Every architect has certainly already had the experience of designing a house throughout his or her career (or at least in university). Yet, developing a residential project with limited space, either due to physical restrictions of the land or a small budget, can be an interesting challenge while attempting to optimize the space, satisfy the architectural brief and provide maximum comfort to the future residents. With this in mind, we have gathered 21 Brazilian houses under 100 square meters along with their floor plans. Check out below:
For the newest installment of the NGV Triennial, architect Kengo Kuma and Melbourne artist Geoff Nees realized the Botanical Pavillion. Image Courtesy of Tom Ross
What might be called the Art Fair Industrial Complex has been an ambivalent force on both art markets and art itself in recent years: in one view, fairs offer their attendees chances to see international work they wouldn’t otherwise have access to; in another, the vast mall of it all dulls context into commerce.
With an on-going digital and physical evolution, the 5th Istanbul Design Biennialtook a new approach. “Rather than focusing on the presentation of final results in a compressed period of time and space”, the global circumstances created the opportunity to present new projects on a longer period of time and in expanded spaces, offering not an exhibition but “a digital and research program with a series of permanent interventions in the city.”
Botanic Garden in Beijing / URBANUS. Courtesy of Wang Hui
One of the most rewarding aspects of working with architecture publications is the possibility of meeting and becoming closer to the experts that are effectively transforming the discipline, either with built projects, research, experiments, theories, or even with works in other fields. In this sense, interviews perform a special role among all the different types of content published every day by ArchDaily, as we can get a closer insight into what some of the most distinguished and promising people have to say about the present and the future of architecture and cities.
With more than two hundred interviews published in our platforms, in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese, conducted in various formats – video recordings, transcripts, interviews by e-mail, video calls, or even podcasts –, it's safe to say that 2020 was a year of intensive learning during which we have become, paradoxically, closer than ever before to an inspiring group of architecture professionals.
Sinaloa is a state located in the northwestern part of Mexico bordered by the states of Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango, Nayarit, and by the Gulf of California to the west. It consists of over 58200 km² of territory and is the agricultural hub of Mexico.
Composed of microcell panels, polycarbonate offers various solutions for the use of natural lighting in architectural enclosures. Whether applied to facades, interior spaces or roofs, the benefits of polycarbonate, such as lightness, clean lines, colored panels, and light effects, offer a wide range of design freedom. Microcell panel technology reduces the need for artificial light and favors uniformity in the diffusion of natural light, achieving energy efficient facades and the illusion of spaciousness in interior spaces. Below, we've selected 10 projects that have used polycarbonate as a wrapping material.
China: The Curtain Sales Office / Larry Wen and Yibo Wang - Aoe. Image Courtesy of A' Design Award
The A’ Design Award is an international award whose aim is to provide designers, architects, and innovators from all design fields with a competitive platform to showcase their work and products to a global audience. Among the design world's many awards, the A' Design Award stands out for its exceptional scale and breadth, including over 100 award categories and having honored over 12,000 designers with an award over its 11-year lifetime.
Every December talking heads (or screens) trumpet “Everything Has Changed”. But this year it is true. Imminent inoculations may bring back human contact, but the Coronavirus Year has changed us.
I think 2020 ended the 20th Century in architecture. Architecture never leads in pivotal periods. Modernism was birthed by a Western World leaving monarchies and diving into the Industrial Revolution: it caused neither.
The Liberal Archive (2020). A proposal for an open repository of digital and material culture, located next to the British Library in London. Image Courtesy of Adam Nathaniel Furman
This article was originally published on Common Edge as "Presenting Architecture as Progressive, but Practicing Through Exclusion."
For a profession that likes to congratulate itself about how well-meaning it is, and sees itself as liberal, diverse, open, and progressive, British architecture has a serious problem with diversity of pretty much every kind. It is dominated by people from well-off backgrounds. It trains a lot of brilliant female architects but doesn’t pay them as much as men, and loses many of them after 30 when they are not supported in balancing work and family life. Its ethnic makeup is very, very white, considering that it’s 2020. A supposed beacon of success is the acceptance of the LGBTQ community within the field, but as with women and those from and religious and ethnic minorities, stories of unprofessional comments, inappropriate jokes, and insidious forms of jovially “innocent” othering and the diminution of identity-specific concerns abound.
Housing is a ubiquitous typology ripe for experimentation. Exploring form, view, materials and hierarchies, residential projects center on daily life and retreat. Designed to bring people together and provide space for isolation, homes can be open and inviting, secluded and private, or both at the same time. For unbuilt housing projects, these concepts are designed to rethink traditional forms and spatial layouts in the context of local climates and landscape conditions.
This week’s curated selection of the Best Unbuilt Architecture focuses on homes and residential projects located around the world. Drawn from an array of firms and local contexts, they represent proposals submitted by our readers. They showcase both single family and multi-unit homes, from a series of villas for three friends overlooking the Caspian Sea, to a Cambodian countryside retreat and a pine cabin in the Jezzine village of south Lebanon.
In 1941, Swiss engineer George de Mestral was coming back from a hunting trip with his dog when he noticed that some seeds kept sticking to his clothes and his dog's fur. He observed that they contained several "hooks" that caught on anything with a loop, and from studying this plant, seven years later, he invented the hook and loop fastener, which he named Velcro.
For this end of the year special roundup, ArchDaily has compiled a selection of Best Unbuilt Architecture, submitted by established and well-known firms. Including conceptual, in progress and, even in some cases, under-construction projects, this curated list covers a wide spectrum of programs and approaches.
From KPF, Sasaki, COOKFOX, and FCBStudios to name a very few, this week’s article highlights worldwide interventions. It actually encompasses a terminal transformation in Manhattan, an integrated mixed-use development in Central Belfast, regeneration of an entire district in Shanghai, and the modernization of the infrastructure at Davis research station in Antarctica.
Facing the current and accentuated global challenges, we ask ourselves: What should we address first?
2020 was a tremendous opportunity to focus all our efforts and attention on the most urgent issues of architecture. Through articles, interviews, debates, and projects, ArchDaily's Topics presented each month an in-depth response to the most relevant problems - from the climate crisis and emergency architecture to artificial intelligence and How Will We Live Together.
A single, continuous line unbroken by handle rotation: such was the simple, yet difficult-to-execute design concept motivating Zaha Hadid Design’s new innovative door handle. The result is a beautifully molded sculptural yet ergonomic design, playfully balancing form with function.
https://www.archdaily.com/954138/seamlessly-continuous-nexxa-a-new-door-handle-by-zaha-hadid-designLilly Cao
Pretty much everyone hates waiting rooms. Here are four statistics about them from a survey administered by Software Advice, an Austin, Texas-based consultation group: 80% of respondents said being told the accurate wait time would either completely or somewhat minimize their frustration; 40% said they would be willing to see another physician if it meant a shorter waiting time; 20% would be willing to pay an extra fee for quicker service; and 97%—virtually all of us!—are frustrated by wait times. And now, waiting rooms, in addition to being some of the dreariest places on earth, have become one of the easiest places in the world to get sick.
Straddling the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, the city of Boulder has become an iconic destination in Colorado. Widely known for its rock formations, the Flatirons, Boulder holds an innate connection to the mountains and surrounding landscape. Believed to have taken its name from Boulder Creek, the city has a rich history dating back to gold miners and the introduction of new railroad lines in 1873. Today, Boulder is a thriving center for education, art, and environmental stewardship.
Every city has its odd building. Paris has Centre Pompidou. London –Lloyd’s of London. New York –the Guggenheim. Naturally, Chicago, the architectural capital of the world, has one too. Here it is –James R. Thompson Center, named so in honor of four-term Illinois Republican Governor (1977-91) who was brave enough to get it built in 1985. Home to offices of the Illinois state government the building is unlike anything you have ever seen before.
2020 has fundamentally changed our spatial routines and the current health crisis brought about a significant amount of speculation regarding how our daily lives will unfold onward. With the year coming to an end, we look at how the pandemic accelerated some architecture trends that were already underway, and how it brought into question other well-established ideas.