Humans can survive for 30 days without eating, 3 days without drinking, yet only 3 minutes without breathing. Of course our need for air is also constant, we rely on it at all times indoors and outdoors although can often be less clean than we would hope. Unpleasant odors make us aware of bad air, but many irritants and unhealthy gases are not easily detectable by smell while still affecting our health. Smells are the most obvious signal, as they are consciously perceived by the brain and nervous system, allowing us to make judgements about our environment.
Learn more about where poor indoor air quality comes from, why it's important to address within the built environment, and how to design for good indoor air quality and comfort.
London-based architecture practice Feilden Fowles has won the international design competition to create the National RailwayMuseum’s new Central Hall. Beating 75 others to the commission, the team will transform the visitor’s experience and integrate a new exhibition gallery, by 2025, in time for the museum’s 50th anniversary.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown yet again how designers are needed to reimagine emergency shelters. With an estimated 900 million people around the world to remain at home because of the virus, there are also a number of hospitals without the necessary beds to treat infected patients. At the same time, the need for emergency shelters is tied to many types of crisis, not just this virus or a pandemic.
Courtesy of Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, University of Arkansas / Grafton Architects
Grafton Architects was selected as the winning firm to design the Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation at the University of Arkansas. In collaboration with Modus Studio for the planned campus design research center, the design on the project is scheduled to begin this summer.
With the aim of creating immersive environmental experiences in interior spaces, the design studio Aqua Creations has developed Manta Ray Light, a lighting installation built with responsive RGB LED technology that mixes the colors red, green, and blue to generate more than 16 million light tones. By presetting its color spectrum, offering a range of brightness settings on a scale of 0.1 to 100%, and even loading images and videos into its internal memory, the system allows its user to add color and movement to expressive spaces, or deliver a feeling of warmth and concentration to intimate and private rooms.
The year is 1985, you’re packing your briefcase to head to the office, where you’ll sit behind a desk to do some paperwork. Fast forward to 2020, and you’re having a conference call with the entire team from the coffee shop across the street. Relatively, not much has changed; work is still being completed by the end of the day, it’s just with a different scenery.
Employees nowadays are looking for something more than just a job behind a desk. They want to work in a dynamic, inspiring space that adds value to their knowledge and promotes their mental and physical well-being. But this wasn’t the case a century ago. Take a look at how offices evolved throughout the years, and what we can look forward to in the future.
Last year’s granting of the Mies van der Rohe Award to a social housing refurbishment project brought into the spotlight a topic of interest for many European cities: the moral and physical rehabilitation of post-war housing blocks.
Designed by OMA / Chris van Duijn, the Department Store Galleria in Gwanggyo, south of Seoul has just opened. The store’s sixth branch is located at the center of the relatively young and new urban development.
Courtesy of CURA/ CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati with Italo Rota
CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati with Italo Rota in collaboration with an international team of experts developed CURA (Connected Units for Respiratory Ailments), plug-in Intensive-Care Pods for the COVID-19 pandemic. An open-source design for emergency hospitals, the project’s first unit is currently under construction in Milan, Italy.
The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped urban life, and so too has it left many streets and buildings empty as people practice social distancing. From Times Square to the Place de la Concorde in Paris, photographers are capturing these "empty cities" in a defining moment across the globe. In turn, The New York Times recently published a piece dubbed "The Great Empty", showcasing a new side to urban life in these structures and streets. Now five photographers have been commissioned to photograph Rotterdam during the pandemic.
Introduced by Rudolf Steiner, Waldorf pedagogy draws on the principles of anthroposophical philosophy. One of the theory's foundational characteristics is its holistic approach to the human being: feelings, imagination, spirit, and intellect are considered unique to every individual, and thoughts, feelings, and actions are understood to always be linked.
Thus, the focus of the philosophy is to cultivate individuals who are capable of relating both to themselves and to society (inter and intrapersonal intelligence) - fundamental skills for overcoming the challenges of the 21st century. This kind of learning takes place in schools that follow Steiner's method, introducing families to the school environment and bringing them into the community. Below, we review the operations and implications of this pedagogy.
A glimpse of hope emerged from the endless loop of COVID-19 news this week when China announced the closure of their last temporary hospital in Wuhan due to their stabilization of the pandemic that has now taken the world by storm. Western countries have been enforcing more restrictive measures aiming to stop the spread of the virus, including mandating shelter-in-place orders and forcing any business deemed non-essential to close. Due to the quarantine and isolation politics imposed by the authorities around the globe, we asked you, our readers, how the coronavirus is affecting your daily life as architects and designers. These answers allowed us to compose an overall picture of the atmosphere established by the pandemic – and the way we are adapting to it.
Over 18,600 emerging professionals in the United States are currently studying for or taking the national licensing exam. Now the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) has updated their exam policies to protect the health and safety of test takers amid the COVID-19 pandemic. NCARB aims to continue monitoring the situation to update architects and emerging professionals.
The 20th century in the design world was a period of new ideology on building form, material explorations, and ultimately, the emergence of the modern architecture movement as we define it in the present day. The expression and experimentation of architects in this era resulted in interior spaces that are now considered to be “classics”, due to their relevance and their long lasting effects that they have on the architectural discourse.
Citizens of Earth is a conceptual proposal by Marc Thorpe Design for the city of Marfa in Texas. Located 20 miles outside of the city on the border of Mexico and the United States, the installation aims to “question the value of international borders within the context of the 21st century”.
Vincent Callebaut Architectures has imagined The Rainbow Tree, a modular mass timber condominium tower in Cebu City, Philippines. Revealing the cultural and natural Filipino heritage, the project, named after an iconic and colorful tree from the Philippines the Rainbow Eucalyptus, was entirely conceived in a way to reduce the carbon footprint of the building.
The recent success of Parasite, the award winning film directed by South Korean director Bong Joon Ho, has created a conversation around the emphasis of architecture and interior spaces in movies. This particular film does an excellent job of blurring the boundaries between the two disciplinary fields, to the point where the architecture is not just the background of the set, but it has been placed at the forefront of the storyline, and takes on the leading role in many scenes.
Hospitals and projects related to healthcare must follow specific guidelines based on the rules and regulations of their country. These standards help us to design complex spaces, such as those located in areas of surgery, hospitalization, diagnostics, laboratories, and including areas and circulations that are clean, dirty, restricted or public, which create a properly functioning building.
There are a few spaces that we, as architects, can develop with great ease and freedom of design: waiting rooms, reception areas, and outdoor spaces. These are spaces where architects can express the character of the hospital. To jump-start you into this process, we have selected 43 projects that show us how creativity and quality of a space go hand-in-hand with functionality.
If you don't like a specific musical style, the theater bores you, or you're not attracted to works of art, you can almost always avoid them. Architecture, however, is different. A poorly thought-out project will affect the lives of many people consistently and for a long time. With interiors, this effect is even more amplified. Humanity is spending more and more time indoors, which directly impacts our well-being and health. In periods of compulsory retirement, as in the current pandemic of Covid-19, we gain a sense of how important interior spaces are for our well-being and even for the prevention of diseases. Designing an indoor environment is a huge responsibility for a professional. An interior designer must plan, research, coordinate, and manage these projects to obtain an adequately healthy and aesthetically pleasing environment for the people who use the space. But what, in fact, is interior design?
MVRDV’ s entry, Shenzhen Terraces, has been selected from 27 projects as the winner in a competition to design a 101,300-square-metre mixed-use Shimao ShenKong International Center. The multi-level urban living room is located in Universiade New Town, Longgang District, Shenzhen, China.
Outdoor space, whether large or small, deck, porch or patio, is increasingly becoming the place to fully enjoy the seasons, almost an extension of the indoor space and, no matter what you call it, worthy of the same careful design consideration. Outdoor furnishings, which have reached new heights in terms of performance and durability, have achieved the perfect blend of elegance and comfort. The challenge can lie in choosing just which furniture is the best fit for your outdoor space.
Flexform, a company with decades of experience in manufacturing high-end furniture, is now launching an outdoor collection that includes seating systems, sofas, armchairs, tables, chairs, and many accessories. The line features pieces from designers with whom Flexform has a history of collaborating, including Antonio Citterio, and outdoor reinterpretations of products designed by Mario Asnago and Claudio Vender. Continue reading for a quick guide of possible factors for consideration when furnishing an exterior space, with examples from the Flexform outdoor collection.
The Future Homes Project has announced a new residential design competition with a $500,000 prize pool. Organized by the Victorian government, the competition aims to produce better apartment designs that are sustainable and promote livability. The projects should demonstrate how great design can improve the quality of new homes and successfully integrate with existing neighborhoods.
In 2018, the UN released an article stating that 55% of the world’s population already lived in urban areas, predicting that by 2050 this percentage would reach 68%. This trend toward greater urbanization carries with it several implications regarding environmental degradation and social inequality. According to National Geographic, urban growth increases air pollution, endangers animal populations, promotes the loss of urban tree cover, and heightens the likelihood of environmental catastrophes such as flash flooding. These health hazards and catastrophic phenomena may be more likely to impact poorer populations, as larger cities tend to demonstrate higher rates of economic inequality and uncontrolled growth tends to produce unequal distributions of space, services, and opportunities.
To mitigate these negative effects of urbanization, designers are increasingly prioritizing sustainability and the maximization of available space – allowing more people to occupy less space with a smaller footprint.
The first episode of Practice, a new series of documentaries about the process of architecture, takes an in-depth look into the design thinking of Invisible Studio's founder, Piers Taylor. The short film follows the architect as he builds a small cabin, alternating visually compelling imagery with pieces of conversation about his early years in the profession and the beginning of Invisible Studio. Taylor also shares his thoughts about building with volunteers and working with wood. The rhythm, the sound design (created by Simon James) and the cinematic quality of the film make of the short documentary an immersive experience.
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