Archinect - News

Florida Atlantic University's Joseph Choma leads students to explore folded fiberglass structures

2023-08-04T15:17:00-04:00

A research studio led by Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Director of the School of Architecture, Joseph Choma, uses foldable structures to construct a pop-up structure for Google.

Much of Choma's work has explored innovative design methods through complex geometric structures, materials, and experimental construction methods. For his latest studio, Choma implemented his pedagogical approach of "teaching through research and research through teaching" by having students collaborate on an applied research project with Google. In working with Google's Head of UX Workplace Design, Amy Badersnider, she promoted the studio to discover a new way to "design space as a product" and explore ways to "design and fabricate deployable structures which can be used for community engagement initiatives" globally. She challenged the students by asking, "How do we take product research outside of corporate headquarters and engage the public directly within outdoor public spaces?" The end result dev...

Mississippi State University studio teaches the value of collaboration between its architecture and building construction science students

2022-05-20T13:27:00-04:00

Earlier this week, we explored the relationship between architecture and construction science disciplines through the lens of a Building Scientist position at Payette. While the two fields are commonly intertwined within professional practice settings, they are also being implemented in a collaborative design studio taught at Mississippi State University (MSU). Students from the school's architecture and building construction science departments worked together in a unique studio called the PCI Foundation Studio.

After receiving a special grant from the PCI Foundation in 2020 to incorporate "precast concrete into the classroom," MSU Architecture's Associate Professor Alexis Gregory allocated the $100,000 grant to be utilized within architecture courses at the school. This funding was used to develop the Spring 2021 PCI Foundation Studio.

Under Gregory's direction, sixteen teams of students from both departments worked together to develop a collaborative design-build project benefitt...

YouTuber documents life in architecture school

2019-08-27T18:00:00-04:00

Ever wonder what life is like in architecture school? RISD graduate, Joseph Echavarria has chronicled his entire graduate program experience, documenting everything from studio life, crits, Rhino hacks, to thesis reviews, modeling tips, and preparing for a presentation. He employs an authentic range of characters (his studio mates) and presents the uniqueness and rawness of life as an architecture student.

Joseph started his YouTube channel back in 2015 when he decided to begin logging his journey in architecture. "My main reason for starting the YouTube channel was just to have a reason to film. I’ve always wanted to make videos and I loved YouTube," Joseph told Archinect. Soon, the young student's passion for filming grew into a valuable resource for those seeking to learn more about architecture school. Many of his videos display comments from curious viewers expressing their gratitude for the consistent documentation of the college experience in architecture.

Joseph participa...

Students at Harvard GSD examine Los Angeles's complicated relationship with transit

2019-08-21T17:00:00-04:00

Andres Sevtsuk’s Harvard Graduate School of Design studio—examined how LA might maximize the opportunities at stake. The studio sought strategies to creatively optimize investment in public transit in an increasingly hot market for private-sector services. How can technology complement, rather than compete with, public transit? And, as LA reshapes itself, can it improve equity, sustainability, and quality of life as it aggressively redevelops its transit systems?

Los Angeles's relationship to public transportation has grown to be a complicated affair. Between public and private organizations, local government, and private-sector technologies hoping to implement their "solutions" to the city's transit problem, where do we draw the line?

With this complicated mess in mind, students in a recent Harvard GSD design studio led by Andres Sevtsuk dissected the question of what the transit future for Los Angeles could be like.

Harvard GSD's Travis Dagenais highlights their inquiries and discoveries: "For LA’s transit future, some of the most pressing questions asked by Harvard GSD students are related to access: Who are ‘transit users,’ and who might become transit users if it can improve, by becoming more efficient, accessible, comfortable, and reliable?"

"Andrew Yuzhou Peng and Solomon Green-Eames's proposal, 'Change the Street, Transform the City,' proposes radical community-driven transformations that imagine how existing commercial centers co...

The trials and tribulations of the 3D printer

2018-11-21T17:26:00-05:00

For one, there is no such thing as a 3D printer that doesn’t emit concerning microparticles into the air. Even industrial models that appear sealed, complete with fans and filters, put out measurable particulates.

Ask any architecture student, 3D printing can be one of the best and worst things about the design studio. Architectural drawings and renderings are necessary, but in order for the concept to really come to life 3D scale models have acted as catalysts for translating the vision. Physical scale models go hand in hand with architecture. However, just as architecture has developed over time so has the technology.

3D printers have changed the way architects and architecture students alike have communicated their ideas. Ranging in size and capacity, 3D printers can be found in almost every university, institute, and studio. Sci-Arc EDGE student, Laure Michelon, states printers are running "24/7. Everyday. Pretty much everyone has one. There are about 10 printers in our studio." Besides it taking up space, the trials and tribulations of getting the machine set and ready is a whole other ordeal. However, besides the tedious fabrication process, does the 3D printer pose a different kind of...

A self-taught designer builds a secret work studio on the underside of a bridge

2017-08-15T19:54:00-04:00

Abellanas’ secret cabin replicates the childhood experience of hiding under a table or in a closet – ‘The feeling kept hidden while still being able to hear and see what happens around us,’ he says. ‘Observing passing cars and trains with no one seeing me gives me great sense of peace.’

Fernando Abellanas, a self-taught designer from Valencia has created a pop-up studio into the underside of a traffic bridge. Its metal base is moved from one side of the bridge to the other by a hand crank along rails, where a shelf, chair, and desk have been bolted to the bridge’s concrete wall. Though a practical space, the tiny moveable workspace has whimsical origins—the secret urban refuge aims to replicate the childhood experience of hiding under a table or in a closet. "The feeling kept hidden while still being able to hear and see what happens around us," explains Abellanas. "Observing passing cars and trains with no one seeing me gives me great sense of peace."

Photography: Jose Manuel Pedrajas

The cabin’s exact location is a secret, and is part of a collection of spaces Abellanas is creating. ‘The project is an ephemeral intervention, [it will remain] until someone finds it and decides to steal the materials, or the authorities remove it,’ h...

Ackroyd + Associates design technically advanced photographic studio at Alva West

2016-08-18T12:15:00-04:00

Alva Studios is a well known photography studio company known for providing the most technically advanced facilities. Their new studio, a large refurbished warehouse, in West London is designed by the architects Ackroyd + Associates. Together they are working to create London's most pioneering photographic facility, with an array of one-off features such as an automated adjustable ceiling, mechanical green screens and automated daylight control.

The scale of the studios is epic, but the ancillary spaces - the lounges, restaurant, galleries, and snugs - are intentionally designed to a more human scale.

The luxurious aesthetic for these spaces is derived from a contemporary interpretation of the industrial warehouse; polished screeds, full height pivoting crittal glazed screens, and distressed timber.

A+A worked with closely with steel fabricators, joiners and craftsmen to achieve the highest quality of finish. Many elements were prototyped to ensure that they had the correct feel and t...

Breaking CAD: from meth house to Ball State studio project

2016-04-06T18:17:00-04:00

A group of fourth-year Ball State architecture students are refurbishing a former meth house in the Thomas Park-Avondale neighborhood in Muncie as a studio project. The studio class is working with ecoREHAB, a local nonprofit that provides sustainable rehabilitation of housing and neighborhoods. “The whole goal is to revitalize the community more so than to earn money,” said Taylor Sheppard, a senior architecture major.

For more on drugs in architecture:

Sir Peter Cook-designed drawing studio at the Arts University Bournemouth opened today

2016-03-03T13:34:00-05:00

The Art University Bournemouth’s new drawing studio, designed by alumnus Sir Peter Cook, is to be officially today by Zaha Hadid. It is the first purpose-built drawing studio to open in the UK for 100 years and is the renowned architect and founding member of radical collective Archigram’s first building in the country. The curved studio has been designed to emphasise natural light [...] there is a large circular north-light and a rear clerestory, which provides softer light.

Here are a few more images of the delightful little structure (via CRAB studio's website):

Related news and feature stories on Archinect:

"Visionary Cities Project" applies urbanist archetypes to Damien Hirst's blank development site

2015-04-10T14:58:00-04:00

Students in UIC’s “Visionary Cities Project” have pitted a selection of urbanist theories against one another, to see how historical visions of urbanism compare on a common ground. The studio, run by Alexander Eisenschmidt at the University of Illinois at Chicago, takes urbanist models and schemes from the likes of Piranesis, Le Corbusier, and Hilberseimer, and reinterprets them on the blank slate of an upcoming development for the city of Ilfracombe, on the UK’s southern coast. In reality, Ilfracombe’s new district is being developed by the artist Damien Hirst, with a plan for suburban subdivisions. But the UIC studio is interpreting the expansion as a “cultural instigator”; producing a collection of drawings that Eisenschmidt calls “HiDef Cities of Architectural Urbanism.”

Eisenschmidt provided the following "Historical Context" for the studio:

Architectural urbanism has a long history, which only by the mid-20th century was questioned as the urbanisms of modernism were unable to re...

U. of Illinois' Studio Berlin 2012 shares their story in a video

2013-01-09T12:55:00-05:00

In true Studio Berlin fashion, this last summer's group has put together a short film on their escapades throughout Europe. Enjoy!

A towering artist’s studio on a Canadian island

2012-04-19T14:42:00-04:00

Fogo Island is less than 100 square miles just east of Newfoundland and Labrador. The craggy island isn’t the most hospitable place, but the roughly 3000 inhabitants are committed to living there and even taking steps to draw tourists to their rocky shores. Across the island, six artist’s studios designed by Saunders Architecture are taking shape. The hope is that the island will draw the kind of cultural tourists that have flocked to places like Marfa or Bilboa.

The Amsterdam Summer Travel Studio

2011-08-17T15:15:00-04:00

University of Kentucky College of Design Assistant Professor Kyle Miller led an eight-week design program in Amsterdam for twelve undergraduate students. The students participated in two courses: a six-credit design studio and a three-credit seminar that comprised a series of intensive design workshops. The primary objective of the design studio was to prototype design and program solutions for large, recently abandoned buildings in Amsterdam.

Call for applications- Unknown Fields design workshop in Chernobyl and Baikonur Cosmodrome

2011-05-17T20:27:31-04:00

Liam Young and Kate Davies, leaders of the Architectural Association’s award winning Unknown Fields Division, have announced an international recruitment drive for their new annual nomadic studio which will run from 11-22 July 2011. Applications are open to all and you can sign up now to join them on an extraordinary design research expedition through the unknown fields that lie between nature and technology. Participants will collaborate with a collection of international artists, photgraphers, filmmakers, writers and workshop partners Phillips Technologies Design Probes, Volume Magazine and Storefront for Art and Architecture to develop projects and produce an annual publication and touring exhibition. This year to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster and the 50th anniversary of Gagarin’s Baikonur space launch the workshop will travel on a cross section through landscapes of obsolete futures from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, through the Ukraine and the C...