interdisciplinary: The Latest Architecture and News

In July, Las Vegas unveiled an extravagant spectacle - a colossal LED-wrapped spherical structure, standing 366 feet tall and 516 feet wide. This entertainment event venue instantly captured the public's gaze, becoming a local landmark and attracting global attention through extensive news coverage. Similar spherical concepts have been proposed in London and at a smaller scale in Los Angeles. These massive display structures open up questions about facades as digital canvases. What role can architecture take as an urban canvas other than as a billboard? And what are different ways for architecture to engage the public through digital art besides gigantic LED spheres?

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'Innovation' and 'design thinking' could possibly be two of the most extensively-used phrases both online and offline during the past decade. To respond to the global need of "changing the status quo", established companies, start-ups, and even universities have used this framework to generate novel ways of solving problems and create new products, taking into account their desirability, feasibility, and viability. And with that, a new archetype was conceived: the design thinker, someone who has the creative toolkit to generate something disruptive. So what is the meaning behind design thinking and what is its relationship with architecture?

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As final juries draw to a close, graduating architecture students are left with a crucial decision to make. While some might take a plunge into the scary real world looking to gain professional experience, others might choose to further reinforce their architecture education and skill set. Of the latter, most enroll in an MArch program, or take well-trodden paths into urban design and planning, landscape architecture, historic preservation, or theory and criticism. But in an increasingly complex world faced with myriad problems, what about those graduate architects looking to bolster their education in other related disciplines that will give them a more unique perspective on design problems? Here, we shortlist seven alternative, interdisciplinary graduate programs offered by architecture schools worldwide.