Around the world today, the "Climate Emergency" continues to embody a renewed worldwide focus on tackling climate change. With 36% of global energy devoted to buildings and 8% of global emissions caused by cement alone, the architectural community is deeply entwined with the flows of materials, energy, and ideas that relate to climate change, both causes and solutions.
Interior design has been characterized by infinite alternatives in coatings, finishes, and furniture to achieve unique and unrepeatable spaces. Designers are constantly coming up with innovative solutions and materials specifically created for a distinctive spatial perception. However, there is also a trend that seeks the warmth of the interior spaces by exposing all raw materials as they are. The richness of materials such as wood and concrete gives that feeling of durability and low maintenance that, combined with an attention-to-detail design, make spaces look warm yet staying true in essence.
The use of steel in both the past and present is mainly associated with the success of grand industrial and civic structures. But due to the commercialization and standardization of steel profiles, its use in residential projects (thanks to its mechanical properties and fast installation) has resulted in complex and interesting solutions on a domestic scale.
Dive into these 15 construction details from residential projects that have made use of steel structures and cladding.
Chicago is one of the most photogenic cities in the world. Its sparkling lakefront, dramatic skyline, diverse ethnic neighborhoods, and gritty industrial sites have long captured the attention of locals and visitors alike, including Hollywood movie producers. Here the city often serves as not only a backdrop, but also as a starring role--almost as important as the characters themselves.
As people adopt more control over the rituals behind their deaths, cremation has become an increasingly popular option across the world. This, in turn, has led to the considered design of spaces that respond to the deep emotions surrounding cremation, life and death, and stillness. Increasingly, architects are contending with the question of what role does architecture play in these rituals?
For a chance to showcase your work to a global audience, now is the time to enter your design for an A’ Design Award. The international competition was "born out of the desire to underline the best designs and well-designed products" of designers, architects, and innovators from all design fields. Among other design competitions and awards, the A' Design Award stands out for its exceptional scale with over 100 design categories.
When we approached the Flores & Prats firm, we wanted to focus on their precise drawing just as much as their detailed mock-ups. We wanted to see a project that not only "values the time invested and accumulated in it but also sees said time as a virtue and not a defect;" an indication of paying attention to the process as well as the unexpected. (In this sense, it reminds me of reading about how to draw a forest, among other things, in "Las tardes de dibujo en el estudio Miralles & Pinós").
We conducted a long-distance interview with the Eva Prats and Ricardo Flores studio for this reason; to get a better idea of their thoughts on the impact of drawing on architectural representation.Their input makes clear the "why" of their decisions, and explains not only how they operate in a contemporary context but also indicates their relationship with construction among other disciplines.
Every working day presents new challenges for architects, fabricators and distributors. The key to success in the building industries is the optimum and timely implementation of projects and the satisfaction of clients and customers. Versatile, easy to work with materials like wood can streamline the process without sacrificing design or options. Wood, in addition to being a structural material, can also be utilized in the form of wooden composite boards and wood-based products. EGGER is a company with a history of producing multiple different types of wood products with unique purposes and applications within a design.
We may not give them the importance they deserve, but toilets are fundamental to our daily lives and our health. There are two "golden rules" that articulate their usefulness: they 'separate' us immediately from our waste, and they transport them for treatment, preventing them from contaminating the environment or making people sick.
In addition to being a good place to think about new ideas, browse Instagram, and answer emails, the toilet helps us stay healthy, an attribute we take for granted until we lose access to it.
Studying the data that indicates a climate crisis that has been affecting the whole planet for the last decades, the reactionary attitudes may sound disappointing. However, at the same time that the news indicates a global average temperature rise, the political focus on the climate crisis is also intensified, according to the UN Environment report released in 2019, which is a reflection not only of the occurrence of manifestations and protests around the world but also of the so-called activist art expression.
Today's designers have inherited unprecedented global challenges, a legacy which will require radically new ways of fashioning the buildings, places, and landscapes that harbor our diverse ways of life. The College of Environmental Design offers several introductory and advanced programs for those interested in confronting these challenges in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture and environmental planning, urban design, and sustainable city planning. Please visit UC Berkeley's Summer Programs website to view images of student work and learn more about the CED Summer experience.
With growing awareness of the impact of fossil fuels on the natural environment and their common usage in buildings, architects are increasingly required to specify and accommodate alternative energy sources in their design approaches. Included in this portfolio of progressive energy sources is biomass, a scalable system that combines the usage of raw, sustainable materials with a lower resulting emission of CO2. As a method often heralded as the most transferable alternative to gas and coal, we answer a simple question: what is biomass energy?
Last week, The School of Architecture at Taliesin announced the closing of the school after 88 years. Both the school and the Frank Lloyd Wright foundation issued statements on the closure, and now the Student Body has created their own statement outlining the impact of the decision. The news of closure followed the conclusion of a multi-year struggle back in 2017, when the school was approved to maintain its accreditation as an institute of higher learning.
It is truly odd how we always find ourselves in a bad mood at work and our productivity keeps decreasing as the week passes by. To be fair, we can’t keep blaming our colleagues, clients, or Monday for our rough day; sometimes it’s the chair we are sitting on, the fluorescent lighting above our computer, or the constant “chugging” sound of the printer near the desk.
Other than the fact that people spend about 70-80% of their time indoors, almost 9 hours of their day are being spent at work; and studies have indicated that the environmental quality of an office has short and long term effects on the comfort, health, and productivity of the people occupying it. While research on the comfort conditions of workplaces is still relatively minimal, we have put together a list of factors that have proved to be highly influential on the comfort of individuals in workplaces.
Labor gives rise to design. As the aggregate of physical and mental effort used in the creation of goods and services, labor is tied to both what we create and our process. In a field shaped by production, architecture and design depend on labor from a broad range of professionals. But as workers increasingly put in longer hours and traditional measures of security change, questions of labor practices have arisen amid broader conditions of contemporary work culture.
While technology and construction have progressed rapidly in recent years, allowing structures to be built taller and faster than ever, remnants of colossal ancient monuments remind us that construction techniques from as long as hundreds of years ago had enormous merit as well. In fact, many of the innovations of antiquity serve as foundations of modern construction, with the Roman invention of concrete serving as a cogent example. Other essential ancient construction techniques, such as the arch and the dome, are now often considered stylistic flourishes, with designs like the Met Opera House reinterpreting classical typologies in a modern context. Yet perhaps the most relevant reinterpretations of ancient construction today are those that do so in the interest of sustainability, renouncing high-energy modern construction methods in favor of older, more natural techniques.
Does the Coronavirus concern us? Yes, it does. Beyond the rush for health cures, cities are seen to react by using both architecture and urban strategic planning as tools for the virus’ containment, shattering our notions of city and resilience planning.
The Chinese megacity of Shenzhen bares all the hallmarks of a surging modern metropolis. Busy (and loud) five-lane motorways weave through islands of glittering glass skyscrapers, rising from podiums filled with designer shops, fronting vast squares and plazas, activated by screen-savvy young professionals fueling the city’s booming tech economy. Such a scene is truly remarkable considering that before 1980, Shenzhen was nothing more than a provincial fishing town of 60,000 people. Today, that figure has risen to 13 million.
This poses the question of how the urban environment accommodated such a rapid population explosion in such a short time. The answer lies in the city’s “Urban Villages,” remarkable manifestations of Shenzhen’s past and present, though likely not of its future.
Costing less than glitzier parks in Moscow, the Tatarstan initiative is revivifying the local design and manufacturing bases with a "teach a man to fish" approach.
In places without an established design force, there have historically been two opposing approaches at play: hire experts from abroad or nurture a local design community, a la “give a man a fish or teach him how to fish.” In the Russian republic of Tatarstan, located at the intersection between Europe and Asia, a recent Public Spaces Development Program has created over 350 parks in five years—by choosing the latter approach.
Imagine the following scenario. It is 1902, and to the great shock and distress of the citizens of Venice, the beautiful campanile tower in its Piazza San Marco has just collapsed. That very evening, the city’s communal council votes to approve 500,000 Lire for the prompt rebuilding, “com’era, dov’era” — “as it was, where it was”. Future residents and visitors alike may now continue to enjoy this beautiful structure, which had also been restored and added to many times previously.
But then an authority from far away steps up to speak. “Our regulations do not allow this! Our funding policies require that ‘a project shall use contemporary design’ — which means that you may use only current styles of which we approve, and you may not use the local traditional styles of Venice. That would be a ‘falsification of history’, a ‘mingling of the false with the genuine’, and we decree that this would have harmful consequences!” The project does not go forward, and something entirely “contemporary” is built instead.
This article was originally published on Common Edge.
The field of architecture is not exactly a hot topic of study for most undergraduate students. The closest they might get to the subject is an art history survey course in which architecture is presented as a parade of styles across the millennia—just another form of visual expression.
Bruno Stagno from San José, Costa Rica, shares his contemplations for a free expressive code for tropical architecture.
The barnyard typology is an endearing staple of rural architecture. Simple in construction, and traditionally shaped from necessity rather than aesthetic, barns have nonetheless continued to spark the imaginations of those seeking a contrast to the fast-paced, dense, globalized reality of urban life. They also spark the intrigue of designers. Whether it is refurbishing historic farms for modern use, or constructing an entirely new addition to the countryside, architects have drawn inspiration from the industrial origins of traditional barnyards to reinterpret elements such as modularity, timber expression, and refined ornamentation.
With December and January nearly behind us, many of us will have been producing reports. There is an increasing number of tools for reporting PR value sold to companies as ways to justify their worth. There is no doubt that it’s useful to regularly take stock of past and upcoming initiatives and producing a report can even be pleasurable when adding to a sense of accomplishment and direction. The bad thing is that this heavily-report-reliant culture leads to management style PR that focuses more on how something will look on paper as stats, graphs, and pics, than what is actually accomplished.
For instance, The Architecture Foundation in London is highlighting growing Biennale fatigue in its forthcoming “Bored of Biennales” event in March. One can well imagine how all-too-often such events are best experienced not in situ, but instead, through carefully-edited reports or via media coverage as suggested by the Foundation.
_9546.jpg?1580726149 "BIG Offices. Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu")
.jpg?1580468377 "An embankment on Kaban Lake in Kazan, Tatarstan’s capital city. Kaban consists of three lakes stretching north to south, with connected ducts. These are the largest in area in Tatarstan. The concept of this project was based on the creation of a single Kaban Lakes Water Park, uniting the three lakes’ embankments.. Image Courtesy of Foundation Institute for Urban Development of the Republic of Tatarstan")
