Archinect - News

Students from Illinois Institute of Technology and HafenCity University explore Chicago and Hamburg's similarities

2019-09-26T18:00:00-04:00

A joint exhibition two years in-the-making brings together architecture students from Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and HafenCity University of Hamburg to investigate the "analogous nature" of each school's host city. Stemming from a study abroad research project led by Adjunct Professor Martin Kläschen, the students from both institutions focus on the parallels of both locations and the unique history of these "sister cities."

Chicago's special bond with the city of Hamburg was inaugurated in 1994. Through these regional affiliations, the U.S metropolis has become an even more prominent global city rich with global education, cultural exchange, tourism, and international business opportunities.

Doppelgänger. Image courtesy of IIT via @ittarchitecture/Instagram

Research uncovered by both institutions led to naming the exhibition, Doppelgänger, a German term referring to an individual's "identical lookalike" fe...

Connectivity matters most in global urban economic growth

2016-04-22T13:57:00-04:00

Cities are mankind’s most enduring and stable mode of social organization, outlasting all empires and nations over which they have presided...it is not population or territorial size that drives world-city status, but economic weight, proximity to zones of growth, political stability, and attractiveness for foreign capital. In other words, connectivity matters more than size. Cities thus deserve more nuanced treatment on our maps than simply as homogeneous black dots.

Global strategist Parag Khanna gives his outlook on the economic future of the world's megacities.

Artist Charles Young crafts mini paper metropolis on the daily

2015-01-27T14:36:00-05:00

No, these aren't props from an upcoming Wes Anderson film. These mini paper structures are all part of Paperholm, a daily project by Scottish artist Charles Young. Constructed by hand with only watercolor paper, PVA glue, the occasional dressmaking pin, along with an eye for detail, Young is building his own cityscape, one intricate building at a time.

Young started making small paper models while he was studying architecture at the University of Edinburgh. After completing his M.Arch degree last summer, he eventually began Paperholm as a motivational way to test and develop his creativity and model-making skills on a daily basis.

So far, he has built an array of treehouses, churches, carousels, cabins, towers, and other urban buildings. "I especially like making the structures with a lot of cut out detail even though these take quite a long time," Young wrote via email. "I quite often find myself coming back to tower structures but I try to keep the models varied to produce a mix ...

MoMA's “Uneven Growth” case studies conclude with exhibition this month

2014-11-13T13:03:00-05:00

MoMA began its "Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities" initiative last year aiming to advance international discussion on disproportionate urban development and its potential consequences. To address this issue, six interdisciplinary teams spent 14 months in workshops designing proposals that investigate new architectural possibilities for six metropolises. Each case study will be exhibited to the public at MoMA starting on November 22.

But the discussion doesn't end there. MoMA also created a user-generated Tumblr that collects examples of emerging modes of tactical urbanism taking place in the six cities.

Here's a glimpse:

LAGOS
By NLÉ (Lagos, Nigeria and Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Zoohaus/Inteligencias Colectivas (Madrid, Spain)

HONG KONG
By MAP Office (Hong Kong, China)
Network Architecture Lab (Columbia University, New York, U.S.)

ISTANBUL
By Superpool (Istanbul, Turkey)
Atelier d’Architecture Autogérée (Paris, France)

MUMBAI
By URBZ: user-generated cities (Mumbai, India)
Ensamble Studio/MIT-POPlab (Madrid, Spain and Cambridge, U.S.)

RIO DE JANEIRO
By RUA Arquitetos (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
MAS Urban Design at ETH (Zurich, Switzerland)

NEW YORK
By SITU Studio (New York, U.S.)
Cohabitation Strategies (CohStra) (Rotterdam, Netherlands AND New York, U.S.)

For further details and images from each case study, head over to Bustler.

Architecture publication CLOG releases gorgeous "SCI-FI" issue

2013-08-30T19:48:00-04:00

Rod Serling, creator of the 1950s television series "The Twilight Zone", defined science fiction as "the improbable made possible." The same might be said for the practice of architecture. After all, architects by trade conceive of spaces, places, and worlds that do not (yet) exist. Furthermore, the ability to make the improbable possible is held in especially high regard today and is oftentimes what defines an architectural practice as “innovative” in the first place.

Contemporary architecture publication CLOG has released its seventh issue, SCI-FI. In the digital glow of the internet age, architectural discourse has become both bountiful and ephemeral, oftentimes muddling the lay of the land. In response, “CLOG slows things down. Each issue explores, from multiple viewpoints and through a variety of means, a single subject particularly relevant to architecture now. Succinctly, on paper, away from the distractions and imperatives of the screen.”
With its precise curation and focused content, CLOG’s SCI-FI examines the mutually-affecting relationship between architecture and science fiction in a variety of ventures. SCI-FI honors this “two-way artistic influence between architecture and science fiction” while provoking readers to consider future architectural aesthetics and the aesthetics of futurism. Previous issues have showcased themes surrounding BIG, Apple, and Brutalism. SCI-FI features over forty contributors from the architecture world ...

Q&A: Architects’ Sketchbooks

2011-05-19T19:31:28-04:00

To combat the relentless move toward electronic technologies, many schools are integrating such analog technologies as pencils, pens, water colors, pastels, in addition to teaching the manipulation of the latest computer software.

Metropolis Magazine's Susan S. Szenasy interviews Will Jones about his book "Architects' Sketchbooks".

Winners of the 2011 Metropolis Next Generation Design Competition

2011-05-13T17:14:52-04:00

An ambitious zero-energy retrofit proposal for a downtown Los Angeles federal building has just won the first prize of the 8th Annual Next Generation Design Competition, presented by Metropolis magazine in partnership with the General Services Administration. The brief of the competition's 2011 edition asked architects and planners to design a Zero Environmental Footprint for this 1,172,746 sqft, eight-story, 1960s energy-guzzling federal building, considering any scale of intervention.