11-13T16:14:00-05:00

Soapbox is a new weekly series delivering a curated set of lectures, talks and symposia concerning contemporary themes but explored through the archives of lectures past and present. With the plethora of lectures, talks, symposia and panels occurring world wide on a daily basis, how can we begin to keep up and if not, find them once they are gone? Soapbox looks to assemble a selection of recent, archived and outlier lectures surrounding a given theme. Soapbox looks to curate this never-ending library of ideas into an engaging and diverse list of thoughts and provocations. Soapbox is just that, a collection aimed at discovering the occasional needle in a haystack.

This week, in its first offering, we present. Manifestos. A selection of videos whose topics or purpose was to present if not reinforce, Manifestos.

1. GSAPP: What happened to the Architectural Manifesto Series

a. Enrique Walker, Felicity Scott and Anthony Vidler on the architectural manifesto. (2011)

b. Beatriz Colomina,...

RIBA responds to Conservatives Manifesto

2017-05-19T05:49:00-04:00

"The Conservative Party’s manifesto outlines its vision to further empower communities. Whoever forms the next government should ensure that plans to build high quality housing and infrastructure are linked with industrial and devolution strategies to encourage more jobs and a better quality of life for people across the country."

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has responded to the publication of the Conservatives manifesto, published earlier today.

"The RIBA welcomes the Conservatives’ acknowledgment that the UK’s architects are the finest in the world. This is recognition of the vital role that good design has on improving quality of life, sustainability and social integration; and acknowledgement that architects are the design professionals that make this happen."

On Brexit:

“The RIBA has long been calling for the rights of non-UK EU nationals to be confirmed. I’m happy to see it is included in the Conservative manifesto. Skilled architects come to the UK from across the world, giving us the edge in creativity and innovation; we need to ensure this continues into the future.

“British architects have been clear about our key asks from Brexit through RIBA’s ‘Global By Design’ report. The RIBA will continue to be a strong voice for the sector in the coming weeks and months.”

On planning and co...

RIBA responds to Liberal Democrats Manifesto

2017-05-19T05:49:00-04:00

"I am pleased to see that the Liberal Democrats have recognized the key role of the built environment sector in tackling issues such as energy demand, climate change and urban flooding through their plans for infrastructure and housing. “Proposals for new housebuilding should be balanced with ambitions to deliver high quality, well designed and sustainable homes across the country.”

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has responded to the publication of the Liberal Democrats manifesto, published earlier today.

On Brexit:

“I warmly welcome the commitment from the Liberal Democrats to protect the rights of existing EU citizens in the UK, and UK citizens in the EU. Our members need to see this issue resolved as a matter of urgency. The party’s desire to open up access to university courses also chimes with RIBA’s target to achieve greater diversity in the architecture profession through apprenticeships, with varied and affordable new routes to qualification.”

On planning and communities:

“The promise to devolve powers around housing, transport and skills, backed with resources for infrastructure projects is a welcome step to help local communities create better places to live, work and play. Meaningful devolution opportunities in areas such as housing can help to boost skills in the construction sector across the country.

“The Liberal Democrats also wish...

Zaha Hadid Architects rejects Patrik Schumacher's "manifesto" in open letter

2016-11-29T12:51:00-05:00

The perenially opinionated Patrik Schumacher, who gave a speech about his "urban policy manifesto" at the November 17th World Architecture Festival in which he called for an end to all social housing and privatization of public space, has attracted push-back from an unexpected source: the firm he currently runs, which was founded by the late, great Zaha Hadid. In an open letter from the architectural office, Zaha Hadid Architects states that Schumacher's manifesto does not reflect the future direction of the firm, noting that Zaha "deeply believed in the strongest international collaboration" and she "did not write manifestos. She built them." The full text of the letter follows below:

November 29, 2016

Patrik Schumacher’s ‘urban policy manifesto’ does not reflect Zaha Hadid Architects’ past—and will not be our future.

Zaha Hadid did not write manifestos. She built them.

Zaha Hadid Architects has delivered 56 projects for all members of the community in 45 cities around the world.

Refusi...

Win "Slow Manifesto: Lebbeus Woods Blog"!

2015-12-16T14:12:00-05:00

Lebbeus Woods' blog was the last major work of his illustrious career before he passed away in 2012. He launched it back in 2007 to chronicle his ongoing projects, openly share his ideas, and spark discussions with anyone who was interested. Woods published more than 300 entries by the time his blog ended in summer 2012.

To commemorate the legendary architect and preserve the memory of his final project, the book "Slow Manifesto: Lebbeus Woods Blog" was created.

Thanks to the Princeton Architectural Press, Archinect is giving five copies of the newly published book to our readers!

Read on for more and how to enter the giveaway.

Edited by Woods' longtime editor Clare Jacobson, "Slow Manifesto" features 70 of the architect's most notable articles that let readers peruse his thoughts on architectural theory, education, criticism, and politics.

The book features a multitude of images and Woods' iconic sketches, a foreword written by architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, and an...

Imagining a museum without walls

2015-12-01T11:42:00-05:00

The new museum won’t be defined by architectural glamour or by a market-vetted collection, though it may have these. Structurally porous and perpetually in progress...where walls are dissolvable, access is open, and art is invited to tell us who we are as an arrogant, exclusionary but possibly teachable culture — is still awaited

15 years into the new millennium, Holland Cotter outlines the need for a new version, for the 21st century, museum. She begins by criticizing the Bilbao era, and the entities resulting from a "love of gigantism in architecture and art". Then goes on to outline the possibilities of a 21st-century institution, "Experimental — interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, self-critical, heterodox".

Pure Hardcore Icons Manifesto Book by WAI Think Tank

2013-05-28T18:58:00-04:00

WAI Architecture Think Tank upcoming publication Pure Hardcore Icons: A Manifesto on Pure Form in Architecture (August 2013) is featured on Artifice Books on Architecture Autumn 2013 Catalog.

The Catalog can be downloaded here.

Pure Hardcore Icons summary:

In the kingdom of architecture the shape reigns supreme. Ever since the beginning of history, pure geometric form has been one of architecture’s recurrent obsessions. A genealogy of buildings shaped as pyramids, spheres, and cubes can be traced back to ancient times, while contemporary projects, either as poured concrete or virtual bytes, often resemble stacked boxes and looping skyscrapers.

Despite torrents of pure shapes flooding with evidence magazine pages and computer screens around the world, architecture lacks a written work to declare its intentions. Pure Hardcore Icons is the first manifesto on pure form in architecture.

WAI Architecture Think Tank, directed by authors Nathalie Frankowski and Cruz Garcia,...

Editor's Picks #303

2013-02-19T12:33:00-05:00

For the latest edition of the ShowCase feature, Archinect profiled 253 Pacific Street, a project designed James Cleary Architecture. It is a newly constructed building in Brooklyn, New York containing three duplex residences.

News

Planetizen covered Arup’s proposal for a "smart" building that will plug into "smart" urban infrastructure and cater to an increasingly dense and technology-savvy urban population. Fred Scharmen thought the proposal featured "Fantastic graphics" yet toasteroven continued his criticism from last week "I'm a little perplexed by this proposal - one the one hand it assembles all the ideas into one building (which should be larger city-wide infrastructure, not in a single building), but it's a little too ‘plug-in city’ for me - as in verging on completely unrealistic and incredibly naive about how the city really functions".

Apparently Ryan Griffin agreed, referring to the title of the news posting he wrote "radical? maybe helpful to post in a...

Five tenets of a new kind of architecture

2012-12-16T20:56:00-05:00

So when people look at you know, at the ability to 3D print using a robotic arm, they're very, very curious about the possibility of in the future, printing full scale houses, so I think the media lab and specifically in the Media Matter Group, we don't focus only on efficiency translations. For that, I would open a practice in the commercial world, but that's not the function of this lab...

Neri Oxman founder of the Mediated Matter group at MIT’s Media Lab was recently profiled in a 30-minute segment and interviewed by Dr. Sanjay Gupta. CNN also published a short essay in which Ms. Oxman begins to define a design credo suitable for the contemporary context, wherein the World-as-Machine is replaced by the World-as- Organism. The five components include; Growth over Assembly, Integration over Segregation, Heterogeneity over Homogeneity, Difference over Repetition and Material is the New Software.

As Bruce Sterling noted elsewhere "Looks like Prof Neri’s working up a manifesto there."

Pure Hardcorism

2012-07-11T19:15:00-04:00

Hard-Core: characterized by or being the purest or most basic form of something. [1]

Manifesto
In the kingdom of architecture the shapes reign supreme. Centuries of the continuous search for a transcendental architecture serve as evidence that a pure shape is the ultimate aesthetic utopia. Hardcorism is the theory of architecture as pure geometric shapes. The first endless architectural manifesto, it announces the advent of an architecture of already known looks. Hardcorism is form as ideology. Ideology as form.

Architects have been searching for the pure shapes ever since they started registering icons on a monumental scale. The pure shapes have become an endless obsession. A Platonic fetish. A recurrent topic. The pure shapes represent the ultimate aspiration of mankind. A direct connection to the gods. Form as temple. Religion as geometry.

Hardcorism is pure form unconcealed. It is blunt, straightforward, explicit, up front. It presents itself as it is, and represents ...

WAIzine 2 Coming Soon (Reserve your copy!)

2012-06-21T13:32:00-04:00

What About It? Part 2 to be released on July 7, 2012

The second issue of the graphic narrative in magazine format by WAI Architecture Think Tank includes essays, Manifestos, Projects, Collages and a series of Conversations with:
Simona Rota (Madrid)
Zhang Ke / standardarchitecture (Beijing)
Bernd Upmeyer / MONU (Rotterdam)
Perry Kulper (Michigan)

To order a printed copy (numbered limited edition of 100) of the WAIzine part 2 please email your order contact@wai-architecture.com (Subject: waizine) and you will receive a reply with the shipping details and an invoice through PayPal. If bank transfer is preferred please let us know.

WAIzine part 2 Information
What About It? Part 1
Soft cover, 100 pages , Black / White, Colour
Dimmensions: 205mm by 275mm
Publisher: WAI Architecture Think Tank Publishers
Language: English

For pricing and more information go to: www.wai-architecture.com

and www.waithinktank.com

The Shapes of Hardcore Architecture

2012-03-16T11:02:00-04:00

hard–core

adj \-ˈkȯr\

1: a : of, relating to, or being part of a hard core
2: of pornography : containing explicit descriptions of sex acts or scenes of actual sex acts
3: characterized by or being the purest or most basic form of something

Modernism

Modern Architecture was a fashion statement. Coated with an ideology of social impromptu and urban reconstruction, it seems undeniable and remarkable that the dominant gene of the Modern Movement’s DNA was its aesthetics.

Everything, from the “hygienic” appearance of its white villas, to its revolutionary materials—glass, steel and concrete, to its grid-restricted urban plans and its desolated tree-less plazas, was a trend; a stylistic straightjacket fiercely defended through an almost endless list of manifestoes and catalogues that prophesied how the modernist Zeitgeist should be portrayed.

Modernism’s plan was to become alchemistic through fashion; it was trying to transform positivism, rationalism, and Cartesianism i...