The hands hold the weight of the entire body, feeling the rough texture of unplastered mortar on its thin membrane. Even with the whole body stretched out against the wall, it still was not possible to see what was behind it. Sweat, in a mixture of adrenaline and heat, ran down his temples, indicating the movement for a final effort, a last impulse before the imminent fall that, for a few seconds, allowed him to overcome the last row. The field of vision was then opened to a fragmented, disconnected and oddly free world. An urban power that allowed itself to be strangled by the breath of tropical vegetation while being consumed by abandonment amidst an active and dynamic city.

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This article was originally published on Common Edge.

The new, online NYC Climate Dashboard confirms that New York City is not doing enough to meet its climate goals. What’s worse, the goals don’t measure up to the challenge citizens face. A growing consensus among scientists says the world has only until the end of this decade to avert catastrophic climate change. Here in New York, the biggest contributions to greenhouse gasses come from our buildings and our driving. As an architect and urban designer, John Massengale shares what he believes the world is missing and some significant changes that the world can make for the sake of future generations.

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Cooking and architecture parallel one another. Combining ingredients to make a whole, both processes are tied to cultural context, creativity and meaning. While we can understand how cultures have changed over time by looking at how their cuisine has changed, the same can be said of architecture. In both cases, the end products are based around human interaction and are brought to life through experience.

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As part of the 14-day design festival that took place in Mexico City, SPACE10 presented the exhibition "Deconstructed Home", with the intention of taking it to different places in Mexico. Five designers were convened and through six intensive weeks of design research and experimentation, they identified and explored new possibilities and uses for the biomaterial of their choice.

Recreating the artist studio in an exhibition has always been a challenge for curators and exhibition designers––bringing in the right amount of “mess,” intricately revealing the workings of artistry, and maintaining the visual coherence are all boxes to be checked while letting the audience behind the curtain. Kazuko Miyamoto: To perform a line, Japan Society’s survey of the artist’s five-decade career in sculpture, drawing, and performance solves this challenge in ways that are both practical and poetic.

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Like a beautiful painting, windows showcase interiors and frame landscapes that connect users to the outside world, directing our eyes to what really matters. But besides framing views and facilitating visual communication, windows serve multiple essential functions that make them vital components in any project. They illuminate homes with sunrays, provide natural ventilation, filter light, insulate from cold and heat, block water and ensure protection. As most design professionals would agree, glazing also plays a crucial aesthetic role; its materials, style and dimensions certainly make a significant difference in the appearance of facades and spaces.

The hammock swaying on the balcony, the sunlight passing through the pierced elements in a dance of light and shadow, the vibrant color marking the spaces and bringing life, these are some of the characteristics present in the daily life of the works of the quartet that form Lins Arquitetos Associados.

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Humans try very hard to make the inexplicable understood. Our spirituality becomes religion. Fairness becomes law. And what delights us becomes aesthetics, and aesthetics are dumbed down to “style” in fine arts and architecture. The description, then definition, of aesthetics enables us to judge, and hopefully, control what thrills us: "Styles may change, details may come and go, but the broad demands of aesthetic judgement are permanent". -- Roger Scruton

But the instant delight we sometimes feel when we hear, taste, think or see parts of our experience is unreasoned in its apprehension. We try to create value in our outcomes by defining them beyond experience – that is aesthetics.

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The practice of frequenting public baths was common in civilizations such as the Greeks, Persians and Byzantines, but it was the Romans who popularized their use as places of socialization and purification. These bathrooms were communal and people sat side by side in a collective latrine. The modern bathroom, more similar to what we know today, began with Sir John Harington and his invention of the first flush toilet in 1596. Another crucial advance occurred with Alexander Cummings in 1775, which included a siphon within the toilet to retain gases and odors. But it was only when houses were equipped with running water and effective drainage in the second half of the nineteenth century that the modern private bathroom emerged: a bathroom, a sink and a bath place, which can be a shower or a bathtub. The basics have remained almost unchanged since then, with a few cultural variations in different parts of the world.

These days, the bathroom is a space that goes far beyond its function. With numerous options on the market, it can be designed with the most diverse aesthetics in mind, become a space for relaxation or a design statement in an interior design project.

Addressing themes involving memory, oblivion and gender, the Argentinean visual artist and muralist, Mariela Ajras, displays her art on the walls of numerous cities around the world such as Barcelona, Valencia, Salamanca, Mexico City, Bogota, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, among many others. With a background in psychology, she has participated in different urban art festivals, exhibitions, fairs and public art projects, one of the largest murals in the city of Buenos Aires being the one she developed for the project "Corredor de la Memoria", commemorating the 25th anniversary of the AMIA bombing.

With José Antonio Corrales and Ramón Vázquez Molezún, a situation quite common in Spanish architecture post-1950 is repeated: the lack of international projection of talented architects, largely due to the absence of theory. Apart from that, an intrinsically mysterious and enigmatic character pervades their work, deeply reinforced by the attitude of these architects towards it. They never stopped to explain it. They were never interested in providing it with a theoretical foundation. All this makes it extraordinarily difficult to understand their architecture, leaving many questions unanswered, open only to the interpretation of those who pause to reflect on them.

Corrales and Molezún have collaborated together on numerous projects sine 1952. They were very different people. José Antonio used to define himself as a "more rigorous person", while Ramón was closer to the "gaie", with a lighter, almost romantic touch. Their duo could be incarnated, respectively, as the two lobes of the brain: the left hemisphere, visual, verbal, linear, controlled, dominant, quantitative, etc. in Corrales; while the right, spatial, acoustic, holistic, contemplative, emotional, intuitive ... perhaps more accurately represents Molezún. One more couple to the long history of creation: Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, ...

The planning and design of mixed-use neighborhoods and individual mixed-use developments are on the rise. Many of the places we frequent most feature a variety of programs, bringing many of life's daily conveniences to one place. But mixed-use spaces do more than just create a diverse array of experiences in cities- they might also help contribute to lower crime rates.

Museums play a key role in the preservation and dissemination of culture and knowledge. They can exhibit works of art, documents, photographs, historical artifacts or even plants and trees. Although today there are entirely virtual exhibition spaces, the primary functions of traditional museums are the conservation and protection of objects, which are invaluable due to their historical relevance, rarity or market value. From simple “Do not touch” signs to tape, security guards, or glass displays, each object receives a type of protection that is in accordance to its needs. These types of protection, in turn, must consider both the safety of the object, whilst also allowing for its appreciation and conservation, creating a controlled environment for the exposed object that preserves it indefinitely.

Housing objects of artistic, cultural, historical and scientific importance, the term ‘museum’ is derived from the Latin language. In regards to classical antiquity, in Ancient Greek ‘mouseion’, meaning ‘set of muses’ was a philosophical institution, a place for contemplation and thought. These muses refer to the 9 muses in Greek mythology, the goddesses of the arts and sciences, and patrons of knowledge. Early museums’ origins stem from private collections of wealthy families, individuals or institutions, displayed in ‘cabinets of curiosities’ and often temples and places of worship. Yet these ‘collections’ are predecessors of the modern museum, they did not seek to rationally categorize and exhibit their collections like the exhibitions we see today.

In definition, the modern museum is either a building or institution that cares for or displays a collection of numerous artifacts of cultural, historical, scientific or artistic importance. Through both permanent and temporary exhibits, most public museums make these artifacts available for viewing and often seek to conserve and document their collection, to serve both research and the general public. In essence, museums house collections of significance, whether these be on a small or large scale.

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Before the pandemic, there was a concerted effort from world leaders to curb the effects of global warming, with nations from around the world trying to unite in this endeavor. There was an increased emphasis on policies and action plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 through the rapid introduction of new energy saving technologies and innovative carbon dioxide removal techniques, with the purpose of meeting the Paris Agreement goal of carbon neutrality and limiting global warming to 1.5ºC. 

If today technologies are emerging for different forms of representation and interaction with drawing, understanding how architects communicate through hand-drawn strokes can be essential to delve into the topic of architectural visualization. Through the simplicity of gestures, small texts or a collage of references, it is possible to translate ideas in an innovative way, unlike the ways that a render can present. For this reason, we highlight here the work of great names such as Lina Bo Bardi, Renzo Piano, Pezo von Ellrichshausen and Mikkel Frost, who, using different techniques, reveal different ways of representing a project.

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