Architecture News

Google has launched the Environmental Insights Explorer tool to provide users with access to data and technology that can contribute to the transition toward a lower-carbon world. The information is primarily based on data already available on Google Maps.

The goal is to enable cities worldwide to calculate their greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories to facilitate climate action planning. “The inventory can help prioritize investments in the areas of greatest impact, as it highlights key emission sources or hotspots and can be used as a baseline to measure progress,” the company states on the tool's website.

The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) released last week the 2017 edition of the Profile of Brazilian Municipalities (Munic). According to the document, fewer than half of Brazilian cities have structured planning for housing. The report points out that last year, of the country's 5,570 municipalities, 59.6% had some type of housing-directed initiative, but only 39.7% had a Municipal Housing Plan.

One way to make cities visible is by intervening in forgotten or peripheral areas, as well as by addressing basic needs, bringing them to light and raising an urgent call to action. A few months ago we announced the call for entries for this competition, and today it surprises us with the variety of responses. It is also interesting to see how participants from other countries view our context and what they propose; this is a great contribution, expanding the possibilities for multi-perspective interventions in building projects with and for society.

CIUDADES [en] VISIBLE is a competition that invited architects and engineers, whether students or professionals, to design in agreement with the beneficiary families: the Salazar, Acarraz, Teccse, Huamán, and López families. Five families, five homes. Housing is itself a basic need, making this competition both a city laboratory in search of alternative solutions for planned housing construction in a country like Peru, where nearly 70% of homes are self-built. The site of intervention is the 3 de Diciembre Community, located south of the city of Lima, in the District of Lurín.

Behind this initiative is the organization MUTUO, which seeks to positively impact the self-built housing situation in Peru by collectively engaging the architectural community in the issue. Additionally, it aims to provide citizens with a tool that encourages environmental awareness and active involvement in creating change to improve living conditions for disadvantaged sectors. The call for entries received 108 proposals, including many international submissions. After a thorough analysis, three winning proposals and five honorable mentions were selected.

Phaidon recently published Elemental, a monograph that fully illustrates the social commitment and methods of Alejandro Aravena and his colleagues.

The project Casa sobre las rocas by the Chilean firm Schwember García-Huidobro Arquitectos has been recognized at the German Design Award 2019. The accolade, awarded in Germany by the Ministry of Technology, "identifies and presents unique design trends," according to the organization.

Built in a forest in the town of Cunco, Chile, Casa sobre las rocas received a Special Mention in the Architectural Design Communication category of the competition. The project is a second home that prioritizes communal areas, featuring a Y-shaped floor plan designed to optimize views and natural light.

A historical platform available online offers a look at the last one hundred years of architectural competitions in Uruguay, exploring the shape of the city its society set out to imagine.

100 Years of Architecture Competitions in Uruguay is a project created by authors Virginia Delgado, Francisco Magnone, and Marcelo Staricco (architects and design instructors, DEAPA - FADU, UdelaR) along with research advisor Mag. Arch. Diego Capandeguy.

The destruction of the National Museum at Quinta da Boa Vista in Rio de Janeiro cannot go unnoticed. This tragedy must serve as a cry of "enough!" against the abandonment, neglect, and destruction of the nation's memory. The unfortunate reality is that the situation of the National Museum is not unique. Similar tragedies could happen again.

The values that define us as a society cannot turn to ashes like the National Museum. We call upon the State, architects and urban planners, universities, intellectuals, professional associations, and ultimately, Brazilian society as a whole to mobilize.

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The Colegio de Arquitectos del Estado de Michoacán is a non-profit association established 54 years ago serving the city of Morelia, dedicated to heritage preservation and fostering debate on contemporary architectural production and urban development. To provide an adequate space for these activities, a competition was launched after securing a site for the new headquarters to support and foster contemporary architecture.

On November 29, the National Competition for the Headquarters Project of the Colegio de Arquitectos Michoacán, A.C. was held at its current headquarters. The jury—composed of Pedro Núñez González, Isaura González Gottdiener, Salvador Reyes Ríos, José Muñoz, Carlos Marín, and Jorge Humberto Flores Romero—evaluated 17 completely anonymous proposals.

As part of Architecture Week, celebrated by the Official Association of Architects of Tenerife, La Gomera, and El Hierro (Spain), the Oraá Architecture Prizes were awarded, recognizing the best architectural achievements of the last 10 years on the islands of Tenerife, La Gomera, and El Hierro.

The Spanish accolade highlights new construction, restorations, renovations, landscape, public space, and interior design, along with special distinctions for outstanding career achievements, emerging talent, patronage, and the best architectural photography.

These are the winning projects:

Announced in 2016, the Cidade Matarazzo complex is currently under construction near Paulista Avenue in São Paulo. In addition to a tower designed by Jean Nouvel, the development includes the restoration of the former Matarazzo Hospital and the Santa Luzia Church, both heritage-listed by Condephaat – the Council for the Defense of Historical, Archaeological, Artistic, and Tourist Heritage of the State of São Paulo.

To protect the church's structure during excavation work, the engineering team behind the Grupo Allard development carried out a delicate procedure to keep the 1,200-ton building suspended 31 meters above the ground. 

Construction of Chile's second Museum of Memory will have to wait. As reported by national newspaper La Tercera, the project designed for the city of Concepción "was not included as a priority in the 2019 budget" by the Regional Ministerial Secretariat (Seremi) of the Ministry of Public Works (MOP) of Biobío.

“We are talking about a construction project that we have estimated at nearly 4 billion pesos [USD 6 million]; it is therefore beyond what the MOP has historically built,” Daniel Escobar, regional secretary (Seremi) of Public Works, told the same outlet, adding that the budget is reaching 88 UF per square meter (2.6 million Chilean pesos). Following the shelving of the project, the mayor of Concepción, Álvaro Ortiz, questioned on Radio Cooperativa that “some technical reasons are being argued that, curiously, we did not know about before.”

The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) has released the publication Urbanized Areas of Brazil, which maps the urban footprints of major Brazilian cities. Covering the changes that occurred between 2011 and 2015, the study presents an overview of the country's recent urbanization process.

This month, we continue to celebrate the 6th anniversary of ArchDaily Mexico, an achievement made possible thanks to the hard work of our great team, as well as the relationships we have built over the years with the local architectural community and our readers.

With this in mind, this year we decided to celebrate with a contest that involved all of our readers. We wanted to discover their favorite projects in Mexico, whether classic or contemporary. We asked our readers to follow the @ArchDailyMx account on Instagram and share their favorite project with us using the hashtags #ConcursoArchDailyMx and #6AñosArchDailyMx.

In recent years, International Women's Day has reclaimed the political significance of its origins, bringing together some of the most recent discussions surrounding women: the gender pay gap, the exposure of sexual abuse through the #MeToo movement, and, in the specific case of our discipline, the visibility of women in architecture. Zaha Hadid went so far as to say that she felt "harshly judged for [the fact of] being a woman," despite winning the Pritzker Prize in 2004.

If that happened to her, imagine the rest.

In this regard, at ArchDaily we have opened up the discussion and are proud to highlight the work of women architects worldwide, in addition to partnering with interesting Latin American initiatives along the same lines, such as Un día, una arquitecta. For this edition of International Women's Day, we have joined forces with the Colombian print publication de-Arq (Universidad de los Andes) to showcase the work of five contemporary Colombian women architects, who represent distinct yet complementary approaches within our discipline: design, research, teaching, and experimentation.

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Alongside the activities and lectures held over three consecutive days at the Lux Theater in Guatemala City's historic center, the Guatemala Architecture Biennale (BAG) presented the winning works and projects of the Danta Awards on Wednesday, May 30, and Thursday, May 31.

For this edition, the organization proposed that architecture "is approached as a commitment to the public and private spheres and the power to negotiate individual or collective change to build dreams and aspirations, and even to express utopian ideals." Within this context, the jury evaluated more than 100 submitted projects from across Guatemala and the rest of Central America, recognizing parks, collective housing, gymnasiums, and renovations, among other typologies, that address the vision outlined by BAG 2018.

All winning projects in the professional category will be registered and sponsored to participate in the XXI Pan-American Architecture Biennale of Quito 2018, where they will be exhibited alongside projects from across the Americas and evaluated by the Biennale's jury.

An affordable, eco-friendly housing research project is being developed in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, one of the poorest countries in the world. Named "Casas Melhoradas" (Improved Houses), the project is a partnership between the KADK (Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts) School of Architecture, the Mozambican NGO Estamos, and Architects Without Borders. The goal is to develop low-cost, dignified housing with minimal environmental impact.

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José Joaquín de Olmedo Airport—Ecuador's second busiest—will relocate to the outskirts of Guayaquil in 2022, freeing up 240 hectares in the city center. In response to the unprecedented urban opportunity presented by this relocation, the firm Perkins Eastman has revealed the first images of Nueva Ciudad, a 2-million-square-meter master plan in Guayaquil.

Stephen Forneris, head of the Ecuador office, explained that the project "can be a catalyst for economic growth, cultural activities, and entertainment; it will be the spark that begins Guayaquil's journey to becoming the city of the future."

Today, Wednesday, November 21, the winners of the 2018 Gold Medal competition were announced as part of the XXI Pan-American Architecture Biennial of Ecuador (BAQ2018) in Quito.

The jury for the 2018 Gold Medal competition, comprising Astrid Petzold (Venezuela/Mexico), Ana Milovan (Uruguay), and Lucas Fehr (Brazil), determined the winning projects of the contest, which honors the best student work produced at Ecuadorian schools and departments of architecture between November 2016 and October 2018.