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.

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Videos

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.

North Korea is a country known for it’s rising nuclear tensions, extreme militaristic showboating, and draconian views of human rights. As one of the few remaining places on earth that is almost entirely shut off from the rest of the world, little is known about day to day life in the communist state. But for a nation that is so heavily shrouded in mystery and uncertainty, the efforts of their architectural bravado provide some insight into how their regime operates.

Videos

Buildings show normally slow responses to current social issues. However, in the case of the Coronavirus, dynamic media facades have started to send messages of empathy to the citizens of Wuhan. At first, the Chinese government used screens covering complete buildings to create powerful images of hope and solidarity. Later, some countries like the United Arab Emirates joined this effort while a majority of countries has not followed so far.

The developers of Design District have released new visuals of the future creative hub at the heart of Greenwich Peninsula. Designed by a collective of eight well-renowned architectural studios, and with landscaping by Schulze+Grassov, the project aims to gather together startups, artists and entrepreneurs across many industries, generating a new creative neighbourhood for London.

Known as “the architect of Detroit,” Albert Kahn (March 21, 1869 – December 8, 1942) was one of the most prolific architects in US history, with over 60 buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In a career spanning 50 years, Kahn’s body of work contained building types ranging from housing complexes to office buildings to aquariums and styles encompassing Beaux Arts, Georgian and Art Deco. Kahn’s factories for Ford and Packard Motors helped to establish the industrial aesthetic of Detroit and stood in contrast to the similarly inspired Bauhaus movement taking place in Germany.

The Coronavirus pandemic has been taking over the news for a few months now, and has imposed unimaginable changes on the daily lives of the world’s entire population. Although the situation is worrying, and rather devastating in some cases, being aware of the virus's behavior and understanding ways to avoid it seems to be the best way to deal with the crisis. COVID-19 is a respiratory disease that spreads through droplets in the air. What makes it especially dangerous is its high rate of contagion, as the virus has the ability to survive outside the human body, in the air, and on surfaces such as metal, glass and plastics, if they were not properly disinfected. But how does the virus behave on each of these materials? [Latest Update: July, 2020]

Mulher, Mujer, Woman, or simply MMW, is an online platform dedicated to architectural representations, whose objective is to spread the women's production within our professional field. Created by the Brazilian architects Carol Vasques and Débora Boniatti as a reaction to the still scarce diffusion of female references, the platform seeks to "highlight the importance and relevance of women in the past, present and future of the profession."

IJP Architects and structural engineers AKT II unveil their concept design for a new 230m Dubai Creek Harbour Central Footbridge, after a 2019 competition. Commissioned by Emaar, the project will connect the soon to be world’s tallest tower, the Dubai Creek Tower and Dubai Creek Harbour.

With most of our lives spent indoors, the space we occupy has a major role in our psychological behavior. Environmental psychology or Space psychology is, in fact, the interaction between people and the spaces they inhabit. Lighting, colors, configuration, scale, proportions, acoustics, and materials address the senses of the individual and generate a spectrum of feelings and practices.

From inducing warmth and safety, defining well-being, or creating a positive and efficient working environment, space can have a whole lot of impact on how we act or on what we feel; therefore, design and creative measures should be considered according to the social and psychological needs of the occupants.

No one ever dies too late, but Vittorio Gregotti died too soon for some of his radical ideas to be fleshed out in form, and too soon for the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale of 2020, which has been postponed by the same pandemic that took him away last week, to say thank you.

Architecture owes a lot to Gregotti.

Commissioned by real estate developer Euroboden, Kolberger 5 is a contemporary take on the historical typology of Munich’s Stadtpalais. Designed by David Chipperfield Architects and Studio Mark Randel, the project featuring different size apartments is located at the entrance of historic Herzog Park.

Videos

Airbnb has launched a $1 million design fund to finance 10 “unconventional and unusual” homes. Looking for the “wildest home ideas”, the competition-based program is called the Unique Airbnb Fund and will be judged by actor Billy Porter, MVRDV partner Fokke Moerel, and Airbnb Superhost Kristie Wolfe. Each of the finalists will receive a grant to make their eccentric Airbnb design concepts a reality.

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It may sound like a silly rhyme, but it’s true: wood is good. As a construction material, wood is beautiful, practical, and versatile. The great strength, light weight, and excellent insulating properties of wood make it ideal for many applications, especially at a time when timber is delivering efficient solutions at different scales. Despite these benefits, wood is highly susceptible to decay, especially when used outdoors.

Users now can virtually visit museums all over the world thanks to Google Arts & Culture. The project offers 360 ° views of places that can often be inaccessible due to financial costs or distance.

Kengo Kuma Associates and K2LD Architects have won the competition to design the new Singapore Founders Memorial. Selected from 193 submissions, the project is made to honor Singapore’s first Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, as well as those leaders that played significant roles in the city-state’s path to independence. The jury unanimously selected the winning design for its response to the brief and site, emphasizing Singapore as a “City in a Garden” while allowing for future growth.

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SANAA’s recently completed social housing complex in Paris was captured by the Architecture and Photography studio of Vincent Hecht. Part of Paris habitat, France’s largest public utility social housing company, the project comprises four buildings accommodating more than 100 social housing units in total.

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Henning Larsen’s concept was selected as the winning design in the international competition for the redevelopment of Cockle Bay Park in central Sydney. The project, co-led by the GPT Group and AMP Capital was chosen from six shortlisted designs by UN Studio + Cox Architecture, Woods Bagot, Grimshaw, FJMT, and Wilkinson Eyre.

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At the apogee of the Roman Empire, its territory extended over more than five million square kilometers, between Europe, Asia, and Africa. Rome exercised power over a population of more than 70 million people, which equated to roughly 21% of the world population at the time. In fact, as we have already shown in another article, all roads led to the city of Rome. The great seat of the empire and the material and immaterial heritage left by it is immeasurable, and even today researchers seek to understand its full impact on the current world. From the beginning of its expansion in the 6th century BC until its fall in the year 476 AD, the legacy left by the Romans encompasses areas such as law, plastic arts, Latin (which originated many different languages), systems of government, and, importantly, architecture.