In the past, sustainability initiatives were coordinated by a few key sustainability-focused professionals in the office. These team members would take charge and corral the rest of the project collaborators in conference calls, emails chains, and boardroom meetings making sure building performance targets were discussed, decided, pursued, and implemented.

Present circumstance makes this process, which was not too efficient, very challenging to begin with. With that in mind, here are some tips from cove.tool and AEC leaders that have mastered remote work and the best ways to coordinate building performance while stuck at home.

In this article, we tap into how AI could be augmenting, changing design processes, and how architects and other professionals are responding and incorporating these technological advancements into their design work. What kind of innovation can AI bring to this industry, and what has been experimented with so far? This selection of projects can help form an opinion on the architectural application of AI.

One of the most boldly dissenting voices of our time, architectural and urban theorist Léon Krier (born 7 April 1946) has throughout his career rejected the commonly accepted practices of Modernist Urbanism, and helped to shape the ideals of the New Urbanism movement. Through his publications and city designs, Krier has changed the discourse of what makes a city successful and returned importance to the concept of community.

Over the past few decades, interior spaces have become increasingly open and versatile. From the thick walls and multiple subdivisions of Palladian villas, for example, to today's free-standing and multi-functional plans, architecture attempts to combat obsolescence by providing consistently efficient environments for everyday life, considering both present and future use. And while Palladio's old villas can still accommodate a wide variety of functions and lifestyles, re-adapting their use without changing an inch of their original design, today, flexibility seems to be the recipe for extending the useful life of buildings as far as possible.

How, then, can we design spaces neutral and flexible enough to adapt to the evolving human being, while still accomplishing the needs that each person requires today? An ancient element could help redefine the way we conceive and inhabit space: curtains.

Höweler + Yoon Architecture and Sasaki have announced the groundbreaking for new construction on 212 Stuart Street, in the historic Bay Village neighborhood in downtown Boston. The residential tower is a 19-story building containing 126 units with two townhouses and retail space on the ground level.

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On the 200th anniversary of Gregor Mendel’s birth, CHYBIK + KRISTOF will bring the historic St. Augustin Abbey greenhouse to life in Brno. As the location where the notorious scientist and father of modern genetics conducted his pioneering experiments, the greenhouse is located in the 14th-century Augustinian monastery’s gardens. After the original building was swept away by a storm in the 1870s, the team aims to return the significant site to Brno’s old city in 2022.

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YAC - Young Architects Competitions and Dartagnans launch Tree House Module, a competition of ideas aiming to design and realize a tree house system to sit amidst the oneiric French castles of Vibrac, Mothe Chandeniers, and Ebaupinay. A cash prize of € 15,000 (and the realization of the first-ranking project) will be awarded to the winners selected by an outstanding jury panel including Espen Surnevik, Matthew Johnson (DS+R), Giulio Rigoni (BIG), Tue Hesselberg Foged (Effekt Architects), Peter Pichler, and Patrick Lüth (Snøhetta).

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Nothing is more rational than using the wind, a natural, free, renewable and healthy resource, to improve the thermal comfort of our projects. The awareness of the finiteness of the resources and the demand for the reduction in the energy consumption has removed air-conditioning systems as the protagonist of any project. Architects and engineers are turning to this more passive system to improve thermal comfort. It is evident that there are extreme climates in which there is no escape, or else the use of artificial systems, but in a large part of the terrestrial surface it is possible to provide a pleasant flow of air through the environments by means of passive systems, especially if the actions are considered during the project stage.

This is a highly complex theme, but we have approached some of the concepts exemplifying them with built projects. A series of ventilation systems can help in the projects: natural cross ventilation, natural induced ventilation, chimney effect and evaporative cooling, which combined with the correct use of constructive elements allows improvement in thermal comfort and decrease in energy consumption.

With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing many architecture firms to quickly transition into a work from home, designers are having to discover new ways to work without everyone being in the same room. The casual conversations, overheard ideas, and site visits that were once an integral part of our jobs have been put on pause, and have left some architects wondering how everyone else is continuing project work.

The Midnight Charette is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by architectural designers David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features a variety of creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions. A wide array of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes provide useful tips for designers, while others are project reviews, interviews, or explorations of everyday life and design. The Midnight Charette is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.

This week David and Marina answer questions from listeners about finding a job when you're much older than your classmates, graduating from school without work experience, leaving architecture at the end of a Master's program, taking the CSE, and transferring schools because of IPAL. If you have any questions call or text the hotline at 213-222-6950.

“A House is a place (…) as physical as a set of feelings. (…) a home is a relation between materiality and mastery and imaginative processes, where the physical location and materiality and the feelings and ideas are united and influence each other, instead of being separated and distinct. (…) a house is a process of creation and comprehension of ways of living and belonging. A house is lived, as well as imagined. The meaning of house and the way it materially manifests itself, it´s something that is created and recreated in an unceasingly way through every day domestic tasks, which are themselves connected to the spacial imaginary of the house”¹

The sentence above is the starting-point of the current reflection, in an exercise that will mark meaningfully my approach to the way of projecting houses.

Since the recent COVID-19 quarantine restrictions were enforced, social media has been filled with images of employees working from home, students transitioning to home-school learning, and friends and family socializing via Skype calls and Zoom meetings. With the outpouring of tips for how to work from home, and how to keep a regular routine during these certain times, many people are questioning how to create a long term plan for online studio design instruction.

This article aims to provide some practical tips to schools and students around the globe based on our experience with online design studio teaching in our Master program at Tsinghua University’s School of Architecture since February.

Shift architecture urbanism developed micro-markets that can operate on a hyper-local scale during coronavirus shutdowns. The research elaborated on a scheme allowing traders to provide fresh food in a safe way to the self-quarantined inhabitants of the city. 

Addressing contextual severe healthcare problems, like the outbreak of infectious diseases or maternal mortality, MASS has helped in setting design strategies to mitigate and reduce critical medical concerns. With some projects operational, and others in the pipeline, the facilities imagined, tackle a wide range of complications.

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The Drawing Matter Trust has announced a new Drawing Matter Writing Prize for 2020. Over the next few months, Drawing Matter will be focused on encouraging writing about drawings for both architecture and design. The competition invites writers to consider what drawings reveal about the process of design, and the buildings or objects they represent. The hope is to make the prize an annual event.

As we successfully launched our 12th Building of the Year (BOTY) award earlier this year, we want to thank you for being part of our community for over 10 years. Together we have been growing and contributing to the architectural scene, aiming for a better world.

ArchDaily China is 5 years old this year. We have been introducing Chinese architecture to the world and bringing global architecture to our readers in China. We are an open platform that benefits global audiences, making the industry more inclusive and equal. While our database, mission, and focus develop, some traditions stay with us over the years, such as our flagship award series – the Building of the Year Awards. Now, we are proud to announce that BOTY's 4th Chinese edition celebrating the best architecture in the country, as chosen by you, the reader.

By nominating and voting, you form part of an interdependent, impartial, distributed network of jurors and peers that has consistently helped us celebrate architecture of every scale, purpose, and condition, from large and small countries, and architects of all profiles. Over the coming weeks, your votes will result in 600 Chinese projects filtered down to just 10 best projects in China.

Read below for more details on how to submit, and thank you for helping us continue to democratize architectural excellence across the world.

UNStudio completed two remodel projects in the Netherlands rethinking traditional glazing techniques. Located in Eindhoven and on the P.C Hooftstraat in Amsterdam, the projects each draw from their context and take inspiration from local history and culture. Made to restore and connect the two existing structures to their respective cityscapes, the projects are designed to restore the urban fabric as they connect to passerby.

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Design and the City is a podcast by reSITE, raising questions and proposing solutions for the city of the future. In the final episode, Ravi Naidoo from Design Indaba discusses the purpose of design. Aiming to define the field, the founder of Interactive Africa, a company based in Cape Town, and the design platform Design Indaba shares his personal thoughts on empowering people to create a better future through creativity.

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As New York is facing unprecedented circumstances and as the numbers of infected people with the coronavirus are reaching new highs, officials are seeking fast and efficient solutions to generate useful spaces for patients. With a timeline of a few weeks, the city is looking into ways of altering the existing structures.

World Architecture Festival and World Festival of Interiors: Inside is scheduled for 2 – 4 December, in Lisbon.  Preparations for the event are going ahead in the typical way and architects from across the globe are continuing to submit their online awards entries.