Architecture News

Following two years of delays and cancellations, this year's Milan Design Week saw thousands of designers, artists, and craftsmen put their skills on display and present different solutions for the future of manufacturing, interior design, materials, and the environment. As every year, renowned architects also took part of the week-long event, using products, furniture pieces, and installations to share their professional angle and answer some of the biggest questions of the practice, showcasing how it can contribute to the betterment of the environment and society as a whole.

Focusing on sustainability and environmental awareness with respect to furniture production, this year's architectural contributions at Salone del Mobile saw innovative takes on “inclusive” design.

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The School of Architecture, founded by Frank Lloyd Wright as the Taliesin Fellowship in 1932, is undergoing significant transformations. Two years after separating from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, TSOA landed at Arcosanti, an experimental desert community in Arizona owned and operated by The Cosanti Foundation. In line with the school’s values, the program at Arcosanti seeks to provide students with a contemporary design education based on immersive, experimental, and experiential learning. The curriculum offers 2 and 3+ year NAAB-accredited Master of Architecture degrees and a 1.5-year Master of Science in Design-Build.

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BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group alongside the architect-of-record, African American-owned design firm, KAI Enterprises, have unveiled their design of a new Texas-based museum dedicated to preserving the history of Juneteenth and the legacy of freedom. Located in the historic southside of Fort Worth, Texas, one of the area's most underserved communities, the National Juneteenth Museum will serve as a focal point for education, preservation, and celebration of Juneteenth nationally and globally, hosting exhibitions and events about the significance of African American freedom. The new 50,00 sq.ft. building will include immersive galleries, a business incubator, food hall for local vendors, Black Box flex space, and a theater, and is expected to break ground in 2023.

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A new traveling exhibition by Danish architecture studio Dorte Mandrup opens at Aedes Architecture Forum in Berlin on 8 July 2022. The exhibition entitled PLACE delves into the strong interrelation between place and architecture and explores the role of the context ties in the quest for sustainable solutions for the future. In September, the exhibition will move to Le Bicolore – Maison du Danemark in Paris.

An international consortium led by MVRDV and OODA, in close collaboration with LOLA, Thornton Tomasetti, A400, and LiveWork, was selected to design an eco-city within the city of Matosinhos, Portugal. The project aims to transform a large-scale urban project, turning the former Galp Energia’s refinery into a green and innovative district with housing, a university campus, and a large park, among various facilities. The transformation of Matosinhos will serve as a catalyst for a greener future. The refinery's heritage will promote a sustainable future with projects that attract investments in innovation and education, attracting a new population to the city.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced the 29 winners of the 2022 RIBA National Awards for architecture. Ranging from net-zero carbon office buildings to family homes, schools and education facilities, urban developments and cultural buildings, this year’s projects provide an insight into the key trends that shape UK’s architectural and economic environment. Many projects focused on uniting communities, by creating spaces as a result of a collaboration between the local residents and the architects, or by offering unique venues for musical or cultural events. The future of housing was also addressed, with projects illustrating a vision for modern rural living or creating new city blocks centered around community gardens. Another area of interest was the restoration and adaptation of existing buildings, be it a 900-year-old former dining hall of the Cathedral or an iconic 1950s Modernist house.

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Heatherwick Studio is taking part of this year’s Royal Academy Summer Exhibition with two retrofit projects in the United Kingdom: Broad Marsh in Nottingham and Parnham Park in Dorset. Titled "Ruins Reimagined", the exhibition presents two different approaches to reusing existing architecture, from a Grade I-listed 16^th century house to a partially demolished 1970’s shopping center, each offering a unique response in scale and heritage to the Summer Exhibition’s theme of ‘climate’. The models are on display in the Architecture Room until 21st August. This year, the Architecture Room is curated by Niall McLaughlin RA and Rana Begum RA, and will sit across two spaces, mixing art and architecture together.

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Australian architecture firm Conrad Gargett has won an international competition to design the Misk Foundation Headquarters in Saudi Arabia. Mohammed bin Salman Foundation, “Misk”, announced the competition for the new headquarters, which will be located in the Prince Mohammed Bin Salman "Nonprofit City" within the Irqah neighborhood in the capital of Riyadh. The new city, spreading over 3.4 square kilometers, and launched in November 2021, seeks to empower youth and support innovation and entrepreneurship, and become a model for the development of the non-profit sector globally and an incubator for youth and volunteer groups as well as local and international non-profit institutions. One of the declared goals of the City and Misk is to transition from an oil-based economy to a knowledge-based economy.

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In a way, classic furniture is like a mixture between a work of art and a gold bar: it is a safe investment and can often even increase in value with age. In our second selection of design icons from the 20th century, we present Ray and Charles Eames, Marcel Breuer, Arne Jacobsen and Mario Bellini and some furniture pieces from the past century that remain more modern today than ever, in terms of not only design but also comfort. Find out more on the Architonic Platform.

Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) has been named as the winner of an international competition to design the Jinghe New City Culture & Art Centre in the Shaanxi province, China. The project is part of the Jinghe New City, an area growing as a science and technology hub with new scientific research institutes that are driven by environmental awareness. The architecture blends with the surrounding landscape, echoing the valleys carved by the Jinghe River through the mountains and landscapes of Shaanxi province.

The American Institute of Architects has elected Kimberly Dowdell as the 100th president of the organization, making her the first Black woman to hold the position in AIA’s 165-year history. Delegates at the AIA’s annual meeting voted Dowdell to serve first as vice president for 2023. Afterward, she will become president in 2024.

During her campaign for president, Dowdell has expressed her support for minorities, while also making clear that she wants to be an AIA president for all. Her platform is based on four key areas of interest: supporting architects in practice, creating a sense of belonging and ensuring access to the architectural profession and education, addressing climate concerns, and designing for the future, considering rapid technological advances. “I firmly believe that the AIA has the power and potential to better serve our profession” she declared in a video made prior to the election.

According to the Spanish Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, the draft Law on the Quality of Architecture was finally approved on the 8th of June, after achieving the backing of a large majority, without any votes against, of the Senate Plenary, thus ending its parliamentary processing with a large consensus.

KME Germany has announced the 2022 TECU® ARCHITECTURE AWARD winners for the sixth time. The competition intends to enable, accompany and promote modern and forward-looking approaches to architecture based on copper as a material, in collaboration with architects.

In addition to three architecture prizes, two project prizes for students were also awarded. Furthermore, three Special Mentions were awarded.

MVRDV and The Why Factory's have collaborated on an exhibition that explores the principles of "architecture and urbanism calls to action”. Titled "Agir", the exhibition is open to the public since June 9th, in the connected spaces of the ArchiLib Gallery and MVRDV’s Paris office. The exhibition takes its name from the French verb meaning “act”, and examines the activist works of MVRDV and The Why Factory, revealing its capacity to address a wide variety of environmental and social challenges.

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Grimshaw has revealed the final design for City Rail Link, or CRL in short, a large infrastructure project in Auckland, New Zealand. The project includes four new train stations and a 3.45km twin-tunnel underground rail up to 42 meters below the city center. It was developed in collaboration with WSP as part of the Link Alliance, a consortium of seven companies tasked with delivering the main stations and tunnels for the CRL project. The design of the stations is also developed in partnership with Mana Whenua, a local tribal authority that aims to integrate the narrative of the Māori creation story, Te Ao Marama, into the design. Each station's image and identity are a result of this collaboration, and it responds to the characteristics of each location as defined by Tāmaki Makaurau, the Māori name for the geographical region of the city of Auckland.

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