Articles

At Architects, not Architecture, we believe it’s safe to say that almost everyone who has studied architecture in the last 50 years has come across The Salk Institute designed by architect Louis Kahn. While it does not always reflect in their works, our speakers have shared their little stories on how this modernist gem built in1963 played a role in their life. And since we just started our second Virtual World Tour on October 13th, 2021 we thought we’d share a few stories from last events.

Videos

Models are useful to architects for all sorts of things, from the earliest parts of the design, all the way to marketing a building after it's built. But, what is it about models that makes them such an important and powerful tool? And, how do different architecture firms incorporate them into their own and unique design process? This video explores these questions by surveying three firms: Morphosis, MVRDV, and Herzog and de Meuron. Often firms have model shops and dedicated model teams who are responsible for everything from early design decisions to critical client presentations and even marketing the building. We hear from the folks who work in these model shops and breakdown how the three case study firms approach models in their own unique way.

The word “furniture” derives from the Old French, forneture, which means the act of supplying, from fournir. But it is only in the English language that this word is used to refer to elements of the house such as chairs, tables, shelves, etc. French and other Romance languages, as well as German, use variants of the word meubles, which derives from the Latin mobilia, meaning "things that move." While the English spelling impels a meaning of utility, languages that take the Latin root “mobilia” bring to the word a sense of freedom and possibility. But furniture does not always carry this versatility and flexibility in its creation, and generally, staticity and monofunctionality better characterize the furniture we know. The Gregory seating system is an example of how furniture can provide functionality, but also combine beauty and flexibility.

Argentina is positioned in the extreme south and southwest of South America and given its extension, it has a multiplicity of climates and differences in the incidence of sunlight. These conditions led many architecture professionals to think about pergolas to generate transitional spaces between the interior and exterior of the homes that allow meeting the needs of its inhabitants by creating shaded, meeting and resting spaces in the open air.

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

On a recent day in Santa Monica, California, visitors sat in the shaded courtyard outside City Hall East waiting for appointments. One of them ate a slice of the orange she’d picked from the tree above her and contemplated the paintings, photographs, and assemblages on the other side of the glass. The exhibit, Lives that Bind, featured local artists’ expressions of erasure and underrepresentation in Santa Monica’s past. It’s part of an effort by the city government to use the new soon-to-be certified Living Building (designed by Frederick Fisher and Partners) as a catalyst for building a community that is environmentally, socially, and economically self-sustaining.

Singapore has emerged as a global design center. As a city-state and island country in Southeast Asia, the Lion City is home to a new class of high-rise buildings, gardens and iconic landmarks. While the design world is familiar with structures like the Safdie's Jewel Changi Airport or OMA's Interlace, Singapore has also built a range of new public and civic buildings alongside extensive land reclamation projects.

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In Metropolis this week, author Annie Howard explores Chicago's Architecture Biennial, which opened to the public on September 17th, showcasing a series of 15 site-specific interventions. Arguing that "a tour of the Damen Silos and a celebration of the Wall of Respect show a biennial struggling to achieve longer-term engagement with the city it calls home", the editor questions how much work is needed in order to make the city fully usable to its residents.

Renovating a space for a gastronomic purpose can be one of the most interesting challenges for an architect, due to the freedom of design that tends to characterize these projects. It allows us to play with cladding materials, lighting, and furnishings to create unique spaces that are both attractive and functional for both the restaurant team and the diners.

We dived into our project library to select 5 restaurants that took advantage of their renovations and complexities to create distinctive spaces, presented by ICEX e Interiors from Spain.

Solar technology has enormous potential, but it has been underutilized. To get an idea of just how underutilized it is, consider that every 24 hours the amount of sunlight that hits the Earth could provide energy for the entire planet for 24 years. Of course, it is necessary to collect it properly, through photovoltaic systems. With the climate crisis increasingly present in our daily lives, causing growing concerns about obtaining energy from renewable sources and reducing carbon emissions, using the sun's possibilities to generate clean energy seems to be a path of no return. But there are still some difficulties that reduce its use, such as obtaining economical solar products, aesthetics, availability of these products, regulations, and even installation issues.

Building-integrated photovoltaics, or BIPVs, offer the design and construction industry solutions to typical challenges that hinder adoption of solar energy. Below, we list the main challenges of incorporating solar energy into projects and how they can be overcome.

Within the Andes Mountains, the San Pedro Hot Springs is a place to press pause and contemplate, which interrupts a transnational highway between Chile and Argentina. Although these natural pools became a public landmark within the route, they eventually fell over time into a state of abandonment and deterioration as a result of the constant seismic movements in the region.

In response to this situation, Chilean architect Pia Montero sought to highlight the baths for her built-project thesis at the University of Talca in order to consolidate it as a landmark of tourist potential and symbol of the territorial identity of the Maule Region. Moreover, the project is a wake-up call to rediscover and rescue the value of the natural and cultural heritage of the area from the gradual abandonment into which it fell over the years.

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From creating a new parking structure with an awe-inspiring aesthetic to retrofitting an existing building, architectural wire mesh provides versatility and durability which makes it unique from other design material options.