Learn how to make cinema-like video renderings with Lumion animation tools

Videos

Quebec Wood Export Bureau is adding another tool to your arsenal: a free BIM plugin on Revit. With the help of its wood-producing members, the nonprofit group has stepped into the free software world to put a growing suite of structural wood system components at architects’ fingertips.

Chicago architecture is empty without Chicago architectural journalism. From the 1880s launch of the black-and-white publication Inland Architect, which covered the rebuilding after the Great Chicago Fire, to a 1985 critique of the James R. Thompson Center by Paul Gapp in the Chicago Tribune titled “Masterpiece or Ego Trip?” which set the course for the public reception of the building, coverage, and criticism of architecture in local newspapers and architecture publications has provided a critical link to how Chicago maintains its reputation as a city of extraordinary architecture. Architectural criticism and journalism have and continue to help Chicago understand how we arrived at this built environment and what the future holds.

Videos

The Second Studio (formerly The Midnight Charette) is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features different creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions.

A variety of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes are interviews, while others are tips for fellow designers, reviews of buildings and other projects, or casual explorations of everyday life and design. The Second Studio is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.

This week David and Marina are joined by architect Stanley Saitowitz to discuss his design philosophy, office, upbringing in South Africa, and education and how he ended up in San Francisco, why the practice of architecture is much more challenging today, how architecture relates to cities, and more. Enjoy!

Videos

Ever wondered (or forgotten) the difference between open plans and free plans? In this video, architectural designer and professor Stewart Hicks breaks down what makes Open Plans a unique form of ‘open concept.’ It is part of a series that explores terms from real estate using contemporary, historical, and theoretical examples from architecture. In this case, the spatial strategies of Mies van der Rohe are explained, beginning with his early unbuilt houses, through the Barcelona Pavilion, to the Farnsworth House. Each one features a particular, but evolving, use of walls, columns, and roof planes that add up to what we call ‘Open Plans.’ Other videos in the series are dedicated to things like Free or Organic Plans and can help anyone sharpen their understanding of architectural concepts.

Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS + R) and Stefano Boeri Architetti have won the international architectural competition for the renovation of Pirelli 39 in Milan. Launched on 25 November 2019, the contest organized by COIMA SGR and the municipality of Milan, gathered 70 submissions made up of 359 studios from 15 countries.

The World Architecture Festival has announced the winners of the Architecture Drawing Prize 2020. Entries were chosen in the Digital, Hand-drawn and Hybrid categories. The contest included 165 entries from 30 countries, and the 2020 competition also introduced the ‘Lockdown Prize’ focusing on the global pandemic, awarded to a drawing related to the architectural changes brought by the coronavirus.

Videos

Launched by the Goethe Institut, Habiter Dakar (Living in Dakar) is a virtual exhibition tackling Housing in the Senegalese capital. The study was led by Nzinga Mboup and Caroline Geffriaud, both Architects based in Dakar. They noticed that the current housing offer in the city was particularly far off the needs of its inhabitants, whether on the cultural, societal or environmental level.

The architects analyzed the progression through which the Senegalese capital's Urban Landscape and Housing development had passed, starting from the traditional compound living type to today’s international housing models which seem to be disconnected from the daily reality of most of the city’s inhabitants. The study is concentrated on Housing which is an essential part of the formation and evolution of Dakar and suggests important theoretical and concrete reflections for the future development of the African metropolis.

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Currently, specialized technical skills in the use of BIM methodology are in high demand, especially in the field of architecture. Even during the pandemic, job offers in this area have remained relatively stable, especially due to the flexibility of this methodology and the possibility of working collaboratively from remote locations. However, when looking for a new job, those interested in BIM should consider several questions: What am I specialized in? What areas are in highest demand? What type of professional BIM role is the most common?

The Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, France, known also as Beaubourg, is set to undergo major renovation works. Designed in the 1970s by architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, and inaugurated in 1977, one of the capital’s leading cultural attractions is scheduled to be closed completely as of the end of 2023 until 2027. Showing signs of aging, especially when it comes to the heating and cooling system, escalators and elevator malfunctions, and asbestos that must be removed, this is not the inside-out museum's first revamp, in fact, it was closed down once before in 1997, during its 20th anniversary, for a couple of years.

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Videos

Jennifer Luce, principal and founder of LUCE et Studio Architects has shared her vision for the Mingei International Museum renovation in San Diego. The design is featured in a video by Jeff Durkin of Breadtruck Films. The Mingei is a nonprofit that collects, conserves and exhibits folk art, craft, and design objects in Balboa Park. During the building’s centennial, a $55 million campaign began to renovate the structure.

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Educational architecture is crucial for creating spaces that, not only nurture and mold the minds of the future generations, but also provide spaces for the wider public to come and share knowledge and ideas. 

Heatherwick Studio has shared plans for a pair of residential towers in Vancouver, Canada. The "curvaceous" skyscrapers were designed for Kingswood Properties and Bosa Properties in the city's West End neighborhood. Inspired by tree-like forms, the towers aspire to create a "new level of global design excellence" that emerges from a ground level plaza. The two towers would rise between 30 and 34 stories tall in height, and would feature views across the city and Vancouver Harbor.

Videos

In our increasingly urbanized world, everything and everyone has adopted a lifestyle of nomadism. New environmental and social constraints have forced people to have a constant "on-the-go" behavior, so much so that almost everything has acquired wheels, even the buildings. But with the rise of debates like "is humankind being replaced by robots?" and "is technology taking over?", urban mobility has helped give access to housing, healthcare, and education in places with extreme difficult conditions.

To shed the light on globally-thriving mobile activities, the France-based Institut pour Ville en Mouvement, or City on the Move Institute, is an organization that has been addressing the challenges posed by urban mobility and contributing to the emergence of innovative solutions. In a series of short Youtube clips, the organization invited experts in the fields of architecture, urban planning, and technology to share their insights on the future of urban mobility.

2020 was a challenging year for ArchDaily and for all of us. The changes and uncertainty that emerged around the globe allowed us to double down on our mission to provide information, knowledge, and tools to architects, leveling the access to architectural knowledge and working towards a more diverse, equitable profession. This includes the importance of building a community, for which the Building of the Year Awards has always been one of our flagship community-led initiatives.

This is why for the 12th consecutive year, we are tasking our readers with the responsibility of recognizing and rewarding the projects that are making an impact in architecture and in our built environment, with ArchDaily’s 2021 Building of the Year Awards. By voting, you are part of an unbiased, distributed network of jurors and peers that has elevated the most relevant projects over the past decade. Over the next two weeks, your collective intelligence will filter over 4,500 projects down to just 15 stand-outs for the best in each category on ArchDaily.

The 2021 Building of the Year Awards is brought to you thanks to Dornbracht, renowned for leading designs for architecture, which can be found internationally in bathrooms and kitchens.

Skyler Dahan, an LA-based photographer, has captured Frank Lloyd Wright's Civic Center, in Marin County. Shot on Kodak Portra film with a Contax 645 medium format camera, the series of images highlight Frank Lloyd Wright's latest commission. Serving as a justice hall, the project was actually completed by Wright's protégé Aaron Green after the architect’s death.

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Architecture practice Bey Arquitectura has shared details of the firm's Punta Cana Bey Garden project in the Dominican Republic. The 28 loft-type villas were designed to connect with the surrounding natural context and support the implementation of renewable energy. Located in the heart of Bávaro, the project is sited near shopping malls, restaurants, schools, the Punta Cana Airport and the beach.

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It’s a given that the coronavirus pandemic has had wide-ranging impacts on construction projects large and small over the past 10 months. So, what about the construction of new buildings that share the defining characteristic of being superlatively tall?

As detailed in an annual report published earlier this month by the Chicago-headquartered Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), newly completed skyscrapers experienced a global decline of 20 percent in 2020 compared to the previous year due, both directly and indirectly, to the COVID-19 crisis.

The Nordic Pavilion at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale will be transformed into an experimental cohousing project by architects Helen & Hard, supported by a curatorial team from the National Museum of Norway. Responding to the theme of How will we live together? the intervention “will present a framework for designing and building communities based on participation and sharing”.

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