This week, colorful projects are here to steal the show. Few architects have dared to use color in their works, however, when done so the results can be incredible. Here is a selection of 15 images from prominent photographers such as Gregori Civera, Julien Lanoo and Subliminal Image that show us the huge potential of color.

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From the first experiments carried out by the French Joseph Niépce in 1793, and his most successful test in 1826, photography became an object of exploring and a resource for registering lived moments and places of the world. Within the broad spectrum of photographic production throughout history, architecture has frequently played a leading role on the records, be it from the perspective of photography as an art, document or, as it was often the case, an instrument for cultural construction.

Having great autonomy as a practice and of particular debate inside this theme, architectural photography has the ability to reaffirm a series of expressive features of the portrayed works, create tension in their relation to the surroundings, and propose specific or generic readings of buildings, among other investigative possibilities.

Thirty years after the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, the traces of the regime seem increasingly few and far between. Among the still existing monuments, conditions are mixed: some remain pristine, others are worn away after years of exposure to the elements.

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For this year's annual city listings, Metropolis Magazine took an unusual approach: they took the analysis to the streets, surveying nearly 100 design professionals across the globe to get their opinions. The result? A list that boasts not just the cities you'd expect (Milan, London, Berlin) but the under the radar powerhouses you might not have anticipated.

Want to get the most of your Apple Pencil in Trace? Today, Rome Prize winner Javier Galindo, is going to show you a few features that will make your Trace drawings sing.

A floor plan is an interesting way to represent and approach the functional program of hospitals and health centers, where the complexity of the system implies the need for specific studies of the distribution and spatial organization for proper health care.

From our published projects, we have found numerous solutions and possibilities for health centers and hospitals depending on the site's specific needs.

Below, we have selected 50 on-site floor plan examples that can help you better understand how architects design hospitals and health care centers.

Videos

The apple of every athlete's eye, the Olympic Games direct the gaze of the world onto one host city every two years, showcasing the best that sport has to offer across both summer and winter events. In a haze of feel-good anticipation, the general buzz around the city before during the four week stretch is palpable, with tourists, media and athletes alike generating contributing to the fervour. With almost an almost exclusively positive public response (the majority of Olympic bids are met with 70% approval or higher), the Games become an opportunity for a nation to showcases their culture and all it has to offer. At first glance, it's an opportunity you'd be a fool to miss.

Yet as the dust settles, these ‘lucky’ host cities are often left with structures that lack the relevance and function of their initial, fleeting lives. Empty aquatics centers, derelict running tracks and rarely-used stadiums have become as much a trademark of the Games as the Rings, with the structural maintenance and social implications burdening former hosts for years to come. In recent years, fewer cities have been taking part in the bidding process, suggesting that the impact of the Games is beginning to catch up with the excitement. As many as 12 cities contended for the honor of hosting the 2004 games; only two were put forward for 2024/28.

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In the last global survey undertaken by the United Nations in 2005, there were an estimated 100 million people who were homeless around the world and 1.6 billion who lived without adequate housing. This number has escalated in recent years; unaffordable housing has become a global norm, making it increasingly difficult for the disadvantaged to seek out permanent, or even temporary shelter.

As housing becomes a means of accumulating wealth rather than fulfilling its fundamental goal of shelter, well-intentioned architects have attempted to solve the homelessness crisis through creative ideas and innovative design. But is architecture really the solution?

Bricks have historically been the cornerstone of a wide array of living spaces, providing everything from enclosure and protection to the framework for letting in sunlight. Whether it be for their economic or aesthetic aspects in both color and texture, the use of brick can be glimpsed in cities the world over. 

In spite of its practicality and widespread use, brick does present a challenge for architects and builders. Everything from humidity, wind, sun, mold, and time leaves its mark on brick, gradually wearing down its practical and aesthetic properties.

But fear not, in the following article we'll give you our tips on how to best treat and care for brick.

Peter Zumthor's quiet, technically pristine, and beautifully detailed work has long been an inspiration for architects. His Kolumba Museum, located in Cologne, Germany, a city that was almost completely destroyed in World War II, houses the Roman Catholic Archdiocese’s collection of art which spans more than a thousand years. Zumthor’s design delicately rises from the ruins of a late-Gothic church, respecting the site’s history and preserving its essence.

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This article was originally published by Metropolis Magazine as "A Once-Maligned Concrete Megastructure in Seoul is Revitalized - Sans Gentrification".

Upon its completion in 1966, Sewoon Sangga, designed by prominent South Korean architect Kim Swoo-geun, was a groundbreaking residential and commercial megastructure consisting of eight multistory buildings covering a full kilometer in the heart of Seoul. Like other futuristic projects of the decade, it was conceived as a self-contained city, complete with amenities that included a park, an atrium, and a pedestrian deck. But construction realities crippled Kim’s utopian vision, compromising those features. By the late 1970s, Sewoon Sangga had shed residents and anchor retail outlets to newer, shinier developments in the wealthy Gangnam district across the river. Between Sewoon’s central location and plunging rents, the building became a hub for light industry—as well as illicit activity.

History has often been taught in a linear way. This way of teaching has often left out grand historical narratives, and focused primarily on the occidental world. 

Photographer Andres Gallardo, who has captured images of noted architectural works such as Zaha Hadid’s Dongdaemun Design Plaza and MAD Architects’ Harbin Opera House, has turned his lens on ZHA's Galaxy Soho, located in Beijing. The shopping complex, which was completed in 2012 is one of famed architect Zaha Hadid's late career works.

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Architects are called upon to build society’s greatest structures. We marvel at the museums, performing arts centers and spaces of worship that dot the globe and represent the peculiarities of the world’s many cultures. Yet, at the core of the roles and responsibilities of the architect lies a calling for a far more elemental human need: shelter.

This doesn’t imply that architects are always involved in the creation of all the forms that shelter takes. However, a deep understanding of how people dwell provides an appreciation of the diversity, resilience, alacrity of the human race. The Human Shelter, a documentary about what people value or “need” in their lives, ties into a fundamental quality that any architect would be foolish not to cultivate: the ability to listen and perceive what makes people feel at home.

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What does the Parisian park look like? For many, the answer to that question comes in the form of a painting: Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, in which the well-dressed bourgeoisie leisurely enjoy a natural oasis on a verdant island within their industrializing city.

This article was originally published by Jude Fulton on Medium under the title "Why Architects are Super Well-Suited for Startups". You can see the original post here.

This article was originally published by Metropolis Magazine as "Can’t Be Bothered: The Chic Indifference of Post-Digital Drawing."

In architectural circles, the appellation “post-digital” has come to mean many things to many people. Some have used it as a shorthand descriptor for the trendy style of rendering that has become popular among students and, increasingly, architectural offices. Others have used it to describe a more profound shift in architectural production that is at once inoculated against the novelty of digital technique and attuned to the sheer ubiquity of “the digital” in contemporary life.

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An unfortunate fact of the AEC (architecture, engineering, and construction) industry is that, between every stage of the process—from planning and design to construction and operations—critical data is lost.

The reality is, when you move data between phases of, say, the usable lifecycle of a bridge, you end up shuttling that data back and forth between software systems that recognize only their own data sets. The minute you translate that data, you reduce its richness and value. When a project stakeholder needs data from an earlier phase of the process, planners, designers, and engineers often have to manually re-create that information, resulting in unnecessary rework. 

Presenting designs to third parties can be a challenging task. Architects may find it difficult to describe spaces to their clients, therefore more firms are incorporating virtual reality into their workflows and project presentations.

Below are 5 architecture offices using SentioVR to present their designs. To see the content in 360º, click on the image and move the mouse.

This week we have prepared a selection of photographs in which reflections in water is used as the main compositional element. In these images, the surface qualities of the water play a fundamental role in giving the composition its final effect—either acting as a perfect mirror or giving a diffuse touch. Below is a selection of 10 images from prominent photographers such as Lu Hengzhong, Yao Li, and Nico Saieh.

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Architecture has always been multidisciplinary, demanding new expertise for each project and challenging designers to remain nimble. This seems more true now (and more embraced) than ever, with architects turning their eye towards technology, agriculture, data science - even to Mars.