The role of the architect—and even architecture itself—in society today is changing. A lack of interest in critical social issues from a profession that holds such high responsibility within a community is a problem that should no longer be avoided.

In an exhibit currently on show at the Center for Architecture and Design in Seattle titled "In the Public Interest," Garrett Nelli Assoc. AIA challenges the profession of architecture to establish a focus on more community-engaged design. With the help of the 2017 AIA Seattle Emerging Professionals Travel Scholarship, Nelli traveled to Los Angeles, rural Alabama, Haiti, Italy and New Orleans, all the while analyzing how the built environment has the ability to influence social change.

Read on for an edited interview with Nelli about his research and how you can begin to implement elements into your design practice to help promote social change in your own communities.

Danish firm COBE has released images of their proposed aquatic center in Copenhagen Harbor, a scheme entered for a design competition which was won by Kengo Kuma. The proposal, designed in collaboration with Bjarke Ingles Group (BIG), formed part of COBE’s competition-winning masterplan for Paper Island, which was chosen for development in 2016.

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What if your apartment was more than just a place to live? What if it was a catalyst for social interactions? Or what if it removed the everyday tedious tasks of cleaning, paying bills, and buying furnishings? Co-living, a modern form of housing where residents share living spaces, is aiming to do just that.

Co-living is growing in popularity in major cities such as London and New York, where increasing housing prices are forcing residents to look at new and adaptive ways to rent in the city. When we discussed the ambitions and inspirations behind the co-living movement in 2016, it was still a concept that was in its relatively experimental stages. Today, co-living is more focused in its mission, and has found success by pushing people together through a collection of common themes: a yearning for social connection, participation in an increasingly shared economy, and the affordability of a convenient housing solution.

Often as architects we neglect how the buildings we design will develop once we hand them over to the elements. We spend so much time understanding how people will use the building that we may forget how it will be used and battered by the weather. It is an inevitable and uncertain process that raises the question of when is a building actually complete; when the final piece of furniture is moved in, when the final roof tile is placed or when it has spent years out in the open letting nature take its course?

Rather than detracting from the building, natural forces can add to the material’s integrity, softening its stark, characterless initial appearance. This continuation of the building process is an important one to consider in order to create a structure that will only grow in beauty over time. To help you achieve an ever-growing building, we have collated six different materials below that age with grace.

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Unproductive meetings attempting to work with drawings that have been printed at the wrong scale, not dimensioned, or in a unit of measurement you’re not comfortable with is a frustration we can all relate to. These frustrations are what inspired one designer to create the Smart Scale Ruler, a physical, digitalized ruler that changes to suit your chosen unit of measurement or even work to a scale that doesn’t exist.

Andres Gallardo, a self-taught photographer from Spain, captures the poetry and theatricality of MAD Architects' Harbin Opera House in a series of photos which display the building's undulating interiors and the sense of ethereal calm it takes on through the night—and through the snowstorm that took place between Gallardo's two photoshoots.

A winner of ArchDaily's Building of the Year Awards in 2016, the Harbin Opera House is inspired by the frozen wilderness of its surrounds and is saturated in local identity, culture, and art. The sculpted forms seem to grow and emerge from the snow, leading one into its poetic stillness within. Gallardo's photo series highlights the beauty in its stillness, as if the serpentine forms of the architecture have been frozen in time and are waiting to move once more.

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In a recent interview with Metropolis Magazine, Kenneth Frampton answered questions about his existing architectural influence and his opinion as it relates to the direction of architectural theory and criticism. Frampton has long been a prominent voice in the world of architectural theory and writing. He has taught at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) since 1972, all the while publishing a large collection of critical essays and books on the topic of 20th-century architecture—the most notable of those being his 1983 essay “Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance.”

Even today, Frampton's evaluation of critical regionalism is still widely appreciated. In the interview, Frampton admits that he now sees the influence of critical regionalism primarily outside of "the Anglo-American world," but he believes that the implied importance of a "direct democracy" is what he sees as most beneficial.

Ancient ruins, like the Parthenon and Luxor Temple, can teach us about the past in a unique way. Through architectural remains, we can gather what building techniques and civilizations were like long ago. Even so, ruins can’t compare to the real deal, and historical reconstructions of these architectural wonders are key to a fuller understanding of the cultures that created them. In these GIFs made for Expedia by NeoMam and Thisisrender, seven architectural wonders are reconstructed into their original form, allowing us to see how the ruins visible today developed from the initial structures in all their glory.

Building and growing are two actions that should be considered more often than not at the same time. This is how the 2017 "Build to Grow" social housing competition, looked to establish bases that sustain a flexible way of living. The event took place in the Belén district in the city of Iquitos, on 3.7 hectares plot of land. The project that received first place proposed to locate 120 incremental homes, that alternatively allowed users to modify and expand it according to their needs and economic means. In short, a home with a solid nucleus formed by a structure that supports changing activities.

London-based Grimshaw Architects has been selected to serve as Lead Architect for the design of Newark Liberty International Airport’s new Terminal One building in New Jersey. Grimshaw will work in partnership with STV to design the $1.41 billion terminal, featuring 1 million square feet (93,000 square meters) of space and 33 gates spread across a two-level T-shaped building. The scheme represents the largest transportation infrastructure design-build project in New Jersey’s state history.

This article was originally published by Archipreneur as "3D Printing is Making Its Way into Interior Design."

3D printing – also known as additive manufacturing – turns digital 3D models into solid objects by building them up in layers. The technology was first invented in the 1980s and has since found its way into our everyday life – and in architecture and interior design. Architecture firm DUS has a vast expertise in architectural 3D printing and is now applying its expertise to interiors and retail spaces.

“3D printing is an ideal technique to tailor-produce to a space or a brand,” says Inara Nevskaya, head designer at DUS. “We can link a furniture’s functionality with unique form features to create statement pieces, special focal points that frame new experiences for the consumer in the retail landscape.”

This article was originally published by Common Edge as "How Public Space Can Build Community and Rescue Democracy."

Public spaces are having a moment. People from outside the field of urban planning are beginning to notice the vital contributions that they make to our quality of life: inserting nature and cultural memory into the everyday, reminding us of our collective responsibilities, supporting democratic expression. People are also beginning to notice the subtle ways in which those contributions are being eroded by threats of privatization, corporate appropriation, and apathy.

Most acutely, this moment is brought to us by Apple, which has begun an aggressive retail rebranding effort to re-conceptualize its stores as “town squares,” and wrought a wave of well-founded concern. Technology continues to beckon us away from the need to leave our homes or interact face-to-face with other humans. If for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, it would follow that opportunities for such interpersonal interaction become a luxury we begin to seek, a call to remember our origin as social beings.

This article was originally published on Autodesk's Redshift publication under the title "5 Technology Innovations Can Help Your Architecture Practice Work Smarter."

Before airplanes, it took mail carriers on horseback months to transport letters across the country. Before washing machines, it took a full day of physical exercise to wash and dry a family’s laundry. And before cranes, it took decades—sometimes centuries—to build large structures such as castles and cathedrals.

The point being: Whatever you do, technology probably gives you a better way to do it.

After countless late nights designing in studio, facing the critics, laying out (and re-laying out) your portfolio, finally convincing someone to hire you, and working 50+ hour weeks... you’re still not an architect. Welcome to the examination portion of your professional journey, folks.

Beginning a multi-division examination with pass rates in the 50-60% range is a seriously daunting task. That’s without even mentioning the overwhelming amount of study materials and opinions floating around in cyberspace. Never fear, ArchDaily is here to help you navigate the tools and techniques available to you when cracking open the books and (hopefully) passing your first exam.

Last week, ArchDaily covered a story about the gender pay gap at Foster + Partners. We thought such a story was "unsurprising" given that the gender pay gap is something that is widely reported on, and present in almost every industry, and we wanted to share a case of it happening in an architectural firm many of us are familiar with. What we did not expect was that readers would think it is a non-issue, or that such reporting was sensational. Is it possible for us to talk about gender in the workplace without being up in arms? Why does the gender pay gap issue make people uncomfortable?

Some of our editors discussed how gender plays into their workplace experiences as well as some hopeful recent signs that we are on a path to change.

This article was originally published by The Architect's Newspaper as "Cutting-edge 3-D-printing pushes construction boundaries in an Oakland cabin."

The 3D-printed Cabin of Curiosities is a research endeavor and “proof of concept” investigation into the architectural possibilities of upcycling and custom 3D-printed claddings as a response to 21st-century housing needs.

This exploratory project is an output of Bay Area-based additive manufacturing startup Emerging Objects, founded by Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello, who are professors at the University of California Berkeley and San Jose State University, respectively. They also co-founded the architecture studio Rael San Fratello, whose work primarily focuses on architecture as a cultural endeavor.

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Amorepacific, Korea's largest beauty company, occupies a site in the centre of Seoul, Korea. Their headquarters was designed by David Chipperfield Architects as a single clear volume, with large urban openings and a central void. In the middle of a bustling downtown landscape, the building strikes a bright, open figure.

The Amorepacific HQ took three years to complete and opened in 2017. The firm described the building as "abstract and gestural," with hanging gardens that provide dramatic views over the city and the mountains in the distance. The design echoes aspirations of mediating between local and global, private and public, collective and individual, formal and informal. Laurian Ghinitoiu captures the identity of this dynamic headquarters.

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This article was originally published by Ezra Schwartz on LinkedIn. It has been reprinted here with permission from the author.

Following a recent family visit to Chichén Itzá, I became somewhat obsessed with a couple of design enigmas I found there:

Design Enigma 1: The large pyramid in this amazing archeological complex, known as the Temple of Kukulkán, is highly symmetrical. But the first thing I observed when we approached it and stood in front of its west side, is that the structure on top of the pyramid (A above), is not center-aligned relative to the 9 terraces below it, as one would expect*. The visual guides 1 and 2 show the misalignment (images above and below).