A guide from Graphisoft on how to create powerful design presentations with Archicad through the use of Archicad version 25.

Terrazzo flooring, with its mosaic style of pieces of marble or granite set in polished concrete or epoxy resin, is known for its flexibility and remarkable durability. So it’s no wonder the method has been around for centuries.

With proper care during installation and use, it’s also possible for terrazzo floors to last a number of decades. “There are terrazzo floors that were installed in the early 1900s that are still nice looking jobs,” says James Bateman, terrazzo division manager of Terrazzo & Marble Supply Companies. Indeed, the style is known to some as ‘forever floors,’ a nod to its history and longevity.

Greatly influenced by the modern movement--and in particular the presence of Le Corbusier--contemporary Indian architecture reflects a mixture of traditional and western references. Using mainly local materials such as brick, concrete and stone, Indian buildings stand out with their high visual impact and a assertive heaviness. 

Because of its scarcity, wood is mostly used in details and finishes rather than as main structures. Some of the most successful architects in India have managed to gracefully balance the use of concrete and wood in a gentle gesture that evokes elegance and rough textures.

Here we present some of the best examples of contemporary Indian architecture that have used both concrete and wood in a harmonious and attractive way.

CUBO, a local architecture firm from Aarhus City, Denmark, has designed the main entrance pavilion for the firm's native city which will connect two existing elements of Aarhus - the Botanical Gardens and the Old Town. The building is both inviting and welcoming to residents and visitors, alike, providing the city with a gathering space, meeting point, and information hub.

Both the Botanical Gardens and Old Town are major attractions for visitors, playing an integral role in the city’s international reputation. CUBO’s pavilion seeks to enhance and add to what already exists by sensitively integrating the structure in the existing landscape.

Did you know that tree-lined streets are proven to be beneficial to physical and mental health? So why not include them in health funding? The Nature Conservancy's new research demonstrates the number of reasons why this should be done.

They say one cannot separate art from the artist, or perhaps in this case, the artist from the architect. Arguably one of the most criticized architects, Le Corbusier is often portrayed as cold and controlling. Depicting his more dreamy and humorous nature, the Nasjonalmuseet's exhibition titled, “Le Corbusier by the Sea,” draws upon his memories from his summer travels along the coast of southwest France.

Hosted in Villa Stenersen, one of the National Museum's venues, the exhibition showcases Le Corbusier's work as an artist during the period 1926-36. Not only does the exhibition include fifteen of his reproduced paintings alongside a collection of sketches, but also screens two films from Le Corbusier's own footage of his surrounding views.

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As part of its Keeping It Modern initiative, the Getty Foundation announced over $1.7 million will be dedicated as architectural conservation grants to eleven iconic 20th-century buildings this year. Including national and international sites such as Eero Saarinen's recently renovated Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, and Oscar Niemeyer’s Rashid Karami International Fairground in Tripoli, Lebanon, the organization has supported 54 conservation projects since 2014.

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The dominating news of the week came courtesy of RIBA and IIT, with the two announcing this year’s laureates of the Stirling Prize and Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize, respectively. Foster + Partners were awarded RIBA’s Stirling Prize for their Bloomberg HQ in London. Said jury member Sir David Adjaye, “Bloomberg is a once-in-a-generation project which has pushed the boundaries of research and innovation in architecture.” The project has been a controversial choice, with some citing the tension between the building’s massive price tag and the current UK housing crisis.

ArchDaily is pleased to announce our partnership with SPACE10 on their launch of IMAGINE, a single-season exploration of the brave new world of shared living. You can listen to more episodes of this podcast (produced with Unsinkable Sam) on SPACE10's website.

How we can design the spaces we inhabit to improve our well-being? This story starts in Copenhagen, where SPACE10 is based, with Jan Gehl — the pioneering Danish urban planner who showed how we can transform our quality of life by changing our cities.

The Los Angeles-based firm, Rios Clementi Hale Studios, a transdisciplinary practice engaging in design from urban planning to product design, opened their new offices in the city's Crenshaw neighborhood. A recent article by Metropolis Magazine outlines the firm's design process in creating their new office layout to emphasize their aspirations as an established practice.

The link between architecture and cinema is unquestionable, as is the magic of seeing a film in a place structured specifically for this contemplative activity. The design requires architectural solutions that not only respond to the distribution of seats and visibility of movie-goers but also to acoustics and lighting.

Various projects published on our site highlight how architects have responded to this challenge in innovative ways. Below, stunning 10 movie theaters with their plans and drawings. 

Swedish studio Urban Nouveau has created a plan to save Stockholm's Gamla Lidingöbron bridge by transforming it into a linear park and housing. Built in the 1920s, the rail and pedestrian bridge features a lattice structure and arched steel trusses that would frame 50 new apartments and a pedestrian park above. While the local council has made plans to demolish the Lidingö bridge, Urban Nouveau launched a petition with the aim of saving the bridge and re-purposing it for the city.

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Waugh Thistleton Architects’ ten-story Dalston Works project stands proudly as the world’s largest Cross Laminated Timber building in Hackney, London, having been completed in 2017. The 121-unit development made entirely of CLT from external to core walls, the scheme weighs one-fifth of an equivalent concrete building.

In addition to tackling London’s need for dense, high-quality housing, the scheme offers a methodology for implementing timber technology with a significantly reduced carbon footprint, such as an 80% reduction in the number of deliveries during construction.

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Seattle-based Olson Kundig has released details of their second-place winner from the 2018 Land Art Generator competition, set in Melbourne, Australia. The “Night & Day” scheme combines solar energy with a hydro battery, generating enough power for 200 Australian homes, 24 hours per day.

The St Kilda-situated infrastructure proposal doubles as an artwork and pedestrian bridge, with a flagship 5,400-square-meter solar sail suspended above the St Kilda Triangle in Port Phillip city. After sunset, further electricity is generated through two turbines capturing the kinetic movement of water released through them.

Videos

In recent years, architecture film festivals have erupted around the globe providing critics, theorists, and all architectural thinkers with an additional median for architectural expression and discussion. The symbiotic relationship between architecture and film stems from architecture’s effect on its built environment and its determined social/cultural impact.

As the international audience grows and new genres emerge, architecture film festivals have come to encompass more than just the film’s initial viewing; programs, lectures, and discussions are organized, enhancing the intellectual impact of the viewing material. Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam (AFFR) is celebrating its tenth edition this October by exploring the concept of “building happiness” in an age when we seek to build a more sustainable world - a challenge for both historic and contemporary design.

Jacob Witzling may lack formal architectural training, but his passion for nature and cabin architecture has provided him with all the tools needed to both design and construct idyllic living spaces. Witzling’s cabins can be found throughout the United States; these structures are often sequestered to the woods, providing a remote escape from urban centers and suburban sprawl.

Witzling’s interest in cabins began at the age of 16. His father, an architect and engineer, provided him with a preliminary exposure to the world of designing and building. “I needed to exist in the woods, and even though I had never built anything other than a blanket fort, I knew that my passion to create would be sufficient,” says Witzling. “I remember pouring over the pages of my dad’s favorite book, 'Handmade Houses: A Guide to the Woodbutcher’s Art.' I would gaze at the pictures from inside my blanket fort and daydream about building one of my own.”

Orange Architects + KCAP have created a Golden City Block for St. Petersburg, Russia. Bordering the Finnish Gulf, the new urban development is part of Vasilievsky Island. Three of Orange and KCAP's projects in the development are already underway, including the towers of block 6, as well as construction for block 7 and block 8. Inspired by the morphology and structure of St. Petersburg’s city center, the design utilizes urban blocks with enclosed gardens and courtyards.

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"Residencial Casa Atlântica" in Copacabana, Zaha Hadid's first project in South America, was canceled. O Globo reported the cause as "the delay of the city hall to release the work license and the consequent delay of the launch and inauguration of the project." The luxury residential condominium was designed in 2013 and should have been opened in time for the Olympics.

The MIT-based Mediated Matter Group have created Fiberbots, an autonomous digital fabrication platform designed to quickly build architecture during disaster. By utilizing cooperative robotic manufacturing, Fiberbots can create highly sophisticated material structures. The small robots work as a group to wind fiberglass filament and create high-strength tubular structures. MIT researchers envision the bots building in extreme environments and natural disaster zones.

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UK entrepreneur Ehab Syed has developed a mushroom-based insulation with his company Biohm, embodying techniques that are “completely natural, biodegradable and vegan.”

As reported by Global Construction Review, the material will come to the market in the coming months, with interest expressed by Tata Steel, Heathrow Airport, and leading UK house builders.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has unveiled an updated $13 billion plan to transform John F. Kennedy International Airport into a “world-class 21st-century airport.” The scheme will add two major international terminals at the North and South sides, increasing airport capacity by 4 million square feet and 15 million annual passengers.

The plans are derived from a 2017 masterplan led by Grimshaw Architects and Mott MacDonald, which sought to combine the airport’s eight disparate terminal sites into one unified system.

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Videos

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) have announced Foster + Partner's Bloomberg HQ as the winner of the 2018 Stirling Prize. Seen as the UK's most prestigious architecture award, this award is given to the building " that has made the biggest contribution to the evolution of architecture in a given year." Selected from a list of six projects, the design highlights the collaboration between a civic-minded client and architect, as well as addressing the public realm.

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Barclay & Crousse Architecture’s Edificio E, University of Piura in Peru has been announced as the winner of the 2018 Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP), recognizing the most distinguished architectural works built on the North and South American continents.

The project was selected from a shortlist of six finalists, joining SANAA’s Grace Farms, Alvaro Siza’s Iberê Camargo Foundation and Herzog & de Meuron’s 1111 Lincoln Road as winners of the highly-regarded prize which was established in 2003.

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The more architecture students that I converse with, the more I hear this common dissent amongst them: “I don’t want to become an architect.” Despite participating in long studio hours for a five-year professional degree, somehow very few peers actually want to become the kind of architects that create buildings.

Aside from the conventional alternatives of interior or graphic design, there is a rising trend in the popularity of firms that use architectural skills for beyond the scope of designing luxury condominiums for wealthy clients. For prospective architects (and current ones), below are examples of firms that may not be what one initially imagines to do with their degree, but a taste of the potential of what they can.

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Videos

An installation at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden is made entirely of translucent concrete panels. Composed of concrete and bubble wrap, the site blends both high and low technology processes. This high-tech lecture hall is an amorphous space with unique acoustic qualities. 

The panels were created by compressing High-Performance Concrete between two layers of Bubble-Wrap. With 262,500 cavities and 1,000,000 membrane-perforations, the material creates a diffused echo-free ambiance.