Quickly create custom objects and building elements and explore design options — without writing code or script — with PARAM-O, a built-in parametric design tool for Archicad users available on both macOS and Windows.

A guide on on how to create contemporary interiors with Archicad's improved Object Library.

It is difficult to find someone who has never dreamed of building or having a tree house to call their own. The idea of a refuge, a space fully integrated with nature and with a privileged view, pleases almost all ages. There are examples of tree houses of all scales and complexities, from small elevated platforms to highly complex structures, including electrical and hydraulic installations. Some sites specializing in the topic (yes, that exists!), offer valuable tips for building these dreams. In general, they subscribe to the motto: "Choose your tree, make your project, but be ready to adapt it!"

Grimshaw has just revealed initial concepts of the new 21,000 square-foot arts complex for Santa Monica College (SMC) in Santa Monica, California. Scheduled for completion in 2024, the building is planned as a “factory of creativity”, replacing an existing surface car park and serving as a new western gateway for the college.

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The parking house, entitled Parking House + Konditaget Lüders, has just won the international design award Danish Design Award 2020 in the category of “Liveable Cities”. Designed by JAJA Architects, the intervention refurbished the roof of a parking house into living urban space with sports and play equipment.

Dutch design practice Mecanoo has unveiled a proposal for a new wing of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Taking aim at the structure's back of house and organization, the project is made to create clear circulation and connections throughout. In addition, the project is part of a larger renovation of the existing Museum Garden as it bring together the wings of the architects Van der Steur and Bodon as part of the collection.

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“Architecture for Landscape” was created on these premises: it aims to train designers to meet the diverse needs of transforming territories. The course encourages an attentive and productive dialogue with the surrounding landscape to respond to the needs of clients' unique contexts. Via a thorough analysis of the natural world, light and geomorphological terrain features, the designers will become increasingly able to reconnect human design to the natural environment. In becoming inspired by the landscape, they can design outstanding, sustainable and impressive architecture.

There is a slide I like to show at the beginning of the architecture courses I teach that provides an overview of the last hundred years or so in design and technology. In the left column, a car from the beginning of the 20th Century (a Ford Model T) is poised over a contemporary car (a Tesla). The middle column contains a similar juxtaposition, showing a WWI-era biplane and a modern-day stealth fighter (an F-117A). In the right column, Walter Gropius’s 1926 Bauhaus Dessau building is seen next to an up-to-date urban mixed-use building. The punch line, of course, is that the two buildings—separated by roughly 100 years—look basically the same, whereas the cars and planes separated by the same timespan seem worlds apart. What is the reason for this?

There are a plethora of benefits associated with urban green spaces, namely pollution control, temperature regulation, and biodiversity--all of which ultimately add to the quality of life of city dwellers. Like other urban common areas used for sports and recreational activities, green spaces have a direct impact on the health and well being of the residents who use them.

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Power Station of Art (PSA) has announced the curatorial team and theme for the 13th Shanghai Biennale, proposed by its Chief Curator, the architect and writer Andrés Jaque (Office for Political Innovation).

Herzog & de Meuron have created a new design for a supertall skyscraper in Toronto. If built as planned, the project would rise to 1,063 feet and become the tallest residential building in Canada. Working together with project architect Quadrangle, the team was commissioned by Dutch real estate development companies Kroonenberg Geoep and ProWinko to design the new landmark for Toronto.

A lightweight material par excellence, zinc is a non-ferrous metal that provides an effective solution for coating buildings exposed to adverse weather conditions, while simultaneously delivering a creative response to the requirements of a project.

When in contact with humidity during the summer, zinc panels generate a self-protecting layer that isolates heat from indoor spaces. Rain and snow slide easily over its surfaces, and its modular panels can wrap curved shapes or be perforated according to the architectural design, and combined in facades and/or ceilings through different shades, brightness, and colors.

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Throughout history, people from all walks of life with little in common have found ways to unite in neighborhood parks and filled stadiums to put those differences aside for the sake of the sports they love. Sports, and sports fandom, is a source of global unity, and perhaps fewer events in the world can generate such a wide range of emotions quite like a live match.

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

New York City: locked down, empty. It was heartbreaking, of course, but it was also beautiful. For artist Edgar Jerins, that revelation was something of a surprise. Who knew this bustling, chaotic, dirty, vibrant, profane, amazing city could look so … gorgeous when stripped of people and activity? For years, Jerins rode the subway to his studio near Times Square. When news of the spreading pandemic first surfaced—more as a vague, undefined threat, initially—he fled out of fear to the bus, and then, after the severity of the event became apparent and the lockdown began, he borrowed his daughter’s bicycle.

David Rockwell and his team at Rockwell Group proposed an open streets initiative, a template for outdoor dining, in order to help bars and restaurants reopen post-pandemic. The design strategies illustrate practical solutions to make everyone feel safe.

The London Design Biennale and Chatham House announced a new call for designers to address issues of crisis around the world. Called Design Resonance in an Age of Crisis, the initiative aims for radical design solutions to critical problems across four key areas: Health, Environment, Society, and Work. The announcement follows the news that the Biennale has been postponed until 2021.

While first developed as a practical power source during the 1950s, solar systems were too expensive for mainstream use until the 1970s. Starting from their early use to power Cold War era military satellites, silicon photovoltaic solar cells achieved their first commercial success in places where electricity was not available, such as lighthouses and off-shore oil rigs. 

The total amount of water on our planet has, theoretically, stayed the same since earth's formation. It's possible that the glass of water you drank earlier contains particles that once ran down the Ganges River, passed through the digestive system of a dinosaur, or even cooled a nuclear reactor. Of course, before it quenched your thirst, this water evaporated and fell as rain millions of times. Water can be polluted or misused, but never created or destroyed. According to a UNESCO study, it is estimated that the Earth contains about 1386 million cubic kilometers of water. However, 97.5% of this amount is saline water and only 2.5% is fresh water. Of this fresh water, most (68.7%) takes the form of permanent ice and snow in Antarctica, the Arctic, and in mountainous regions. Another 29.9% exists as groundwater. Ultimately, only 0.26% of the total amount of fresh water on Earth is available in lakes, reservoirs, and watersheds, where it is easily accessible for the world's economic and vital needs. With the population steadily increasing, especially in urban areas, several countries have already had severe problems with providing the necessary amount of drinking water to their populations.

The Covid-19 pandemic has transformed the way we live our lives. Significant and long-lasting repercussions will be felt across society and industry, many of which are sure to influence the way we approach the design of our buildings and cities. Over the past few weeks, the Urban Design team at Foster + Partners has been exploring how recent and fast moving developments in urban planning – instigated and encouraged by the current crisis – will affect and shape the future of London and others worldwide.

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How does architecture contribute to the current climate crisis? 

We invited our readers to weigh in on this issue and were overwhelmed by the number of responses that we got. After reading through and compiling the replies from industry professionals, architectural students, and architecture aficionados, we were struck by a common theme: there are few resources when it comes to researching how materials and products used in construction are sourced and produced. 

Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) has just received planning consent for Lucan Place in Chelsea, a mixed-use project that provides new homes, nursery, and specialist educational accommodation. The project, a redevelopment of the site of the former Chelsea Police Station, will generate a total of 31 new homes, as well as social and community functions.