The World Health Organisation (WHO) supports that even if vaccines are found, COVID-19may never go away. ‘Post-virus’ recovery mechanisms suddenly become out-of-place and obsolete. If we wait for the coronavirus crisis to be over to tackle climate change, then many of us may be swimming in deep waters. Coordinated and immediate actions, coupled with planetary-scale cooperation, to tackle both crises in parallel is now needed. For cities, this means adopting mechanisms that enable both economic recovery and sustainable transitions.
https://www.archdaily.com/939930/a-call-for-global-cooperation-for-sustainable-urban-transitionsZaheer Allam, Gaetan Siew and Felix Fokoua
It is a rare occasion for a historic neighborhood to have new buildings. Never the less, this is exactly what happened along the elegant and ornate structures of Frederiksberg Allé in Copenhagen. The historical avenue was inspired by Parisian architecture and features many buildings notable for their intricate architectural detail.
On April 16, a ground-breaking ceremony was held in the city of Guangzhou, China, for what is to be the world’s largest soccer stadium. The most controversial aspect of the project was not its $1.7 billion price tag, but its bold lotus shape causing a backlash from the local architectural community but praise from the general public.
https://www.archdaily.com/939211/forecasting-the-future-of-sports-architecture-with-10-newly-built-stadiums-around-the-worldMilly Mo
As the number of smaller and more compact apartments grows, architects and interior designers are challenged to create multifunctional solutions and systems capable of optimizing spaces, in a way that every inch seems to make a difference. As a result, it is increasingly common for professionals to focus on designing creative furniture solutions that allow the space to transform completely in a few seconds.
ArchDaily has already published numerous articles on how to design for compact spaces, from closets and shelves to plan solutions for small apartments. We have now put together a collection of interesting projects in which the beds seem to camouflage themselves among the furniture and architectural elements, thanks to smart systems which, by using hinges and sliding tracks, allow them to be concealed in a matter of seconds, saving space and allowing versatility.
Raimund Abraham’s Air Ocean City. Image Courtesy of MIT Press
For more than a century, architects have been addressing the world as a project through speculative designs in an attempt to imagine the future and reframe global issues. Globalisation, the ever-increasing interconnectedness demands action on a worldwide scale and invites a reflection on the profession's responsibilities. The latter is precisely what the book The World as an Architectural Project achieves, through a compilation of world-scale speculative projects of the past century, making a compelling case for the agency of architecture.
There are strange elements of connection within this phenomenon of social distancing: not only is the whole world experiencing it simultaneously, but we also seem to share a global momentum of awareness that something unique is taking place, which demands to be documented and gradually understood.
Moved by that impulse and under the guidance of professor Erieta Attali, 16 students from The Cooper Union, explored, through photography, their everyday life now ruled by isolation and social distancing. And they did so, not from a single city, but from 10 different places, as they returned to their home countries amidst the crisis.
Design With Nature Now revisits Ian McHarg’s eponymous 1969 book and takes stock of current practices and projects of resilience in landscape design the world over, such as AECOM’s Weishan Lake National Wetland Park in Shandong, China. Courtesy AECOM
Moving away from its early exclusive focus on natural disasters, resilient architecture and design tackles the much tougher challenge of helping ecosystems regenerate.
Thirty years ago, as a high school student at the Cranbrook boarding school in suburban Detroit, I wrote a research-based investigative report on the environmental crisis for the student newspaper. I had been encouraged to do so by a faculty adviser, David Watson, who lived a double life as a radical environmentalist writing under the pseudonym George Bradford for the anarchist tabloid Fifth Estate. His diatribe How Deep Is Deep Ecology? questioned a recurring bit of cant from the radical environmental movement: Leaders of groups like Earth First! frequently disparaged the value of human life in favor of protecting nature.
Overall, when designing exhibition spaces, certain aspects contribute to an effective display of the pieces: diffuse lighting, spatial distribution, and high ceilings are some of them. The combination of these features with rooms that are able to transform themselves (using elements that can be perforated, repainted, and adapted according to each exhibition), is common in many art galleries, expressing the dialogue between art and architecture.
The romantic notion of wanderlust, and having the ability to freely move away from the familiar with minimal possessions is a desire that almost everyone has experienced at some point in their lives. The nomadic lifestyle is so appealing because it represents the possibility of rebelling against symbols of stability and permanence in favor of exploring the natural environment and having the ability to adapt to a variety of living conditions with ease. This desire has given rise to movable structures for the urban vagabond that can transform into a temporary office, home, or even an entire community.
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Pasaje Jose Cuervo. Image Courtesy of IE School
IE School of Architecture and Design students in the Master in Strategic Design of Spaces are challenged to be future-forward thinkers from the outset. In today’s world, where urban spaces are quickly evolving and city developments must address increasingly complex requirements, overcoming these challenges requires innovative, unconventional approaches.
As far as written records report, “prehistory” dates back between 35,000 BCE and 3000 BCE in the Middle East (2000 BCE in Western Europe). Ancient builders had a profound understanding of human responses to environmental conditions and physical needs. Initially, families and tribes lived together in skin-covered huts and bone structures. Thousands of years later, human settlements evolved into fortified mud-brick walls surrounding rectangular volumes with pierced openings for ventilation and sunlight.
During the upcoming months, we will be publishing short articles on the history of architecture and how it evolved to set the fundamentals of architecture we know today. This week, we are going back to some of the earliest civilizations known to mankind: Megaliths, Mesopotamia, and Ancient Egypt.
AI in the architecture industry has provoked much debate in recent years - yet it seems like very few of us know exactly what it is or why it has created this storm of emotions. There are professionals researching AI who know more about the field than I do, but I have hands-on experience using AI and algorithms in my design over the past 10 years through various projects. This is one of the challenges that our field faces. How can we make practical use of these new tools?
Located in the southern region of the United States, the state of Florida is one of the most populous states and the 22nd largest. The state hosts some of the most populated areas in the country, such as Jacksonville and the Miami Metropolitan Area.
The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed how we travel and come together. As streets and buildings became empty and people practice social distancing, so too have airports experienced a tremendous decline in passengers and flights. As the aviation industry shaped globalization, it has also contributed to how quickly the disease spread. In a new aerial series, photographer Tom Hegen explores the pandemic's impact on aviation from above.
Courtesy of the coronavirus, universities are closed around the world, and classrooms are now entertained over video conferencing. This is not overly dramatic as this temporary arrangement will eclipse after cases are contained, and classes will resume soon after. However, the impacts on the university ecosystem and on the urban fabric will require immediate renovations in higher education that will shape the architectural syllabus for years to come.
https://www.archdaily.com/939423/how-covid-19-will-shape-architectural-educationZaheer Allam, Gaetan Siew and Felix Fokoua
As the Great Philosopher, Mike Tyson said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”.
The COVID-19 pandemic will deeply impact the world of aesthetics. For the first time since League of Nations was founded, a future of universal aesthetics may cease to be the academically sanctioned Architectural Canon. As Markus Breitschmid defines it, in his article “In Defense of the Validity of the 'Canon' in Architecture,” the Canon in Architecture is a way to divorce architecture from the rest of the world:
The course in Architecture for Humanities was born to train designers who know how to compose meaningful architectures even in the most complex contexts to bring quality and beauty where you are not used to seeing it. Today, pandemic, economic crisis, migration and climate change have turned every area -from the periphery of our metropolis to the most remote tropical village- into what can be defined as “emergency context”.
Cloud of Luster Wedding Chapel / Tetsuya Matsumoto. Image Courtesy of A' Design Award
Everyone likes to win. And if design is your passion, what could be better than winning a design award? Out of the multitude of design competitions in the world, the international A' Design Award is the largest, and now they've announced their winners of the 2019-2020 competition. Winners of this prestigious award must impress a jury panel of experts - 170+ press members, academics, and design professionals - in order to receive the A' Design Prize. In addition to the prestige, recognition, and international publicity, laureates are presented with a trophy, annual yearbook, certificate, invitation to the gala night, inclusion in the winners' exhibit, and more.
In February of this year, I gave a short talk to our Yale students about the economy and their employment prospects, suggesting that while all indicators remained strong and jobs were plentiful, it had been quite some time since our last downturn. Having seen several during my career I suggested that they would likely see a recession sometime in theirs, but cast doubt on whether we’d ever see anything as serious as 2008. If only…
It’s too early to be making nuanced arguments about the future, as we face down what is undoubtedly going to be a much more serious situation in the second half of 2020. So, here are ten first thoughts about how our profession may be impacted, and potentially transformed, as a result. Choose two or three as prompts to consider the future once the crisis has passed.
We are heading for a scenario in which BIM technology will greatly help us to maximize the roles and skills of civil construction professionals, making room for us to plan, design, build and manage buildings and infrastructures much more efficiently, integrating all systems, structural, mechanical, electrical and plumbing in a responsible, economical and sustainable way.
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the city of Homs in Syria. Image via Shutterstock/ By Fly_and_Dive
In a world devastated by war and destruction, new ideas for future reconstruction of cities are emerging. The latest technologies are creating opportunities to shape better built environments and better urban experiences. While the world has had its fair share of failed attempts of post-war reconstruction, the 21st century is promising concepts more in touch with culture, integration, and sustainability.
As we all know, technology is the game-changer of this century. It has ultimately modified how we design and build, and with the development of Artificial Intelligence, boundaries have been pushed furthermore. Able to transform the environment we live in, AI can also help shape a better version of the environment we have lost.
Stores in Santiago, Chile, ran out of yeast in mid-March, such as it happened after the beginning of the social crisis in 2019. Given that Chile has the second-highest bread consumption per capita in the world, it would seem that Chileans handle uncertainty stocking up ingredients for bread making. Everybody wants to make bread, including myself.
Our interpretation of the world is mediated through a variety of mechanisms that have been at the center of architectural and urban debate for a long time; the role of hearing in perceiving and recognizing the surrounding environment is fundamental and of growing scientific interest. Studies that investigate the psychological effects of noise produced by large infrastructures, such as airports, highways, railways, are multiplying. Santiago Beckdorf argues that it is possible, through the tools of design, to reverse the paradigm according to which urban development is inevitably connected to a weakening of the natural environment in which it is inserted.
For the 2019 Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (UABB), titled "Urban Interactions," (21 December 2019-8 March 2020) ArchDaily is working with the curators of the "Eyes of the City" section to stimulate a discussion on how new technologies might impact architecture and urban life. The contribution below is part of a series of scientific essays selected through the “Eyes of the City” call for papers, launched in preparation of the exhibitions: international scholars were asked to send their reflection in reaction to the statement by the curators Carlo Ratti Associati, Politecnico di Torino and SCUT, which you can read here.
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