This article is part of "Eastern Bloc Architecture: 50 Buildings that Defined an Era", a collaborative series by The Calvert Journal and ArchDaily highlighting iconic architecture that had shaped the Eastern world. Every week both publications will be releasing a listing rounding up five Eastern Bloc projects of certain typology. Read on for your weekly dose: Trailblazing Churches and Controversial City Buildings.

The following text was drafted in response to the first prompt in AN’s “Post-Pandemic Potentials” series. Two previous responses, by Mario Carpo and Phil Bernstein, reflected on the mostly seamless transition of architectural education from physical to virtual settings. Read more about the series here.

Michel Foucault’s famous account of the plague described the partitioning of the medieval city, the confinement of its citizens, and the accounting for and distribution of resources. Those foundational actions, according to his thesis, led to the disciplining of people and institutional bodies in space and time. Similarly, the field of medicine, consolidated by the Flexner Report of 1910 (and followed soon after by the founding of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, or ACSA, in 1912), was further formalized in the aftermath of the 1918 influenza outbreak that exposed the need for greater surveillance and diagnostics required in epidemiology.

+ 16

Patios and gardens play a crucial role in a project's planning and layout. In some instances, they serve as organizing elements while in others, they improve the quality of life in a space by providing light, ventilation, and a connection to the outdoors while maintaining the privacy of the inhabitants. 

The World Architecture Festival just announced the launch of WAFVirtual from 30 November – 4 December 2020, where the worldwide architectural community can engage in a week of live content, special prizes, talks, panel discussions and networking opportunities with peers and our WAF partners. Registration will be free for architects and design professionals.

Architects are mobilizing their efforts, to help schools around the world reconsider their design in order to guarantee sustainability, emotional wellness, and physical health. CetraRuddy, Cooper Robertson, and WXY are amongst those proposing an increase in outdoor programming and a rearrangement of classrooms, for post-pandemic school design.

The architectural scene has been witnessing lately a growing focus on indoor/outdoor functions. Discover 3 different interventions from 3 different practices, tackling one common issue, and focusing on outdoor space as a major programming element.

+ 2

MVRDV has just unveiled the If Factory, a disused urban structure converted into a new 11.000 m2 creative building, containing a mixture of offices for the Urban Research Institute of China Vanke and offices for rent. Located in one of Shenzhen’s most historic districts, Nantou, the project is the largest proposed renovation in the city to date.

+ 8

The COVID-19 Pandemic is a disruptive moment for our world, and it’s poised to spur transformative shifts in design, from how we experience our homes and offices to the plans of our cities. The webcast series Design Disruption explores these shifts—and address issues like climate change, inequality, and the housing crisis— through chats with visionaries like architects, designers, planners and thinkers; putting forward creative solutions and reimagining the future of the built environment.

+ 1

Dominique Perrault’s proposal has won “the transformation and revival of industrial heritages” or the Hangang district urban design international competition, in Handan, China. Six teams from world-renowned architectural firms, including Coop Himmelb(l)au and UNStudio Team, were invited to participate in the contest and envision the future of the city, through their creative designs.

+ 11

SOM and Fender Katsalidis have won an international design competition for Central Place Sydney, a commercial development that will introduce new transformative public space and high-tech towers. Located in Sydney's Central Business District, Australia, the proposed project seeks to transform the western edge by introducing innovative buildings and public realm improvements.

The A’ Design Award is an international award whose aim is to provide designers, architects, and innovators from all architecture and design fields with a competitive platform to showcase their work and products to a global audience. Among the design world's many awards, the A' Design Award stands out for its exceptional scale and breadth; over the eleven years the Award has been given, more than 12,000 awards have been bestowed across 110 categories and 180 nationalities. This year's edition is now open for entries; designers can register their submissions here.

+ 17

During the next decade or so, our cities will expand at an inconceivable speed. According to the UN’s 2019 World Population Prospects, our planet by 2030 is expected to have 43 megacities —classified as those with more than 10 million inhabitants. Most megacities will be in developing countries. And by mid-century, almost 70 percent of the world’s population will be urbanised, with today’s rate at just over half. Moreover, 90 percent of the urban population growth is expected to happen in Africa and Asia.

The series of articles developed by Nikos A. Salingaros, David Brain, Andrés M. Duany, Michael W. Mehaffy and Ernesto Philibert-Petit researches the peculiarities of social housing in Latin America. This time, examples of strategies and planning in their construction are reviewed, such as the importance of collaborative social processes and the specific sequences of stages.

The UK government has released a document that proposes reforms in the planning system, such as speeding up the process of approvals for development. Entitled Planning for the Future, the report suggests “to streamline and modernize the planning process, bring a new focus to design and sustainability, improve the system of developer contributions to infrastructure, and ensure more land is available for development where it is needed”.

Design Core Detroit is launching the 10th annual Detroit Month of Design in September. The event will recognize Detroit’s designation as the first and only UNESCO City of Design in the United States, and will include more than 175 participants presenting over 65 events and special projects. The programming will explore design solutions to the challenges faced by Detroit and the global community since the start of 2020.

Charles Correa Foundation has recently released several snippets of ‘You & Your Neighbourhood’, Charles Correa’s 1955 Master Thesis at MIT, an animation film for which the architect was scriptwriter, animator, photographer and director. The thesis put forward the idea of a participatory process for the betterment of neighbourhoods, with a strong emphasis on creating a framework for improving urban conditions in a bottom-up approach.

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

Since the outbreak of Covid-19, I, like most of the world, have spent the last few months quarantined at home, perturbed and uncertain about the ramifications of it all. I will spare you my predictions for the Post-Pandemic Future of the African City (there’s presently no shortage of those), but instead, I want to offer up some observations about our current situation. As an African, my perspective is both unique to our continent and universal to everyone. It is, afterall, a global pandemic.