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Where rivers, reservoirs, and rainfall can no longer be relied upon consistently, water is increasingly being sought in the atmosphere. Fog, atmospheric humidity, and condensation each offer different ways of collecting it. When architecture begins to collect water from the air, surfaces, structures, and open spaces become part of the water system.

According to UNICEF, Jordan's National Water Strategy estimates that each person has access to only about 61 cubic meters of renewable water per year, far below the 500 cubic meters commonly used as a threshold for absolute water scarcity. Around half of the population receives piped water only once a week, while groundwater is being extracted faster than many aquifers can naturally recharge.

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What happens to the space beneath a roof? In many houses, the answer is simple: it becomes an attic, a storage space, or a largely unused volume between the upper floor and the roof. Yet the same space can become a bedroom, home office, playroom, or additional living area if the roof and the room beneath it are considered together.

This potential matters in both existing buildings and residential architecture. Converting an attic can add usable space without extending the building's footprint, while designing a new house with a usable roof space in mind can make it more adaptable over time. The question is therefore not only how to convert an attic, but how to recognize the architectural potential of underused space created by a sloped roof.

This week, questions about housing, safety, and the future of cities came into focus, from the impact of natural hazards to architecture's role in shaping more inclusive urban environments. The International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, observed on October 13 under the theme "Resilience Starts at Home," highlighted these questions just days after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck Panama, damaging buildings and prompting evacuations nationwide. Beyond disaster preparedness, the week's developments also reflect broader efforts to address housing needs, give existing buildings new purposes, and create spaces that support education, culture, and public life.

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Portuguese architecture and urbanism practice OODA has released new images of an urban design project in Prague, Czech Republic. The design transforms an existing building block into a permeable site with municipal social housing, commercial units, and a landscaped central plaza. The project, titled Kodaňská 1441, prioritizes walkability, green mobility and public space. In addition to opening new connections between the existing building and the urban fabric, it includes a landscape and water management system that increases the permeable surfaces of the courtyard by 21.5%. The project is an example of urban renewal that incorporates contemporary concerns such as communal spaces, a regulated relationship with public space, planted environments, and the sustainable use of natural resources.

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A bayou is a slow-moving body of water, typically a creek or river that winds through low, flat terrain in a broader wetland landscape. Found throughout the Gulf Coast, bayous are distinct from swamps, which contain forested wetlands characterized by standing water, and from marshes, where tall grasses and herbaceous plants grow in saturated soils. The currents of a bayou landscape support biodiverse ecosystems of plants, trees, insects, birds, and fish, while the shifting water levels, saturated ground, humid air, heavy rainfall, and long, hot summers create a blurry environment between land and water, wet and dry, interior and exterior.

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An architecture degree provides the foundations of the discipline, but the transition into professional practice often extends well beyond the classroom. Building experience, developing a portfolio, and navigating the realities of architectural offices are challenges that many graduates face in their first years of practice.

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Videos

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On paper, entering an architecture competition is one of the most challenging things an architecture student can do. What draws students to them is the chance to experiment, approaching a loosely defined program that leaves room to test unconventional ideas and unfamiliar tools outside the rhythm of the semester. That distance from assessment is a relatively recent development, as competitions were once central to architectural education.

At the École des Beaux-Arts, teaching was split between the atelier, where students developed projects under a practising architect, and the competition, where a jury of professors judged the students' work without having followed its development. This model was later brought to schools such as MIT, Penn, and Cornell by French-trained instructors. Over time, most schools held on to the atelier, which became the design studio, and pushed the competition to the edges of the curriculum.

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