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A Cambridge University research paper explores the challenges faced by architectural design practitioners in embracing inclusive design

2024-01-05T12:15:00-05:00

New research produced by the University of Cambridge has identified key strategies to better effect a widespread implementation of inclusive design beyond its current status as a nascent set of concepts that have yet to be fully adopted by practitioners in almost every sector.

The paper’s lead investigators, Dr. Matteo Zallio and Professor P John Clarkson, surveyed a total of 114 different practitioners of architecture to produce an assessment of the current perceptions and challenges inherent in designing for inclusivity. The results are a reminder of how far the industry still has to go in terms of raising awareness and dispelling misconceptions about inclusive design by identifying critical gaps in client and practitioner awareness.

For example, the paper states “only 41.6% of clients were reported to have requested guidance on regulatory and legal compliance in the pre-design process.” A post-design evaluation of occupants' usability using available tools is another key lagging ...

Exciting student projects, academic research, and fellowships at architecture schools in 2023

2023-12-26T14:20:00-05:00

Continuing with our 2023 Year in Review series, we look back at the exciting design and research projects from students and faculty at architecture schools across the U.S. and abroad.

2023 proved to be a year filled with new academic research expanding on building materials, applications in AI, and 3D printed fabrication and modeling. We also covered the appointment of new academic fellows and published in-depth conversations about the results of their work, including the Harry der Boghosian Fellow and Schidlowski Emerging Faculty Fellow.

Notable Thesis Projects

Archinect's ongoing Thesis Review series offers a look at the work and process of thesis projects produced each year by graduate and undergraduate students. In 2023, we connected with B.Arch and M.Arch graduates to dive into their process, architectural perspectives, and their post-graduation pursuits.

51mi + 25km = 13ft — Archiving the place that remains, thesis project by Sophie Akoury. Thesis advisor: Marcelyn Gow. Image...

In UCLA's 'Fit for the Future' research studio, Julia Koerner and AUD students navigate the intersection of 3D printing, architecture, and climate change

2023-09-22T08:00:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by UCLA Architecture and Urban Design, an Archinect Partner School

Our infrastructure is aging, and as it does, we face dilemmas around what to do with it. Renovate? Replace? Eliminate?

Today, these age-old questions are complicated by the climate crisis: threats like rising, warming seas, and–evidenced vividly this summer–wildfires and extreme heat call for innovation in how we treat our aging buildings and cities. While architects mull these questions, they are also considering their field's contributions to the climate crisis–emissions and carbon footprints, material waste, and environmental displacement.

Dilemmas abound, but Julia Koerner sees immense opportunity around 3D printing at the scale of buildings and houses. It’s an area she has been investigating for years as a professor, architect, researcher, and designer. Koerner teaches at UCLA AUD as an Associate Adjunct Professor and directs AUD's Summer Programs; through her personal practice, JK De...

CCNY’s Spitzer School of Architecture receives $1.5 million Mellon Foundation grant for new center

2023-08-25T12:38:00-04:00

The City College of New York has been awarded a three-year $1.5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation. The funding will be used to support the new multidisciplinary Place, Memory and Culture Incubator (PMCI) to be housed within the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture.

The new center will focus on community-based partnerships and projects in Harlem that engage with the design of the built environment alongside attention to the humanities through a social justice lens. CCNY also sees the center as providing a space for the college community to “engage with one another in the production of more representative and authentic histories.”

Archinect Feature: "Decolonization Is a Gift"—CCNY's Lesley Lokko on Questioning Architecture's Inherited Futures

“This latest project recognizes the historic positioning of the Spitzer School of Architecture in the Harlem community as well as our commitment, in the architectural field and elsewhere in the college, to acknowledging, preservi...

MIT researchers create strong, ultra-light architected materials using kirigami techniques

2023-08-24T14:02:00-04:00

Researchers at MIT have developed a lightweight architected material inspired by the cellular structures found in natural materials such as honeycombs and bones. Produced with techniques borrowed from the Japanese kirigami paper-cutting technique, the strong metal lattices are lighter than cork while also holding customizable mechanical properties.

Image courtesy of the researchers via MIT

Using kirigami techniques, the MIT team led by Professor Neil Gershenfeld of the Center for Bits and Atoms has produced plate lattice structures on a larger scale than was previously possible. The structures are described as "steel cork" by Gershenfeld due to their lightweight nature combined with high strength and stiffness.

“To make things like cars and airplanes, a huge investment goes into tooling. This manufacturing process is without tooling, like 3D printing. But unlike 3D printing, our process can set the limit for record material properties,” Gershenfeld said in a statement.

Image courtesy...

Robots assemble a domed timber pavilion designed by the universities of Stuttgart and Freiburg

2023-08-15T11:16:00-04:00

The University of Stuttgart and the University of Freiburg have partnered on the construction of a domed timber pavilion on the University of Freiburg campus which seeks to showcase an “integrative approach to design and construction for sustainable architecture.” The livMatS Biomimetic Shell at the FIT Freiburg Center for Interactive Materials and Bioinspired Technologies will serve as a research space for the development of innovative, cross-disciplinary research ideas.

Image credit: Conné van d'Grachten

The design of the building envelope is based on the morphological principles of the plate skeleton of sea urchins, which have been researched at the University of Stuttgart for over a decade. For the pavilion, the segmental shell construction was further developed as a highly insulating structure for year-round and permanent use, with the combination of two partial shells of different shapes and sizes creating an opening skylight.

Image credit: Con...

Researchers develop user-friendly interface for creating complex material designs

2023-08-07T09:00:00-04:00

Researchers from MIT and the Institute of Science and Technology Austria have developed a computational technique that makes it easier for a user to quickly design a metamaterial cell from any of those smaller building blocks, and then evaluate the resulting metamaterial’s properties.

The method, similar to a CAD system, allows users to quickly model complex metamaterials and artificial structures with complex geometries that determine their mechanical properties and explore other potential shapes. It is challenging for engineers to know what material will yield the desired results due to the infinite amount of arrangements possible. As a result, only a fraction of usable metamaterials are explored.

Procedural Metamaterials: A Unified Procedural Graph for Metamaterial Design via Liane Makatura (Youtube). Project authors: Authors: Liane Makatura*, Bohan Wang*, Yi-Lu Chen, Bolei Deng, Chris Wojtan, Bernd Bickel, and Wojciech Matusik

The researchers from MIT and the Institute of Science and Technology Austria found that metamaterials can be represented as a graph structure that can be altered by applying various parameters until a suitable design is reached. Throughout the process, designers can preview their structure at any point. Going forward, the researchers...

Syracuse School of Architecture, SUNY-ESF researchers receive $100,000 grant to study the racial wealth gap in the United States

2023-07-27T15:13:00-04:00

A trio of researchers from the Syracuse University School of Architecture and the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF) have been awarded a new $100,000 competitive grant for their examination of root causes laden in the built environment that are underpinning the growing racial wealth gap in the United States.

Syracuse’s Associate Dean for Research, Eliana Abu-Hamdi, Associate Professor Iman Fayyad, and SUNY-ESF landscape architecture assistant professor Daniel Cronan were recently awarded the grant for their project “Closing the Racial Wealth Gap through Environmental Justice and Participatory Design.”

The funding was made possible through the Lender Center for Social Justice. Researchers say it will help them achieve their project’s aim of identifying a list of positive changes that can be enacted in the most heavily-impacted communities. The research is being conducted in three phases and will result in BIM-supported participatory planning that demonstra...

What’s in a word? Nicholas de Monchaux considers the need to redefine how we think of ‘design’

2023-02-23T14:54:00-05:00

Though there was indeed a key shift in the meaning of “design” between 1300 and 1500, it had less to do with language and more with a fundamental shift in the making of things themselves. The relationship between drawing and design did not give rise to a word—or even expand its meaning. Rather, it diminished the word as it had previously been used, and in a way that may now be important to reverse.

What’s the difference between modern and historic conceptions of the industry’s most misused word? MIT Head of Architecture Nicholas de Monchaux says it was the “literal mechanization of production that firmly separated the work of designing from making — with profound consequences for the definition of design, as a word and as a structure of our society.”

Indeed, the advent of consumer economies has seen the word taken on a less-creative meaning “inextricable from a corollary diminishing of the planet’s finite resources,” according to his thinking. The ability to delineate in the now highly-technicized design process is the inevitable victim, remedied only, he says, by a further broadening to include “the resources and decisions on which a designed world depends.”

“We must reshape not just objects but also the culture and institutions that create them,” he concludes, jumping back two millennia. “Not incidentally, such work recaptures dē-signo in its original sense: Not just the sea...

Swiss researchers have developed a carbon-storing building insulation made from plant-based materials

2023-02-13T15:49:00-05:00

A Swiss research team from Empa's Building Energy Materials and Components Lab explores the potential for using raw, plant-based materials as insulation for buildings.

Led by scientist Dr. Jannis Wernery and researchers from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, the project is based on binding carbon dioxide in insulation materials, preferably waste products from agriculture and forestry, over the long term. This method aims to combat embodied greenhouse gas emissions in buildings by removing carbon from the atmosphere. Carbon stored in biomass can be permanently fixed through the use of heat treatment.

The resulting material, known as biochar, can store carbon dioxide throughout the life of a building and be used again following the deconstruction of a building, reports Rémy Nideröst of Empa. However, Dr. Wernery explains, "there is still a lot to do before the idea can be put into practice."

The researchers must ensure that the new insulation materials can be used as a fe...

An industry expert discusses what’s holding back the use of 3D printing in commercial construction

2023-02-06T08:45:00-05:00

While the government has doled out grant money to research 3D printing capabilities in space, and several proof-of-concept projects from bridges to Army barracks have garnered headlines, the applied use of 3D printing in commercial construction remains nascent. Patti Harburg-Petrich, principal in the Los Angeles office of U.K.-based engineering firm Buro Happold, says the real culprit is likely one that all new building innovations are forced to navigate: the building code itself.

Harburg-Petrich pointed to the limitations of rebar on a recent design-build she advised at Woodbury University as evidence of the negative influence of building code restrictions, even in research and development. She also predicted airport design to be a potential growth sector and said the technology could perhaps be better applied to individual project components like (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing) MEPs as it currently stands.

“If you can take advantage of industrialized construction and still be able to produce something that is bespoke, that leads toward a much faster pace of adoption,” she told Construction Dive. “If you can do something with less material, or put the pieces together faster, there are all kinds of cost savings right there, and all sorts of non-monetary benefits as well. “

...

A new study sheds light on pigeons' apparent disdain for modern architecture

2023-01-22T08:00:00-05:00

The abundance of feral pigeons [...] is mostly affected by the presence of modern buildings with low abundance of pigeons found in areas where there is a preponderance of modern buildings. The study confirms the results of international studies which indicate that the densest populations of feral pigeons occur in historic town centres, as the old buildings provide ample nesting sites, while the high human population density of both locals and tourists in historic towns provides constant food

According to the authors, the Maltese study “lays the ground for further research on feral pigeon populations and their ecology in urban environments as well as contributing information for management programmes that are tailor-made to the local situation and circumstances.”

Rat populations are also barometers of recent changes to the built environment, such as outdoor dining and the increase in brownfield sites in some countries. Pigeons' risky lifestyles may nevertheless be a useful educational resource for children.

More in line with human activity, however, the study found that birds also apparently view parks as a source of “feeding opportunities and less stress.”

Penn State to study how fungal biomaterials can help reduce construction waste

2022-12-19T16:24:00-05:00

Researchers at Penn State are undertaking a study into whether fungal materials can replace traditional acoustic insulation funded by the 2022 AIA Upjohn Research Initiative. The team behind the effort, funded in 2021 by both an AIA Upjohn Research Initiative grant and a SOM Foundation Research Prize, is being led by assistant architecture professor Benay Gürsoy from Penn State’s College of Arts and Architecture Stuckeman School - Department of Architecture.

The project is titled Fungal Biomaterials for Sustainable Architectural Acoustics and builds on Gürsoy and her team's work at Penn State’s Form and Matter (ForMat) Lab, whose specialty involves fabricating biodegradable building components using mycelium. The new research path will focus specifically on the acoustic absorption properties of mycelium, with the goal of designing and building acoustic panel prototypes to be tested in the built environment.

“Mycelium-based composites are renewable and biodegradable biomaterials tha...

Stanford University engineers develop a 3D printing method that allows quicker printing with multiple resin types

2022-10-25T09:10:00-04:00

Research engineers at Stanford University have developed a 3D printing method that is "five to ten times faster than the quickest high-resolution printer currently available and is capable of using multiple types of resin in a single object." The team's design research and findings were recently published in Science Advances on September 28, 2022. This work allows for the potential use of thicker resins with "better mechanical and electrical properties," reports Laura Castañón of Stanford News.

This breakthrough is a major step forward from the current limitations of the 3D printing process, which can be timely and requires specific materials that can mainly only be used once at a time.

Figure shows print scrips for multimaterial iCLIP. Figure 6. via research article, "Injection continuous liquid interface production of 3D objects," published in Science Advances on September 28, 2022.

"This new technology will help to fully realize the potential of 3D printing," said Joseph DeSimone...

Researchers develop autonomous 3D-printing drones inspired by bees

2022-09-22T14:59:00-04:00

An international team of researchers from Imperial College London and the Swiss Federal Laboratories of Materials Science and Technology have developed autonomous, bee-inspired 3D-printing drones. They would work in fleets, cooperatively building and repairing structures while flying.

The drones, collectively, are known as Aerial Additive Manufacturing (Aerial-AM). The system consists of BuilDrones, which deposit materials during flight, and quality-controlling ScanDrones. While fully autonomous, human intervention is still required to keep an eye on the progress.

The researchers believe this technology can provide a safer approach for building or repairing structures in precarious situations.

The research was led by Professor Mirko Kovac of Imperial’s Department of Aeronautics and the Swiss Federal Laboratories of Materials Science and Technology’s Materials and Technology Center of Robotics.

Aerial AM foam 3D print made by a BuilDrone and a ScanDrone. Image: Sarah Lever Photogr...

Graham Foundation announces $338,000 in grants to organizations furthering architecture and design ideas

2022-09-13T13:42:00-04:00

The Graham Foundation has announced its annual list of organizational grants featuring a total of 36 recipients from around the world whose work furthers institutional goals to support the development and exchange of ideas about architecture and design.

This year's class included projects from a variety of organizations located in Buenos Aires, Colombo, London, New York, St. Louis, Toronto, Chicago, and elsewhere. Podcasts from the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation and the Society of Architectural Historians’ Race and Architectural History Affiliate Group were awarded alongside public presentations, exhibitions, and publications like Lucy Sante’s engrossing Nineteen Reservoirs and the forthcoming Cornelia Hahn Oberlander on Pedagogical Playgrounds from Concordia University Press.

New organizations such as Lesley Lokko’s African Futures Institute (the publishers of FOLIO), The Lower East Side’s a83 gallery, and the Buenos Aires-based Disponible were also included in a total all...

Researchers develop colorful solar panels to allow for more attractive design options

2022-08-17T15:00:00-04:00

Researchers from the American Chemical Society have developed solar panels that can take on a range of colors without sacrificing their efficiency, improving their attractiveness and, thus, their marketability.

As the popularity of solar panels has grown, their application isn’t solely reserved for rooftops anymore but building façades and other more visible parts of buildings. Their standard black hue, however, limits how visually appealing buildings can be, with some architects describing solar panels as ugly and difficult to integrate into projects.

Solar panels take their dark color to absorb as much light as possible. However, other attempts to add color to them have produced less power, higher costs, and an undesirable iridescence.

The team of researchers, including Tao Ma, Ruzhu Wang, and colleagues, aimed to develop a way to color solar panels using a structural material that...

How practicing professionals can help academic researchers combat climate change

2022-08-11T14:45:00-04:00

Back in June, we reported on news that Penn State was undertaking research on embodied carbon in cities. Led by the university’s architecture school with support from computer science, engineering, and business professors, the ongoing research seeks to develop methods to measure embodied carbon in the construction industry: a category which accounts for 11% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The initiative at Penn State is one of several examples of U.S. architecture and design schools establishing teams to lead research into the link between the built environment and climate change. 2022 alone has seen the Yale School of the Environment assist in the launch of a project to use New York’s Central Park as a site for climate research, the establishment of the Harvard Climate Justice Design Fellowship, and the awarding of grants by the AIA to climate initiatives at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Penn State, the University of Texas at Arlington, and Ball State University.

...

Sensory Urbanism: Researchers make the case for fighting 'visual bias in urban planning'

2022-06-14T19:51:00-04:00

The work of Concordia University Centre for Sensory Studies director David Howes and other researchers working in the growing field of sensory urbanism was recently highlighted by Jennifer Hattam of MIT Technology Review.

A wide range of methods ranging from the high-tech and data-driven, to more ethnographic and experience-based ones, are being used as a means to combat the “limiting visual bias” they see as inherent in most urban planning schemes. Hattam writes, "Around the world, researchers like Howes are investigating how nonvisual information defines the character of a city and affects its livability. Using methods ranging from low-tech sound walks and smell maps to data scraping, wearables, and virtual reality, they’re fighting what they see as a limiting visual bias in urban planning."

Previously reported on Archinect: Cooper Hewitt's sensory-focused exhibition, “The Senses: Design Beyond Vision”

Early real-world applications in Berlin, London, Barcelona, and Instanbul have ...

Penn State to undertake research on embodied carbon in cities

2022-06-14T10:52:00-04:00

Researchers at Penn State are set to undertake a study of the environmental impact of construction. The interdisciplinary team, led by associate professor Rahman Azari from the university’s architecture school, will study the embodied carbon emissions associated with the manufacturing, transportation, and construction of materials used in urban buildings, as well as their demolition.

The research project is titled Urban Embodied Carbon: Impact on embodied carbon performance of the building sector in cities, and will move forward with the help of a $29,100 grant from the Institutes of Energy and the Environment.

Azari will be joined by computer science and engineering associate professor Mehrdad Mahdavi, architecture associate professor Lisa Iulo, and business assistant teaching professor Mostafa Sabbaghi.

“This team will apply the research metho...

Graham Foundation announces $507,500 in grants to individuals working to advance the global discourse on architecture

2022-05-24T14:47:00-04:00

The annual round of Graham Foundation individual grants has been announced today in Chicago.

A total of $507,500 was given to 56 different projects, publications, exhibitions, films, and other intellectual endeavors from around the world that expand contemporary understandings of architecture, according to the Foundation.

This year’s projects offered a range of different voices utilizing a variety of new media. Catalina Mejía Moreno and Huda Tayob’s podcast “Architectures of the South: Bruising, Remembering, Repairing” was included along with publications like Lee Bey and Blair Kamin’s excellent new title Who Is the City For? Architecture, Equity, and the Public Realm in Chicago, and Marina Otero Verzier’s Evanescent Institutions: On the Politics of Temporary Architecture, among others.

Albert Brenchat-Aguilar’s exhibition “'As Hardly Found' in the Art of Tropical Architecture” for the Architectural Association in London was one of seven to receive recognition for their incisive an...

Herzog & de Meuron's new Royal College of Art Battersea Campus opens to the public

2022-05-23T17:49:00-04:00

Big news today as Herzog & de Meuron’s anticipated expansion of the Royal College of Art has officially opened in the Battersea district of London.

Characterized by a fusion of seven separate facilities into one combined structure, the new £135 million ($169 million) complex entails the creation of new social and educational spaces for the Sculpture, Contemporary Art Practice, and Moving Image departments as well as for the RCA’s School of Design.

Photo: Iwan Baan, image courtesy Royal College of Art

The 15,500-square-meter (167,000-square-foot) campus also sought to aid the shift in the 185-year-old institution's postgraduate offerings towards a more strengthened set of STEAM programs, which is seen in the addition of a new tech-centric eight-story research center, robotics hangar, and a center for enterprise, entrepreneurship, incubation and business support called InnovationRCA.

Photo: Iwan Baan, image courtesy Royal College of Art

Writing in the Guardian today, critic Oliver Wain...

Joseph Choma explores foldable shelters with his students at Clemson University

2021-12-20T14:24:00-05:00

Taking as the focus the possibility of his patented, foldable fiberglass technique for use in resiliency design efforts, Design Topology Lab founder Joseph Choma is once again breaking the mold on a typology that has become increasingly relevant in the era of intensifying natural disasters born out of climate change.

Choma is currently teaching a studio at Clemson that explores the potential of fully deployable shelters for disaster relief with foldable composites.

The Cone crease pattern. Image courtesy of Joseph Choma, Clemson University.

The studio was split into four parts. The first segment included analyzing the current state of deployable shelters for disaster relief, uncovering what he calls a significant gap between lightweight tents and more permanent dwellings made from prefabricated components. This gap resulted in people usually living in tents a great deal longer than originally anticipated. The challenge for his students then became to answer the question of how flat-p...

The University of Idaho is awarded $4 million to develop 3D-printing technology that converts wood waste into building materials

2021-10-21T14:30:00-04:00

The University of Idaho recently announced that it has been awarded nearly $4 million from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Program to develop technology for the conversion of wood waste into 3D-printing building materials.

Research will focus on the further development and testing of an additive manufacturing process as well as the design and construction of a 3D printer capable of producing modular wall, floor, and roof panels printed from wood. Funding for the research extends through 2025.

“We’re developing a new composite material, using completely bio-based resources on a truly large scale,” said University of Idaho College of Engineering assistant professor and research lead Michael Maughan. “With this technology, houses and commercial buildings can be made entirely differently. We can push past climate change, mitigate impact on our environment, and make better use of the natural resources we have.”

Previously on Archinect: N...

Graham Foundation announces 2021 Organization Grant recipients

2021-08-26T13:24:00-04:00

The Graham Foundation has announced the recipients of its 2021 grants to organizations. $471,500 was awarded to organizations around the world that are “producing projects that encourage new conversations and explorations across architecture and design,” as stated by the foundation.

45 projects, including exhibitions, publications, digital initiatives, and public presentations led by organizations based in cities such as Atlanta, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and Chicago were recognized. The diverse array of projects includes exhibitions by the likes of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), along with public programming from Harvard GSD’s African American Student Union. Editorial projects and student-led publications like one’s from the Urban Design Forum and the Architectural League of New York and Rice University’s student-led publication, PLAT, were also included.

“Together, these organizations support the work of emine...

Electriflow taps advancements in soft robotics to create mechanisms that operate without traditional machine parts

2021-07-27T17:38:00-04:00

A team of designers and engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder’s ATLAS Institute have tapped into new advancements in the field of soft robotics to develop paper-thin, moveable mechanisms. The objects, dubbed “Electriflow”, which don’t require motors or other traditional machinery parts to function, have been presented at the Association for Computing Machinery’s 2021 Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) conference.

The researchers’ early creations include origami cranes that can bend their necks, moving flower petals, and fluttering insects.

“Usually, books about butterflies are static,” said CU Boulder graduate student and team lead, Purnendu. “But could you have a butterfly flap its wings within a book? We’ve shown that it’s possible.”

Electriflow took inspiration from previously developed “artificial muscles” by Christopher Keplinger at CU Boulder. His work is now available commercially through a company called Artimus Robotics. Keplinger employed a technology called h...

Harvard researchers develop deployable structures made from a simple rotational motion

2021-06-29T16:57:00-04:00

Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) have developed a system that uses curved supports to transform flat objects into elaborate and customizable 3D structures.

Called Kiriform, the manufacturing method harnesses the mechanical instabilities in curved beams. The research team used a combination of experiments and numerical analyses to understand the geometry of curved, slender beams and what happens when those structural elements rotate and buckle. With just a simple rotational motion, buckling is used to create deployable structures.

Video: Harvard University

The system is created by layering flat sheets of elastic material on top of one another that interact to support each other when the 2D object is rotated into its 3D form. In addition to being lightweight and compact, Kiriform is fast to assemble and requires minimal hardware, making it cheap to manufacture and easy to d...

Graham Foundation awards $585,000 in grants for individuals exploring innovative design

2021-05-27T11:45:00-04:00

The Graham Foundation has announced the recipients of its 2021 Grants to Individuals, awarding $585,000 to people exploring innovative design ideas that expand our contemporary understanding of architecture. The 71 grants were awarded to individuals around the world, selected from nearly 700 proposals. The funded projects include research, exhibitions, publications, films, digital initiatives, and other formats that promote rigorous, critical discourse in architecture.

The recipients of the 2021 funds are based in cities such as Ahmedabad, Milan, Mexico City, Durban, South Africa, and San Juan. Topics of exploration include the living legacy of under-recognized Black architect Charles E. Fleming, a book calling for action on climate change, architectural histories of heritage sites across Africa, and an exhibition that transports and transforms the last pit floor from the Chicago Board of Trade to Oscar Niemeyer’s Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion for the 2021 São Paulo Biennial.

“This...

Graham Foundation Announces 2020 Organization Grant Recipients

2020-12-14T18:42:00-05:00

This year the Graham Foundation has announced 36 international organizations as recipients of this year's grants. According to the foundation, selected projects were chosen thanks to their ability to "respond to today's challenges, foster new connections across disciplines, and expand the field of architecture."

The annual Graham Foundation grant announcements provide individuals and organizations the opportunity to pursue and investigate an array of architectural topics. This year's grant recipients include editorial projects from publications and student-led journals like UCLA's Architecture and Urban Design student publication, POOL, and RICE University's student-led publication, PLAT, amongst others. Exhibitions, public programs, and media projects like the Architecture Lobby's JustDesign initiative, which Archinect has partnered on, were also selected as grant recipients.

Image: Rodrigo Ortize Monasterio, "Magnolia 38, San angel, Districo Federal, Estancia," 1976-79. Courtesy ...

Graham Foundation awards $320,800 to individuals "working worldwide on urgent issues"

2020-07-30T18:52:00-04:00

The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts has announced its slate of 2020 Grants to Individuals, a set of 52 awards totaling $320,800 in funding for research endeavors that highlight a multiplicity of architectural, urban, and social perspectives.

As in years passed, the 2020 cohort of grantees offers a spread of fascinating architectural topics currently being investigated by the selected architects, scholars, writers, artists, designers, curators, and filmmakers who are "working worldwide on urgent issues that further the contemporary understanding of the built environment," as the Graham Foundation tells it.

Photographer unknown, Ethel Madison Bailey Furman (1893–1976) with fellow architects at the Hampton Institute’s “Negro Contractors’ Conference,” Richmond, VA, 1928. Courtesy the Ethel Bailey Furman, Papers and architectural drawings, 1928-2003, Accession 41145. Personal Papers Collection, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va

Among the selected topics are a virt...