Archinect - News

RIBA honors 2023 Royal Gold Medal winner Yasmeen Lari with short documentary

2023-06-20T11:47:00-04:00

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has released a new short documentary feature honoring 2023 Royal Gold Medalist Yasmeen Lari following her acceptance of the award at a special presentation held last week in London.

The Pakastani-born architect was named the Gold Medal's 174th recipient in April. RIBA recognized Lari, also the first female architect to practice in the country, over her groundbreaking humanitarian and climate-sensitive designs, which showcase “how architecture changes lives for the better,” according to a statement made by President Simon Allford at the announcement.

The 82-year-old detailed her approach to sustainable and seismic design, including her four ‘Zeros’ and refusal to work with cement, steel, and corporate handouts. She also discusses her work with renewable materials such as bamboo, earth, and lime, as well as the role of craft, women designers, and the democratization of the profession in her ongoing architectural aspirations.

Previously ...

Doctors Without Borders seeks architect to join their global humanitarian missions

2023-01-18T11:12:00-05:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for a Shop Manager at Studio Sanford Biggers, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open position on Archinect Jobs for an Architect at Doctors Without Borders.

The role, which requires a minimum of two years’ experience, calls for an architect who will oversee the design and construction of infrastructure to support the organization’s international humanitarian missions. Responsibilities in the role can range from feasibility studies and design proposals to management of the tendering, construction, and completion process.

In return, and aside from conventional industry workplace benefits, the organization offers to cover a range of primary costs including pre-departure inductions, vaccinations, visas, transportation and accommodation in the field, and psychosocial care support before and after missions.

World Home Foundation to focus philanthropy on global housing crisis

2020-07-29T13:55:00-04:00

31-year-old entrepreneur Fanyu Lin has initiated a new philanthropic enterprise called the World Home Foundation, an effort focused on providing homes to undeserved populations that include low income urban citizens, migrants, and refugees.

The new endeavor addresses a common phenomenon in reconstruction projects after natural disasters where low quality tents are provided to the impacted population as shelters while transitional housing is developed and built. "The shelters are often shacks, or low quality tents. There are technologies such as 3D printing which could improve the conditions and speed of building significantly, essentially combining shelters and transitional housing. But to achieve that in reality, it requires people who know the technology, the willing capital, and the right organization to bring it to life," writes Fei Bo in a profile on Lin.

Prior to launching World Home Foundation, Lin founded Fluxus, an architecture and construction technology company, and also...

Experimenting with a universal basic income in Nairobi

2016-04-19T14:56:00-04:00

In the old days of policymaking by aphorism—give a man a fish, feed him for a day!—simply handing money to the poor was considered an obviously bad idea. How naïve—you can’t just give people money. They’ll stop trying! They’ll just get drunk! The underlying assumption was that the poor weren’t good at making decisions for themselves: Experts had to make the decisions for them. As it turns out, that assumption was wrong.

"[...] GiveDirectly, has decided to try to permanently end extreme poverty across dozens of villages and thousands of people in Kenya by guaranteeing them an ongoing income high enough to meet their basic needs—a universal basic income, or basic income guarantee."

[Update: according to GiveDirectly, while their pilot project will likely be in East Africa, near their current projects, it will not be in Nairobi.]

For more on the growing conversation around universal basic incomes, check out past Archinect coverage:

Decoding Alejandro Aravena's Pritzker

2016-04-11T13:17:00-04:00

The suspicion is that the Pritzker judges haven’t changed all that much, and are backing an iconic-humanitarian architect, a flipside to the starchitects they previously promoted rather than a radical alternative [...] Some scepticism is in order, as to whether the Pritzker committee have suddenly become experts in the vastly complicated business of humanitarian architecture and whether there might be a large dose of gesture and symbolism in their actions.

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