“The Mindfulness City will be a sustainable city. To be mindful is to be aware — to perform best,” said Giulia Frittoli, partner and head of landscape at BIG. The Kingdom of Bhutan is a landlocked Buddhist country in the eastern Himalayas, nestled between China and India. It covers 14,000 square miles and has a population of nearly 800,000.
The Royal Office of Bhutan asked BIG, Arup, and Cistri to develop a plan for a new Mindfulness City in Gelephu in southern Bhutan, near the border with India. The city will span 386 square miles and include a new international airport, railway connections, hydroelectric dam, university, spiritual center, and public spaces.
The early 20th century marked a pivotal era in Brazilian architecture with the advent of the modernist movement. Architects like Oscar Niemeyer or Lúcio Costa introduced avant-garde designs characterized by sleek lines, reinforced concrete, and a focus on functionality. What's more: residential projects of the era, in particular, blurred the lines between indoor and outdoor, flawlessly merging interior and exterior spaces to reflect a lifestyle that harmonizes with nature. Fast forward to the present day, and contemporary architects and designers in Brazil continue to embrace the challenge of creating indoor-outdoor homes that nod to the country's tropical climate. These residences often feature open floor plans, expansive glass walls, and strategic positioning of courtyards, gardens, or terraces with a design philosophy that emphasizes natural light, ventilation, and the incorporation of greenery for increased well-being. We take a detailed look at four recently completed residential projects in Brazil that fuse contemporary architecture, sustainable living, and a deep appreciation for their natural surroundings.
The main role of architecture is to create structures that protect us from the environment and create spaces that are safe and comfortable for all types of needs and activities. By providing shelter, architecture also shapes the way people interact with their surroundings. Building technologies of the past rarely managed, however, to create a complete separation between us and the outside world.
While impermeability was a desired outcome, the porous building materials available always allowed some water, wind, or outside particles to leak into the interior spaces. In contrast, modern technologies now allow for almost completely impermeable building envelopes, allowing for complete separation between indoors and outdoors, thus relying on engineered systems to regulate temperature, airflow, or humidity. This article explores the differences between these two contrasting approaches, exploring how building facades are equipped to regulate indoor comfort and its environmental impact.
The 2023 RIBA House of the Year Award has been awarded to “Green House.” Designed by Hayhurst & Co, this polycarbonate-lined residential family home was inspired by nature. The annual award recognizes the house as the best example of residential design in the UK. Described as a “domestic greenhouse” and an “extraordinary ordinary house” by the RIBA jury, the design reflects nature’s ability to influence design.
There’s something about the saturated hues of blossoming springtime flowers and the fiery, warm tones of a sunset descending upon a cityscape that brings us joy. Humans crave color. In fact, we’ve been fascinated by them since the beginning of our existence. So much so that everything from the color of our clothes to the brightly illuminated pixels on this screen is an attempt to recreate –and enhance– the vibrant shades present in nature, finding in them a source of inspiration and vitality. Our brains are wired to link colors with sensations and experiences: the lush greens of a forest evoke feelings of tranquility and renewal, while the deep blues of the ocean stir a sense of mystery and adventure. It is this ability to elicit emotion that makes colors an invaluable tool for architects and designers –and which also explains why trends are moving away from the once-reigning neutral minimalism towards a more maximalist aesthetic that embraces pops of color, dimension and playful texture.
A simple walk in the park will relax even the most tightly wound individual. But what about the places where people spend far more of their time, such as schools, office buildings, and hospitals? What role can design play in incorporating nature into those environments? And at what additional cost? Bill Browning has published a book—The Economics of Biophilia: Why Designing With Nature in Mind Makes Financial Sense, 2nd Edition (written with Catie Ryan and Dakota Walker)—arguing that the cost of bringing nature into building projects isn’t prohibitive but additive. An environmental strategist with a long history in green building, Browning is one of the founding partners (with architects Bob Fox and Rick Cook) of the sustainable design consultancy Terrapin Bright Green. Recently I talked with Browning about biophilic design—and, because he was a founding member of the U.S. Green Building Council’s board of directors, about the strengths and shortcomings of the LEED rating system.
In an age where humanity's detrimental impact on the environment has become increasingly evident, the concept of rewilding is emerging as a powerful approach to conservation and ecologicalrestoration. In line with growing attention on landscape architecture in recent years, the idea of removing human intervention from our natural surroundings in order to restore a stable equilibrium seems to offer a low-effort, ethereal way to right fundamental climate wrongs. But is a lack of meddling in nature really all there is to rewilding, and how does this relate to architecture and design? We look at key concepts, applications, and examples to find out.
Architecture has always had a complementary - occasionally codependent - relationship with water. The Roman Domus, the Baths of Diocletian and Caracalla in Rome, and Villa Adriana in Tivoli are some prominent historical examples of how water influenced the design of compositional architecture. In a more modern context, Frank Llyod Wright designed a residential retreat in which water is its protagonist, redefining the relationship between man, architecture, and nature. Nowadays, as architects shifts their focus towards a more contextual, sustainable, and user-oriented practice, the use of water in architecture has become indisputable; cooling interior spaces, providing natural air conditioning when combined with plants, exuding a sense of tranquility, and serving as an organic decorative element.
Since the earliest civilizations, nature has been a mainstay in serving as a natural habitat for humankind, providing shelter, food, and medicine. In modern times, industrial and technological revolutions took over the landscape, restructuring the way humans interact with nature. However, today, due to the events we have experienced as a society, it is necessary to focus on creating cities and spaces that integrate nature into our daily lives.
How are contemporary homes pushing the boundaries of innovation for the future? Currently, these spaces tend towards clean lines, neutral colors and flexible spaces, with the integration of technological features and automation. But even though there are certain timeless features that define neutral contemporary interiors, we can begin to identify future trends by analyzing architectural projects that differ from the traditional, recognizing disruptive interior materials and finishes guided by technological advances that are shaping complex and changing homes of the future. The selection of these innovative materials conveys a meticulous decision process in building the structure and identity of a space. Depending on the context and typology of a space, there is a growing awareness of how materials impact an environment, and how new technologies are creating smart solutions that can mitigate their effects indoors.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is playing a key role in visualizing the interiors of the homes of the future, and together with the exploration of biophilic, intelligent and 3D-printed materials, is stimulating new ways of approaching how we will live indoors moving forward.
Humans are hard-wired to respond positively to nature; the crackling sound of fire, the smell of fresh rain on soil, the healing characteristics of plants and the color green, being in proximity to animals, etc. That, along with today’s critical environmental conditions and rapid urbanization, shifted architects' focus towards eco-conscious projects to bring people closer to nature. Architects explored numerous approaches: rammed earth structures, recycled materials and furnishing, designing around the site's sun orientation... The practice was so driven by green architecture that the lines became blurred between what is truly sustainable and ecological and what is "greenwashed". But what proved to bring about the most innate biological connection with nature was biophilia, and "bringing the outdoors in" through design.
Biophilic office design is not just a passing trend. It rather represents a seismic shift in how we design and build our office spaces and work environments, with every employer from multi-national giants of the industry to two-person bedroom startups getting on board. But this weighed-down bandwagon of empathetic, wellness-focused workspace still has plenty of room on the back.
Children's Learning Center, Mas-in Village / Native Narrative. Image
Since the first civilizations, nature has been a fundamental pillar to serve humanity as a natural habitat, offering shelter, food, and medicine. In modern times, industrial and technological revolutions have taken over the landscape, reshaping the way humans interact with nature. However, today and due to the events that we have experienced as a society, it is necessary to focus on creating cities and spaces that integrate nature into everyday life.
2022 could be remembered as the year when surprising AI-fueled tools became accessible to a larger audience: from text-to-image generation Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, and DALL-E 2 to unsettling design experiments such as This House Does Not Exist, to surprisingly smart OpenGPT, a language-processing designed artificial intelligence to generate human-like text.
Cautiously described by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as "a preview of progress", any user can talk with OpenGPT about almost anything: the results are astonishing and it easily can embody an umpteenth so-called threat for creative-related jobs. However, OpenGPT does not have access to browse the internet. Instead, it interacts based on the gigantic database that it has been trained on. As expressed by Gannett's Eric Ulken, "even the best generative AI tools are only as good as their training", so what an "inappropriate request" is has previously been tuned (by humans) as well.
Largely driven by rural migration to cities and overall population growth, 68% of people worldwide will live in urban areas by 2050. By doing so, many will benefit from greater access to basic services, proximity to public transportation, and better education and employment opportunities. But the pursuit of living urbanized lives also leads to isolation from the outdoors –be it a forest, a meadow or the mountains– that can negatively impact our physical and mental health. Exposure to nature has long been proven to reduce stress levels, boost mood, foster productivity and, above all, enhance well-being. So, considering we typically spend around 93% of our time indoors (and that the pandemic has magnified that statistic), now more than ever we find ourselves seeking a connection with the outdoors and all its inherent benefits. Architects thus face the important challenge of bringing nature in, which is precisely where biophilic design comes into play.
Whether it is a small balcony, access to green space or a private garden, the outdoor space has become a privilege for many, especially upon the dawn of the Covid-19 pandemic and the multiple lock down periods that followed. Green space in the city is constantly under threat, particularly since governments seek to increase housing densities in order to feed a growing demand for suburban development. As a result, the garden and access to green/outdoor spaces has decreased in recent times, as priorities lie in housing as many as possible, often with disregard to beneficial features such as access to outdoor areas in residential developments.
In terms of living conditions the lack of access to these spaces presents evident inequalities, uncovered during periods of lock down and restrictions during the pandemic. People were confined to their homes and local outdoor spaces, where they could exercise. Those who had access to these public spaces and had their own gardens/external space were very lucky in the sense that they were able to enjoy an element of the outside. While those less fortunate in flats and areas of depravity faced claustrophobic and demoralizing conditions, contained within the shell of their homes.
Looking ahead to the future of our built environment, a one-size-fits-all approach simply won’t do. Issues like rising sea levels, temperatures, and water scarcity in urban communities need localized solutions that take into account questions of sustainability, culture, and public health. Having investigated vernacular infrastructure across indigenous communities for her book Lo-TEK. Design by Radical Indigenism, designer Julia Watson is an expert in local, nature-based technologies that are inherently adaptable and resilient. We talk to her about the future of our cities, building materials, and her latest project for Our Time on Earth – a five year, world-touring exhibition that just opened at London's Barbican Centre to investigate how radical, collaborative ideas for the way we live can get us to a much improved place by 2040.
As the city continues to evolve and transform, dead edges in the cityscape begin to emerge, subsequently reducing the level of activity in our built environment. These 'dead edges' refer to the areas that lack active engagement, they remain empty and deprived of people, since they no longer present themselves as useful or appealing. As the Covid-19 pandemic draws to an ultimate close, the first issue we may face post-pandemic is to revive our urban environment. A kiss of life into a tired and outdated cityscape...
The focal element in creating an active and healthy urban environment is by increasing vitality through placemaking. Creating diverse and interesting places to reside, thrive, and work. Here are five regenerative strategies that animate the cityscape and ultimately produce resilient, attractive, and flexible environments.
