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ACTAR: The Latest Architecture and News

Book Launch! Design with Life: Biotech Architecture and Resilient Cities

Book Launch at Institute for Public Knowledge, NYU

Design with Life: Biotech Architecture and Resilient Cities by Mitchell Joachim, Maria Aiolova, Terreform ONE, Actar publishers

In the challenging context of accelerating climate dynamics, the core discipline of architectural design is evolving and embracing new forms of action. New York-based nonprofit Terreform ONE has established a distinctive design tactic that investigates projects through the regenerative use of natural materials, science, and the emergent field of socio-ecological design. This kind of design approach uses actual living matter (not abstracted imitations of nature) to create new functional elements and spaces. These future-based actions are

The Machine in the Ocean: On The Petropolis of Tomorrow

Clocking in at just under six hundred pages, Neeraj Bhatia and Mary Casper’s The Petropolis of Tomorrow (Actar, 2013) presents a series of dueling monstrosities—land and sea; ecology and industry; isolation and circulation—at the hard-edged site of their collision. The product of an intensive research studio directed by Bhatia at the Rice School of Architecture, Petropolis documents and explores Brazil’s rapidly developing network of offshore petroleum and natural gas drilling infrastructures as a site ripe for the deployment of architectural expertise and imagination. Conducted as part of a broad collaborative research investigation on resource extraction urbanism initiated by the South America Project (SAP), the studio, as introduced by SAP Co-Director Felipe Correa, is a speculative experiment that “tests an extreme scenario” with the aim of identifying “new hybrids between industry and urbanism for an alternative twenty-first century extraction town.” Complementing the studio work, the editors have marshaled an impressive array of text and photo contributors whose essays offer distinctive takes on the book’s three thematic threads: archipelago urbanism, harvesting urbanism, and logistical urbanism.

Bracket 2: Goes Soft

From the Publisher. Bracket 2 examines physical and virtual soft systems, as they pertain to infrastructure, ecologies, landscapes, environments, and networks. In an era of declared crises—economic, ecological and climatic, amongst others—the notion of soft systems has gained increasing traction as a counterpoint to permanent, static and hard systems. Acknowledging fluid and indeterminate situations with complex feedback loops that allow for reaction and adaption, the possibility of soft systems has re-entered the domain of design. Bracket 2 critically positions and defines soft systems through 27 projects and 12 articles. From soft politics, soft power and soft spaces to fluid territories, software and soft programming, Bracket 2 unpacks the use and role of responsive, indeterminate, flexible, and immaterial systems in design.

Collserola Park Competition Entry / Nabito Architects + ACTAR

Collserola Park Competition Entry / Nabito Architects + ACTAR - Image 3 of 4
Mixed-Use Building 01 ./ Courtesy of Nabito Architects + ACTAR

Nabito Architects + ACTAR shared with us their design proposal for the “Les Portes de Collserola” international competition held by the government of Barcelona. As a finalist, the architects were challenged to create an ambitious strategical plan to regenerate the entire Park of Coillserola in the North of the city. The architects were then selected to take part in the 4B door called: ‘LES PLANES IN-PARK UNA PORTA, VÀRIES CLAUS’. The Project is a Master plan for the re-interpretation of one of the doors from Collserola Mountain going into the city of Barcelona. It is a space in between a complex superposition of different elements: urban, natural, rural and infrastructural. The perfect mix to ordinate the territory for a contemporary project. More images and architects’ description after the break.