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4 Principles of Designing with Indigenous Communities

Indigenous co-design—a more specific form of the general concept of co-design in which an architect collaborates with a stakeholder community—is a collaborative design process between architects and the Indigenous community as the client. The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) recently released a unique resource aimed at designers, clients, funders and policymakers looking for a guide in Indigenous co-design.

Four Case Studies Exemplifying Best Practices in Architectural Co-design and Building with First Nations builds on the success of the RAIC International Indigenous Architecture and Design Symposium held in May 2017. The four case studies set out to explore best practices in Indigenous co-design in the context of three First Nations and one Inuit community in Canada, with one case study selected from each of the four asset classes: "schools, community and cultural centers, administration and business centers, and housing."

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7 Shout-Outs to Architects in Rap Lyrics

7 Shout-Outs to Architects in Rap Lyrics - Featured Image
© Messe Basel

About a month before he unveiled his eighth album Ye in June, Kanye West re-entered architectural conversation with the unexpected and mostly unexplained announcement that he intends to hire architects and industrial designers to staff an architecture practice connected to his Yeezy brand. An outspoken fan and admirer of contemporary architecture, Kanye’s fashion and design projects have been a major focus for him since shortly after the prodigious producer started making his own rap albums. Kanye’s architectural ambitions have been an interesting factor in the relationship between architecture and rap culture, which seems to be just coming into focus through programs like the Hip Hop Architecture Camps organized by Michael Ford’s Urban Arts Collective, and the research of Sekou Cooke. Architecture and rap music have influenced each other in ways we’re just starting to notice—with the connection between the two even revealed as consciously and conspicuously as rappers including references to notable architects in their lyrics.

100 Years of Mass Housing in Russia

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Russia’s history of mass housing development can be divided into several distinct periods, each manifested by its own specific type of residential building. These houses reveal what lifestyle, comfort level, construction cost and distinctive traits were considered preferable in any given decade. Every new stage saw its own experiments and had its achievements, which together can be regarded as a line of lessons, discoveries, and experiences, helping to understand a specific character of Russian standard housing.

The Trailblazing Women Architects of Socialist Yugoslavia

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The architect Svetlana Kana Radević’s design for the Hotel Podgorica (1967) in the Montenegrin capital could be described as an example of Brutalism.. Image © Valentin Jeck, 2016, commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art

The topic of diversity in architecture has remained a mainstream issue in recent years—however, a recent article from Metropolis Magazine offers an account that is nevertheless surprising: a celebration of the unique contributions of women architects in the former socialist state of Yugoslavia. According to the essay, the highlighted women made their mark on the history of Yugoslavia "in spite of, not through the dismantling of, both the region’s and the profession’s male-dominated cultures."

Hybrid Homes: Living and Working Collide in These 26 Projects

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Normally, houses are divided into common areas, rooms, kitchens, and bathrooms. However, sometimes the client demands to add other programs related to their work or hobbies, making efficient design and daily spatial distribution more complex. As architects, we are faced with an interesting challenge: to merge the private life of its inhabitants with more public and open programs, generating exciting mixed-use spaces.

If you are interested in designing hybrid homes, we have selected 26 houses with additions including shops, soccer fields, barns, greenhouses, and even skateparks.

Keys to Implement BIM in Your Architecture Office

After noticing a huge inefficiency and disarticulation in their processes (working separately in design, modeling, and documentation), David Miller Architects (DMA) decided to immerse his company into the BIM (Building Information Modeling) world in 2008. Despite their success, this experience of trial and error gave them a series of lessons that are important to consider when rethinking the way we do architecture.

'BIM gave us an opportunity to reimagine the practice, in a much more structured and organized way. Then, it allowed us to have more quality control, [and be] more organized and thorough, which is really important for a small practice trying to grow. And that really increased the confidence in some of our clients,' says David Miller.

We spoke with the British architect at a conference in June 2018 in Santiago, Chile, which included the seminar "Why Implement BIM in 2020" organized by Planbim. This seminar identified 7 key points that can facilitate the implementation of this paradigm in an architecture office.

8 Beautiful Belgian Houses: The Expert on Ugly Belgian Houses Weighs In

Sometimes an architect’s best intentions get lost along the way. Sometimes they get value-engineered out; sometimes they were never really there to begin with. That's where Ugly Belgian Houses comes in. The blog, run by discerning Belgian Hannes Coudenys, documents some of his home country's architectural misadventures - all with a sense of humor, of course!

Today, to celebrate Belgium's National Day, we asked the man behind the blog to select some beautiful Belgian houses. His choices - with a few words from him and the architects - after the break.

What's the Difference Between a B.Arch and M.Arch Degree?

The process of becoming an architect can be as confusing as it is extensive. In this article, we'll demystify a crucial component of the path to a career in architecture: what degree you should get. Specifically, we’ll lay out the difference between two common, somewhat comparable degrees: the B.Arch and the M.Arch.

The Best Universities in Latin America That Have Architecture Programs

Times Higher Education (THE) revealed its ranking of the best universities in Latin America and the Caribean. The list is based on the same 13 indicators used in their global ranking, but with modifications that "better reflect the characteristics of Latin American universities," explains the organization. 

The 2018 edition of this regional ranking includes 129 universities from 10 countries rated in the following categories: teaching, research, citations, international outlook, industry income. It should be noted that this measurement is global at the university level and does not measure each academic concentration separately, as QS does in its annual ranking.

Dominated by universities in Brazil, we present the 10 best Latin American universities for architecture, according to Times Higher Education (THE).

Design Accessible Bathrooms for All With This ADA Restroom Guide

In this article, we provide you with the tools to design more inclusive architecture. Although each region and country has its own accessibility guidelines which you should review in depth before starting a project, the material presented below, based on the ADA and ANSI standards, will help you design comfortable and efficient spaces for all its users.

Read on for detailed diagrams with the recommended measures to design an accessible bathroom.

What Affects the Quality of Life in Urban Environments?

As I left the streets of Zurich after attending a conference about the quality of life in urban environments, I came across a living example of the lecture I had just attended. I turned the corner and felt that I was inside an architectural rendering: the trees were pruned and green, there were no hanging electrical wires, cyclists drove elegantly along bike lanes, the tram moved quietly and punctually while bathers enjoyed their summer in rivers and lakes. To my surprise, I walked under an overpass and realized that even urban cities could be skilled and safe. After my stroll, I stopped for a cup of coffee and knew that the person that attended me received a fair salary and did not have to work three jobs to pay the bills (of course the coffee did not come cheap). However, these small, almost mundane observations for some, do provide a well-being and quality of life that may be difficult to measure.

Forget "Post-Digital": Why Technological Innovation in Architecture is Only Just Getting Started

This article was originally published by Metropolis Magazine as "The Post-Digital Will Be Even More Digital, Says Mario Carpo."

Book presentations, or book launches, are holdovers from ages long past. One could argue that the same applies to books in print themselves; but we still read and write books, never mind in which shape and form, while I do not see many reasons to keep presenting them in brick-and-mortar bookshops, or similar venues. Friends in the publishing industry tell me that a single tweet, or a successful hashtag on Instagram, can sell more copies than a book launch—and at a lesser cost, for sure. Besides, one of the most baffling aspects of book launches is that, traditionally—and I remember this was already the case when I was a student—a significant fraction of the public in attendance tends to be viscerally and vocally hostile to the topic of the book being presented. Why would readers who dislike a book as a plain matter of principle take the time to read it in full then vent their anger at its author, I cannot tell; but this is to say that having published a book last fall titled The Second Digital Turn: Design Beyond Intelligence, I had plenty of opportunities, in the course of the last few months, to glean a vast repertoire of technophobic commonplaces. Chiefly noted among them, due to its sheer outlandishness, was the objection that digital innovation would by now have fully run its course: having adapted to, and adopted, some new tools and technologies, architects would have moved on, free at last to get back to things that really matter to them (whatever they might be).

Explore the Local Wood Work of Chiloé Island, Chile

Chiloé is a five-part video series produced by Glaciar Films and directed by Diego Breit and David Guzmán; it explores the architectural identity of the southern island off of Chile. Architects, carpenters, artisans, and inhabitants present the constructive history of the island and explore how it is faced with the imminent changes of modern production and practices.

Glaciar Films has made three of the five episodes available to ArchDaily readers. In these clips, explore the island's architecture along with interviews with principal architects of the region: Jonah Retamal, Edward Rojas, and Macarena Almonacid.

Learning New Design Viz Methods—Is It Worth It?

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Design visualization just keeps reaching new heights. While renderings remain a common part of design presentation, advances in technology have made new types of media not only possible but within the reach of even small teams and firms. These newer types of media require a change in workflow. Is it worth it?

Online Revit Courses for Beginners and Experts

As one of the most-used BIM software products around the world, there are a large number of tutorials and online courses that help us to get started in using Revit, or to become an advanced user and take advantage of its many tools. Do you just want to become familiar with its interface so that you can start using it in your projects? Do you need to learn how to link it with AutoCAD or 3ds Max? Don't know how to render or present the results of your models? These courses promise to teach you how.

How Long Does it Take to Become an Architect?

Before deciding on a career in architecture, plenty of questions can cross one’s mind: Which school should I choose? Should I study abroad or choose a local school? Would enrolling in top international universities cost me a fortune? How long will it take for me to finally be able to build my own structure? At the end of the day, the making of an architect is pretty simple: half a decade of architecture studies, and then some.

Whether you are considering studying abroad or staying home, you'll need to know how long it takes to become an architect in your country of choice. Take a look at how long it usually takes to earn that degree in different countries from all over the world, and what you'll need to do (aside from attending school) before becoming a certified architect.

Space-Saving Solutions: 33 Creative Storage Ideas

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The lack of storage space is a recurrent problem in homes. In most cases, residual spaces or uncomfortable corners are used to solve the lack of shelves, drawers, and closets. To efficiently incorporate these type of spaces into your designs, here are 33 remarkable storage examples.

These Are the 5 Most Colorful Cities in the Americas

The grays of concrete and pollution are not the only representation of cities and towns in the Americas. As perfect postcard material, many cities in the new world express the vibrancy of the people and places through color. HAUS, ArchDaily's partner, has selected five of these cities, which show us how color can bring light to the day-to-day life of cities.

Learn About Open Floor Plans Via These 6 Iconic Residences

Le Corbusier's "Five Points of Architecture" functioned in the twentieth century as the go-to guide for architectural production; it is also a significant work in understanding the legacy of modern architecture. Horizontal windows, free design of the facade, pilotis, roof gardens, and perhaps the most significant point, free design of the ground plan form the Franco-Swiss architect's manifesto. In terms of design practice, this last point means distinguishing structure and wrapper, which allows the free disposal of dividing walls that no longer fulfill a structural function.

Residential projects were once characterized by a clear division of environments linked to domestic dynamics, now filtered by modern discourse, the house became flexible and capable of new spatial articulations.

To better understand the modern domestic space, we gathered some of the most emblematic examples of residences and their floor plans.

Tadao Ando’s Liangzhu Village Cultural Art Centre Through the Lens of Zheng Shi

The historic Liangzhu Village in Hangzhou, China has a new monumental cultural center by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando. Opened in 2016, the building has become another popular cultural site in the village following the opening of David Chipperfield’s Liangzhu Museum a decade ago.

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How Luis Barragán Used Light to Make Us See Color

In Luis Barragán’s poetic imagination color plays as significant a role as dimension or space. Rough textures and water reflections heighten the impact of bright sunlight in his colorful buildings. But where does such vibrancy come from and how is it heightened by the architecture itself?

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The Architecture Behind a Brave Racoon's Viral Skyscraper Climb

This article was originally published by Metropolis Magazine as "SOM Explains Exactly How a Raccoon Scaled Its St. Paul Skyscraper."

After completing Town Square, a mixed-use, double-tower complex in the heart of St. Paul, Minnesota in 1980, the late architect Donald Smith of SOM told Architectural Record magazine, “We must reorient our attention to the center [of] cities to save them.”

Smith’s words were prophetic, it turns out, but not in the way he may have expected.

Last month, Town Square—now known as UBS Plaza—captured the attention of the globe as a scraggly, wayward raccoon climbed up its southern tower’s 25 stories.

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Why Stadiums Made of Wood Could Be the Next Big Innovation in Sports Architecture

This article was originally published by Autodesk's Redshift publication as "Could Modular Wood Stadium Construction Be a Game Changer?"

Imagine a sports stadium that could expand and contract with its fan base and team’s fortunes, one that could pick up and move to greener (and more lucrative) pastures.

Given team owners’ history of playing fans against each other, making stadiums more mobile isn’t likely to give pennant-wavers a sense of security, but the concept is an incredible breakthrough for building technology. Endlessly modular and made of ultralow-impact mass timber, this vision of low-carbon construction, conceived by engineered-wood manufacturer Rubner Holzbau and prefabricated stadium designer Bear Stadiums, could soon materialize at a soccer pitch near you.

This Retractable Bamboo Yurt Can Be Easily Transported and Installed

Tradition and innovation. Those are the two pillars within which Bamboo U's workshop’s creative pendulum strives to swing. Following the practice of ancient Mongolian yurts, participants of Bamboo U, a build and design course in Bali, have created a bamboo yurt which can fold like an umbrella and can be deployed in an instant. Under the guidance of the German master-builder Jörg Stamm, students built the first retractable yurt prototype in Bali during Bamboo U’s last edition in April.

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