Archinect - News

Atelier L’Abri completes Passive House retrofit of 1970s garage in rural Quebec

2023-10-19T12:43:00-04:00

Montreal-based Atelier L’Abri has completed a Passive House retrofit in the southern Quebec village of Frelighsburg, Canada. Named Maison Melba, the project saw a former 1970s car garage transformed into a living space that is also open to the community for collaborative projects.

Image credit: Alex Lesage

The project brief and program were inspired by the fertile ecosystem of Frelighsburg, resulting in a scheme where, as Atelier L’Abri puts it, “beauty is in harmony with performance.” Outside, an Écomestible-designed landscape holds a greenhouse and a garden dedicated to small-scale vegetable production, while inside, the main building houses a residence, work studio, workshop, and a culinary production and meeting space.

Image credit: Alex Lesage

The exterior of the building is defined by a “noble and timeless look that blends with the countryside.” A steel roof is paired with wood plank cladding that gradually shifts from brown to g...

As homes transform into offices and classrooms, IKEA's online sales increase

2020-10-08T12:30:00-04:00

Ikea's online sales got a big boost during the pandemic as millions of people turned their homes into makeshift schools and offices. The company said in a statement on Tuesday that online sales surged 45% over the 12 months to August, driven by 4 billion visits to its website. Outdoor furniture was the retailer's fastest-growing category, with sales of office furniture also performing strongly, a spokesperson told CNN Business.

Sales of household items in the United States were up more than a quarter in the three months to August versus the prior year, according to market research firm NPD Group., CNN reports. Moreover, according to CNN, even though online sales have surged, IKEA has recently opened 33 new stores in Moscow, Seoul, Shanghai, and Macau, with plans to expand into Mexico and the Philippines.

How architecture students and educators are optimizing their work environments at home

2020-04-03T20:59:00-04:00

For most architecture students, faculty, and staff around the world, working from home has become the new normal since campuses closed in response to the sweeping pandemic several weeks ago.

Archinect wanted to find out how things had been going so far for the architectural academic community and reached out to its readers via the ongoing survey How is your school dealing with the coronavirus outbreak? In our previous two analyses, we looked at the initial experience of working online versus onsite at school and the emotional impact this ongoing new situation was having.

Today, we learn from students and educators how they tried to optimize their work environments to facilitate remote learning and teaching.

The Garage Converter: Photo courtesy of a participating California State University, Sacramento educator.

"It's ALL on my laptop," was the upbeat response from one educator at the California State University, Sacramento. "Other than that, I have a comfortable chair, a space I en...

How COVID-19 is affecting architecture students and educators on an emotional level

2020-03-31T08:00:00-04:00

The sudden transition to online learning and teaching has presented students, faculty, and staff at many institutions of higher learning around the world with enormous challenges — technological, organizational but also on a human and inter-human level.

Archinect asked for responses from its global community via the ongoing survey How is your school dealing with the coronavirus outbreak? to learn how students and educators in the architecture field were dealing with the transition. In our first analysis, we looked at the main challenges as well as opportunities of working online versus onsite at school.

Today, we are focusing on the emotional impact this ongoing new situation is having on the architectural academic community.

Mood 1: Good (or trying to stay positive)

While some responses did share a positive, or at least somewhat hopeful, sentiment, these answers were clearly in the minority.

"All good... Bored mostly haha," was the upbeat response from a student at the University o...

How architecture students and educators are handling the transition to online coursework

2020-03-26T14:26:00-04:00

The recent need for schools and universities across the educational spectrum to transition to online learning practically overnight has caught many students, faculty, and staff around the world completely unprepared, while others enjoyed a smooth transition due to routines and protocols established before the crisis.

Archinect reached out to its global community with the ongoing survey How is your school dealing with the coronavirus outbreak? to learn how students and educators in the architecture field are handling the transition. Over the next few days, we will be sharing some of the key takeaways from the responses.

In this first analysis, we are looking at the biggest challenges as well as benefits of working online versus in-person at school. The responses were not conclusively tilting in any specific direction but rather represented an eclectic mixture of frustration, ease, and cautious hope.

Scenario 1: Easy Transition

Students and educators who reported an overall positive ...

How design professionals are optimizing their home offices

2020-03-25T10:13:00-04:00

Optimizing the home office comes as one of the more vital aspects of this remote work phenomenon. By definition, this would, quite literally provide an optimum setting for efficient workflow and production. Archinect has surveyed its vast community on this topic, looking to gain insights on how the industry at-large has approached the move to remote work. We asked design professionals what they've done to optimize their home offices.

There were 4 main takeaways found in our investigation:

Purchasing/incorporating additional monitors
Acquiring a proper chair
Clearing out a big table for drawings
Managing shared space with a spouse, partner, or roommate

Let's look at each of these in more detail and see what our colleagues have to share regarding these findings.

Additional Monitors

Screen real-estate is an essential part of effective architectural production each day. Whether one is working on Revit, with properties and tables on one screen and an active model on the other, or working be...

British Home Office may cut number of students visas issued for international students in half

2016-12-14T12:22:00-05:00

The Home Office is considering cutting international student numbers at UK universities by nearly half, Education Guardian can reveal. The threat is being greeted with dismay by university heads, who say some good overseas applicants are already being refused visas on spurious grounds. The home secretary, Amber Rudd, pledged a crackdown on international student numbers at the Conservative party conference in October, to include tougher visa rules for “lower quality” universities and courses.

But senior university sources are warning that the cutbacks could be far more severe than expected. They say they have seen Home Office plans that model slashing overseas student numbers, with one option to cut the current 300,000 to 170,000 a year.

For more on the culture of post-Brexit UK, follow these links: