Articles

There is an architecture of the migrant. It is survivalist, built with what is available, made as quickly as possible, with safety as its core value. Americans romanticize that architecture as “Colonial”: simple timber buildings, with symmetric beginnings, infinite additions, and adaptations. But “Colonial” architecture is not what was built first by the immigrants to a fully foreign land 400 years ago. Like all migrant housing, time made it temporary and forgotten.

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Whether applied as cladding to steel or timber frame structures or to structures built by traditional means, sheet metal offers an array of advantages as a building material, thanks to its low cost, ease of maintenance, and versatility.

Costa Rica’s new modern homes are built to float above the landscape. This wave of elevated housing is designed to minimize environmental impact while working with varied terrain. Aiming to become a carbon-neutral country, Costa Rica is transforming its housing market as it experiences a growing demand for more residential buildings.

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Following a lengthy search, the California city of Riverside and its Parks, Recreation, and Community Services Department have selected Studio-MLA as the lead designer of the River-Side Gateway Project Suite, a string of nine sites along a seven-mile stretch of the Santa Ana River. Funded by the California Coastal Conservancy, the search committee sought a design team that could best revitalize the open spaces and trails along the northern edge of Riverside, the largest city in the Inland Empire region of California with a population of over 300,000.

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Chicago was home to a massive elevated walkway dubbed the “pedestrian highway.” It connected buildings on the East Campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago and created a multilevel network of human activity. It was designed by the architect Walter Netsch, the architect of the Air Force Academy Campus and famous chapel in Colorado Springs. The walkway was gigantic and monumental. It was even featured in the horror film Candyman from the early 1990s. But, over time, the walkway fell into disrepair and the decision was made to demolish this piece of iconic urban infrastructure.

It is believed that copper was the first metal to be found by men and used in the manufacture of tools and weapons. This occurred in the last period of prehistory, more than 10,000 years ago, in the so-called Metal Age, when groups, until then nomadic, started to become sedentary, developing agriculture and starting the first urban settlements. Copper has since been used in diverse ways. Used for decorative objects, jewelry, automotive parts, electrical systems, and even for dental amalgams, the material has had huge demand. In architecture, copper coatings are greatly appreciated for their aesthetics and durability. But a factor worth mentioning is that copper can be recycled infinitely, practically without losing its properties.

When water runs down the drain or we flush it down the toilet, we usually don't care where it ends up. This is because with adequate basic sanitation, wastewater shouldn't be a concern. Yet, although humanity has already taken man to space and plans to colonize Mars, it continues to fail to provide basic living conditions for a large part of its population. A comprehensive study estimates that 48% of global wastewater production is released into the environment untreated. The UN, in turn, presents a much less encouraging figure, citing that 80% of the world's sewage is released without treatment. But returning to the question of the title, there are basically two destinations for sewage if it is not being released directly into the natural environment: it can be treated locally through septic tanks, or connected to a sewage treatment plant through the sewage network, eventually returning to nature after a series of treatment processes.

In this week's reprint from Metropolis, author Avinash Rajagopal "takes a broad look at American Design, digging into the practice of architecture, the resurgence of craft, quintessential building forms, and decaying infrastructure". Asking questions such as "what values do we hold dear? What harm have we caused, and who benefits from the work we do?" architects and designers across the United States explore the contextual consequences of the global challenges.

As the prefix already indicates, postmodernism is a turning point in history, thereby proving the willingness of scholars to define this new era based on the rejection of the previous movement. Postmodernism first emerged in the 1960s as a departure from modernism. As a reaction against the austerity, formality, and lack of variety of modern architecture, particularly in the international style advocated by Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, postmodernism defends an architecture full of signs and symbols that can communicate cultural values. Postmodernism is a reaction to homogeneity and tediousness by praising difference and striving to produce buildings that are sensitive to the context within which they are built.

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This week’s curated selection of Best Unbuilt Architecture highlights commercial projects submitted by established firms. From art museums to offices, this article explores cultural functions and commercial spaces, and presents projects submitted to us from all over the world.

Featuring a reception center that merges the cultures of China and Italy by aoe architects, and a post-pandemic office building by NBBJ, this roundup explores how established architecture firms have designed buildings that optimize the functions of projects and ensure the comfort of their users. This round up also includes a collection of proposals from KPF Architects, Nordic Office of Architecture, AFF Architekten, along with many other firms, each responding to different spatial needs, facilities, and environments.

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Few places in the world have so many cultural and artistic facilities as the islands of Naoshima, Teshima, and Inujima, in Japan's Seto Inland Sea. Eighteen museums, galleries, and installations make up the Benesse Art Site Naoshima, a project idealized by billionaire businessman Soichiro Fukutake in the 1980s.

At the time, Fukutake invited none other than architect Tadao Ando to design the Benesse House Museum on the island of Naoshima, which went beyond an economic reboot to create a simpler, slower way of life - evidently for those who can afford it - far removed from the Japanese megacities.

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