Of all the critiques of this year’s Biennale, there was one that was particularly hard to miss: “This event is an expensive danse macabre. In truth it is all hollow, arduous, exhausting, bleak and boring. It is no longer about lively discussion and criticism of topics in contemporary architecture, but rather about empty, conservative charged with feigned meaning.”

Coop Himmelb(l)au’s Wolf D. Prix came under fire for this attack (especially when it was realized he didn’t even set foot at this year’s Biennale). And yet, had he written this critique for any other Biennale, he wouldn’t have been so far off. The Biennale is, after all, an expensive affair of prosecco-filled parties and, often, inaccessibly esoteric exhibits.

Prix hedged his bets that this Biennale, with its fluffy-sounding name, “Common Ground,” would be just like its precedents. Unluckily for Prix, it wasn’t. In fact, it was probably the most politically-engaged Biennale yet. But its Gold Lion winners, including an informal settlement and post-Tsunami shelters, have made some architects ponder what has never been pondered of a Biennale before:

Was this year’s Biennale too political, after all?

The Recession has provoked a variety of responses – disillusionment, frustration, woe. For those not inclined to wallow, however, it has also provided ample time to reflect on (and, if you’re Manuel Ocaña, rip apart) pre-Recession society.

In our Recessionary Interviews, we talk to architects living and working where the Crisis has hit hardest. Last week, we spoke with architect Luis Pedra Silva, who offered us a realistic, and yet optimistic, take on the state of architecture in Portugal.

This week, on the other hand, we bring you an outlook more incendiary than optimistic. Manuel Ocaña, the controversial Spanish architect behind the Manuel Ocaña Architecture and Thought Production Office, is far from impressed with how his home country has handled its economic boom and bust. “Spain,” he says, “used to be a sexy, fit and energetic country. Envy, inferiority complexes, greed, arrogance and pride soaked it in fat. It is currently suffering from moral obesity.”

More on Manuel Ocaña’s take on Spain, including why Spanish architects are no better off than Vampires (or, worse still, MacDonalds employees), after the break…

It’s official. The iPhone 5 will be unveiled on September 12th. While we all anxiously await to find out what it will be like (rumors include a longer screen, two tone color, and redesigned earbuds) - we at ArchDaily are wondering what it will mean for Architects around the world.

Politicians caught on camera say the darndest things. Like – if you’re Esperanza Aguirre, President of Madrid – that architects “should be killed.”

The Politician was unknowingly recorded while speaking with the Mayor of Valdemaqueda, a municipality of Madrid, about their town hall. The building, known as Casa Consistorial de Valdemaqueda (1998), designed by Paredes Pedrosa, was an award-winner at the Spanish Biennale of 1999. Their conversation (translated by yours truly) went as follows:

Mayor: The town hall? Oh, that thing. Well, it’s gotten prizes, president. Architecture prizes.

Esperanza Aguirre: That’s the only positive thing that’s come from the Crisis, that that’s all over. I have never seen anything uglier.

Mayor: You don’t like it?

Esperanza Aguirre: How could I like it, hidden at the end of a plaza like this!

Mayor: Well, because they’re the architects of the Community.

Esperanza Aguirre: Well, they should be killed.

Mayor: They’ve gotten awards.

Esperanza Aguirre: Mario, it’s so stupid (addressing a person next to her). Do you know why we should have the death penalty? I dislike architects because their crimes last longer than their own own lives. They die and leave us with this.

Find out what Ms. Aguirre has had to say for herself since, and take a peek at the original video footage after the break …

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A few months ago, in a little Bavarian town, far far away, an architect, by the name of Peter Zumthor (you may have heard of him), was asked to design a gate. Zumthor designed a transcendent, transparent structure, and unveiled it to the town. Upon seeing the marvel, the townspeople said it looked like a pair of “Glass Underpants.” And there our story ends.

Your first instinct may be to blame those uncouth Bavarians. But, like Jody Brown did in an excellent blog post, you could also fault Zumthor. Zumthor couldn’t “sell” his gate, because, like many an architect, he speaks “architect,” not “human.”

Roman Mars, on the other hand, is fluent in both. A population geneticist who went to college at age 15, Mars jumped off the science boat to follow his passion: radio. His show on architecture and design, 99% invisible, has become a sleeper hit, earning over $170,000 in a record-breaking Kickstarter campaign.

Its popularity comes down to its story-driven approach, which opens your eyes to the 99% of our reality that goes un-noticed: a building’s unknown history, a detail’s un-obvious purpose, a place’s hidden treasures. Through its stories, 99% invisible lives in the place where the “human” and the “architect” meet.

And, be you architect or nay, it hooks you from the start.

Read our exclusive interview with 99% invisible Producer, Roman Mars, after the break…

In his Op-Ed for The New York Times, called “Architecture and the Lost Art of Drawing,” American architecture legend Michael Graves laments the loss of drawing in our computer-dependent age. While Graves realizes the usefulness of computer technology to present a final product, he maintains that the act of sketching (particularly those first, fleeting “referential sketches”) is vital to the process of design:

When Pritzker-Prize Winner Eduardo Souta de Moura faces unemployment in his own home country, you know things must be bad.

Due to the dissolution of its Parliament in 2005, Portugal has been in economic slow-down even before the 2008 global Recession set in. Factor in the Recession, and Portugal’s staggeringly weak economy rivals even Spain’s, making Portugal – along with Greece and Ireland – one of the EU’s “crisis countries.”

For the first of our “Recessionary Interviews,” we spoke with Portuguese architect Luis Pedra Silva, of Pedra Silva Architects, who gave us a first-hand account of the situation, the Darwinian mindset he’s been forced to adopt, and his (he’ll admit) stubbornly optimistic belief that Portuguese architecture, which boasts a particularly plucky history, will survive this crisis to the end.

Read the Complete Interview with Luis Pedra Silva, after the break…

Hot on the heels of the Jencks Award, yet another accolade is rumored to be coming Rem Koolhaas‘ way. The claims are flying about the twitterverse: OMA’s Koolhaas will be the next Director of the Venice Biennale.

The Recession’s ripples have reached far. We, in the midst of a veritable architecture meltdown, can attest to that. But even our situation can’t compare to Spain’s, a country where “the mother of all housing bubbles” meant the Recession didn’t just land – it tsunami-ed onto her shores.

The metaphor may seem overblown, but it’s not so far off. Spain, a country that once stuffed its cities with show-stopping cultural centers, airports, and municipal buildings, has been shocked still.The new Spain is populated with empty high-rises, half-finished “starchitecture,” and plans gathering dust. A quarter of its architects are out of work and about one half of its studios have closed their doors.

Spain, once a beacon for architects across the globe, has hit a standstill.  For the first time in decades, thousands of architects are fleeing its shores. So what does this mean for architecture in Spain – and the world? Has the Recession signified the end of an era? Has the torch of architectural innovation been passed?

In a word? Yes.

Exclusive insight from some of Spain and Portugal’s acclaimed architects, after the break…

99% Invisible is, by far, our favorite radio show on architecture and design. Although, granted, there aren’t that many. As Roman Mars, the show’s host and producer, admits: ”since these are disciplines usually appreciated through the eye, you might be thinking: well, that’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard. Fair enough. It turns out , I don’t need pictures to talk about design, I like making stories that tell us about who we are through the lens of the things we build.”

Despite being an auditory medium (and a low-budget project, sponsored by KALW and AIA San Francisco, but produced in Mars’ garage), the show works because it gets to the heart of any design project: its story.

Well, it turns out we’re not the only ones into Mars’ quirky approach (Aside: if you are too, stay tuned, we’ll be interviewing him for our Disruptive Minds series next week). After launching a modest Kickstarter campaign to help offset costs, a goal promptly smashed in 24 hours, Mars upped the ante. But not to a price tag. Rather, he wanted a show of support. 5,000 backers.

The results for this little-show-that-could were nothing short of extraordinary.

Read More about 99% Invisible’s Kickstarter Campaign, including the very cool design prizes that went with it, after the break…

Everyday, Americans all over the country go to work. They get in their cars, arrive at the office, and sit inside. Then, they go home, maybe watch some TV, and go to bed. 5 days a week. About 50 weeks a year.

Our built environment is where we now spend about 90% of our time. Unluckily for us, however, a recent Forbes article suggests that, most of the time, indoor air quality is actually worse than outdoor, to the point where it’s potentially hazardous: “paint, carpet, countertops, dry wall, you name it and chances are it’s got some sort of toxic ingredient.”

And yet we have little way of knowing just how bad our building’s “ingredients” are for us. Until now.

Perkins+Will has been busy making lists of harmful substances, and their side effects, found in commonly used building materials. Just last week, they released a report tackling one such “toxin”: asthmagens, affecting over 23 million Americans (including 7.1. million children).

The forward-thinking firm is on the cutting-edge of a movement, instigated by clients and fast taking over the architecture world – towards “healthy” buildings (inside and out).

Read more about Perkins+Will’s revolutionary Transparency Project, after the break…

As we reported last month, one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s more unusual architectural specimens, the David Wright House (designed for his son), is in imminent risk of demolition by developers.

While any Frank Lloyd Wright deserves to be preserved in our opinion, this quirky house, which Neil Levine, architectural historian and Harvard professor, went so far as to describe as “one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most innovative, unusual and personal works of architecture” offers us an important glimpse into Wright’s development. Because of its circular spiral plan (completed six years before the Guggenheim), concrete-block detailing, and interior design, the house was (and still is) considered to be one of Wright’s most “remarkable and praiseworthy” efforts since Fallingwater.

Although the situation is dire, work done by the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy has awarded a temporary demo delay while the City of Phoenix decides whether to bestow historic preservation and landmark designation upon the house. This is where you come in. An online petition to the City of Phoenix has been set-up; as of right now, they’re 360 signatures short of their 1,000 person goal.

For almost 40 years no intact Wright building has been intentionally demolished. Let’s make sure we don’t start with this one. Sign the online petition (and then share it on Facebook, twitter, etc.), now!

For more information or to get involved, check out the SAVE WRIGHT page. For more images (including sketches) of the David Wright House, check out the gallery after the break…

According to a new survey published in Architect Magazine, Boston is starting to show “encouraging, though not significant, signs of improvement” in its architecture industry. Well, something’s better than nothing, right?

UPDATE: This post originally stated that Villa Asserbo was 3D Printed, when in fact its pieces were printed using rapid prototyping technology (a subtractive, rather than additive process).

We’ve covered 3D Printing a lot here at ArchDaily, but most of our coverage has been speculative and, frankly, futuristic – could we, one day, print out Gaudi-esque stone structures? Or even print a biologically-inspired, living house?

But today we heard a story about an alternative to 3D Printing‘s capabilities in the here and now - and its implications are pretty exciting.

In a small town outside of Copenhagen, Danish architects Eentileen joined forces with London-based digital fabrication and architecture specialists, Facit Homes, to create Villa Asserbo: a 1,250 square foot, sustainable home made from Nordic plywood fabricated via CNC miller and easily “snapped” together.

No heavy machinery, no cranes, no large labor force. Just a couple of guys, a few easily printed pieces, and six weeks.

Get more details about this sustainable, printed House, after the break…

A few months ago, Deborah Sheehan, a Principal and Healthcare Leader at Cannon Design, was given the task of designing a prototype healthcare facility in Afghanistan, a country averaging about one hospital bed for every 2,400 people.

The challenges that Sheehan and her colleagues faced were considerable: limited construction materials, few skilled tradesmen, political corruption, tribal rivalries. But the resultant design solutions were smart, low-cost, and high-quality – they had to be, after all.

To a certain extent, Sheehan was expecting her team to come up with an innovative design; what she didn’t consider, however, was how applicable the design strategies would be to our own troubled system. In her article for HealthCare Design, “Beautiful, Broken, and Broke,” Sheehan outlines the 4 things the Afghanistan healthcare system does well, frankly better than the American, and what we could gain by applying them here…

Read after the break to find out the 4 design strategies employed in Afghanistan that could help our Healthcare System…

This time last year, Bill Gates made a claim. He would give $100,000 to anyone who could reinvent the toilet. 

The Social Economic Environmental Design® (SEED) Network, which just announced its 3rd annual Awards for Excellence in Public Interest Design, is offering yet another exciting opportunity for Public Interest Designers.

Social Media in Action: Comprehensive Guide for Architecture, Engineering, Planning, and Environmental Consulting Firms is, first and foremost, a how-to guide. Using facts, figures and a wide range of research to back up its claims, the book lays out exactly how Architecture firms can get the most bang out of their social media buck.

But the book also takes the time to establish the why of social media – particularly post-Recession – and offers a fascinating glimpse into its future relevance. As the authors explain in the very first chapter: “This new form of media is not a trend. It is the way businesses communicate.” As an Architectural Blog, we see the power and reach of social media strengthen everyday, and couldn’t agree more.

If you have wet feet about jumping on the social media bandwagon, whether out of intimidation or a lack of time, be aware that that many have already dived right in, and, as Walter and Berkley put it, are “riding that wave with some exciting results.” So, let us stress: if you haven’t jumped yet, you need too. Social Media in Action is a good way to start.

For more tips about improving your social media presence from Social Media in Action, read on after the break…