Dear readers,
As the end of the year approaches, we would like to thank you all once again for making 2018 our best year yet. Thanks to your continuous support and our close connection with our readers, we now reach far more architects around the world, inspiring them to create better urban environments.
This week concluded the series of meetings and conferences convened by the Venice Biennale to introduce Freespace, curated by artistic directors Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara. Venice, Paris, Berlin, and New York. The Irish architects presented the list of 71 participants making up the curatorial proposal, which features five Latin American participants: Elemental (Chile), Rozana Montiel Estudio de Arquitectura (Mexico), Barclay & Crousse (Peru), Carla Juaçaba (Brazil), and Paulo Mendes da Rocha (Brazil).
Andrés Arochi directed a video that portrays dancing bodies experiencing the space of the Luis Barragán House and Studio, a site in Mexico City famous for the introspective quality of its gardens and the characteristic mysticism of the Mexican architect. Regarding the video Dancing through the Architecture of Luis Barragán, Arochi comments:
This is not the first time that iconic works of architecture have served as a stage for dancing bodies; there is seemingly an intrinsic connection between these two art forms. Exercises like this remind us that architecture is not merely an assembly of concrete, steel, and glass ready to shelter its users, but rather a series of actions harboring a collection of breaths, moments, and movements that give meaning to a place, as Spanish philosopher Marina Garcés writes:
The Ruin Experience project, developed by architect Sergio Navarro García, proposes an intervention in the ruined buildings scattered across the countryside of Lorca, Murcia (Spain), where the local population gradually abandoned these robust houses to move to the city. The project offers an alternative approach to intervention, engaging directly with the environment and leveraging its resources to create sensory complexes where people interact with nature through architecture.
El Mesillo, the site selected for the intervention, is a unique, hidden enclave in the municipality of Lorca, defined by a direct and deep-seated relationship between its inhabitants and nature through agriculture. Historically, this bond was even closer, giving rise to the creation and use of entirely natural creams and treatments. Water, soil, air, sun, essential oils, homemade lotions and concoctions, fruits, vegetables, and, of course, a proper siesta, served as home remedies for minor ailments and daily stress.
Simply moving through Brazilian cities, wasting hours in traffic jams or waiting for overcrowded buses or subways—or ones that don't even exist!—is enough to see that they are far from functioning at a reasonable standard. And even those who, supposedly protected by walls, rarely come into contact with the precarious housing conditions of millions of families are shocked by the growing number of people living on the streets or by stark reminders of this precarity when a tragedy, such as the fire in the Wilton Paes de Almeida Building, hits the headlines. One would expect, therefore, that urban issues—housing and transportation in particular—would be prominent in the government platforms of the presidential candidates.
Writing for the ARKRIT Collective, architect Carmen Espegel presents an article that exemplifies how the home can serve as a simple refuge for the essence of life—defined by the survivor's austerity, voluntary renunciation, and a rejection of the bourgeois lifestyle.
Originally published as Collaborative Design of Public Space: The Triple Dimension, this new collaboration by Paisaje Transversal proposes a specific methodology for both evaluating the quality of public space and facilitating urban design "if we want to transform public space into a living fabric," the authors explain.
Public space is the fluid that unifies the city, the fabric that stitches buildings together and weaves social, economic, and environmental relationships. It shapes issues as crucial as mobility, coexistence, and a community's cultural exchange, as well as the environmental quality that directly impacts everyone's health.
Public space shapes our daily lives, either offering or depriving us of spaces for socialization. Consequently, it is a priority, both for the sustainability of the city and the lives of its inhabitants—a matter that demands the involvement of not only urban design professionals but also the general public. To achieve this, citizens must understand the factors that determine the livability and functionality of public space, just as they recognize the characteristics of decent housing.
How many children do we see daily playing in the streets, interacting with elements of urban spaces, running in parks or plazas, or riding their bikes? These scenes can say a lot about a city—not only about how it is caring for its younger generations, but also about the quality of life it offers families; which is to say, for everyone.
What does it mean for an architecture biennial—especially a Pan-American one—to have reached more than 20 editions? Clearly, it represents a significant accumulation of participants, speakers, coordinators, and projects that over the years have not only showcased the sheer volume of regional production, but have also consistently reminded us of the potential of keeping both Latin American and global debate and exchange active.
For this reason, it is worth highlighting key figures and milestones. Both serve as empirical evidence of the historical development and reach of the Quito Architecture Biennial, helping us answer this initial question and understand why it is considered one of the most important architectural events in the Americas.
In their classic setup, with a classroom consisting of a blackboard, a standing teacher, and seated students, the interior spaces of a school can easily be mistaken for prisons. Now consider the outdoor, public areas of most educational institutions in Brazil: how often can a place be recognized as a school simply by looking at it from afar?
Paulo Mendes, Nadezhda Rocha, and three other architecture firms (FGMF, Königsberger Vannucchi Arquitetos Associados, and Nitsche Arquitetos) are competing in the Paulista Para Todos Ideas Festival, an initiative by Esquina.net.br and the law firm Mattos Filho, Veiga Filho, Marrey Jr e Quiroga Advogados, which is based on Paulista Avenue. Each of them has developed a street furniture proposal for Paulista Avenue with full creative freedom. The proposals will be submitted to a three-member jury comprising architects and urban planners Carlos Leite and Sol Camacho, and Renato Schermann Ximenes de Melo, a partner at Mattos Filho. The winner will be announced on December 5th.
The team led by Oscar Luengo and Álvaro Parraguez won first place in the Pasarelas San Borja competition in Chile. The main objective of the competition was to recognize "the best urban design ideas that contribute to defining intervention criteria and generating proposals for the San Borja Neighborhood."
Titled Corredores San Borja, the winning proposal "proposes the walkways as connecting spatial corridors between towers, plazas, and peripheral activities, allowing for fluidity and articulation between the complex's disconnected interior and exterior spaces."
Walking is the most common form of transportation in the world and a basic human right. It connects us directly with our surroundings, does not pollute the city, and offers numerous health benefits, such as reducing chronic diseases, obesity, and diabetes. This is the message that the ITDP and Streetfilms convey in the film The Right to Walk, released this year.
If walking is so beneficial, why is it so difficult to do in urban environments? Rapid urban growth and car-centric planning have increasingly restricted space and respect for pedestrians. Every year, 1.3 million people are killed in traffic, half of whom are pedestrians, cyclists, or motorcyclists. Furthermore, traffic accidents result in 20 to 50 million hospitalizations annually, making them the leading cause of physical disability worldwide. More than 90% of traffic fatalities occur in low- and middle-income countries like Brazil, which has the highest number of traffic deaths per capita in South America.
Instagram is an image-sharing application that is increasingly woven into our daily lexicon; currently, Instagram has around 800 million monthly active users. This speaks volumes about the exponential growth of this social network, of which we are big fans, and where we strive to bring you daily news and the most important architectural works from Mexico and the world. By the way, are you already following us on our @ArchdailyMx account?
Instagram is not a new tool for us, as we know that Instagram must be part of every architect's design process in the millennial era. Furthermore, we have organized various contests, such as the one for our fifth anniversary in Mexico. We are eager to maintain a much more direct relationship with our readers and to learn what inspires you, allowing us to continue creating content tailored to your interests. Therefore, starting today, we are launching several interactive activities to stay closer in touch with you.
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The Bicentennial of Peru's independence, to be celebrated in 2021, represents not only a great opportunity to take stock of what we have built as a nation in two hundred years of existence, but also to reflect on the challenges for the next one hundred years—that is, on the road toward the tricentennial.
When faced with a growing population, a city's first response is often to sprawl, expanding its territory. Unfortunately, this expansion is highly costly for the municipality itself and contributes to socio-spatial segregation and inequality. Cities must find a path that establishes them as prosperous places for both people and the economy. A recent study suggests that the key to achieving this may lie in “good density.”
Defining an area as having “good density” goes far beyond having a high number of people living or working in a specific space. Key factors such as mixed-use zoning, connectivity, and sustainable transportation infrastructure are fundamental.
Popularly known as the Ciudad de las Cajas Reales (City of the Royal Coffers), Chucuito is a small Peruvian town located 20 kilometers from Puno at an altitude of over 3,800 meters above sea level. Boasting a privileged location on the shores of Lake Titicaca, it was once part of the ancient pre-Columbian Tiwanaku culture and served as the seat of government for the Lupaca kingdom. During the Spanish colonial era, it became a strategic tax collection center, and today it preserves a valuable architectural legacy throughout its streets.
Following our guide to Puno's must-see landmarks—on the occasion of the recent XV TSL Puno—we recommend seven sites in this town nestled in the Peruvian highlands. Due to the high altitude (and particularly at the San Bartolomé viewpoint), visitors are advised to tour these landmarks with a companion, walk at a measured pace, and chew coca leaves to prevent altitude sickness.
As you know, ArchDaily has joined forces with Spotify, the world's largest music streaming platform. From the very beginning, we have been sharing our own playlists for those key moments in the lives of all architects. At the same time, we have invited architects from Latin America and Spain to share the music that inspires them, or better yet, the sounds that have shaped their careers.
In this installment of ArchDaily en Español + Spotify, we share our most popular playlist: Música para Maquetear (Music for Model Making). If you have to spend your day among cardboard and renders, this ten-hour playlist will keep you company during those long late-night sessions.
From the Fundación Arquia Blog, architect Zaida Muxí brings us an article that provides basic clarifications on gender-perspective urbanism for beginners, exploring how to build cities from and for women, but not in an exclusive or exclusionary way.
To shape humanity in its truly comprehensive capacity within the dimension of gender, women's movements and feminist philosophical analysis have ethically exposed the alienation that over-identifies women with men and their symbols, while disidentifying men from women and their symbols.
It is time to say goodbye to 2018. Following our showcase of the best architecture of the year, we have gathered the Chilean projects that generated the most engagement on our social media platforms. Indeed, in the architectural field, understanding where design is heading requires looking at its key works and observing how the public has responded to them.
Goodbye 2018, hello 2019.
Most people today live in cities, which are growing rapidly. We are living in the age of urbanization, an era that began in the early 19th century when vast masses of people decided to be closer to one another rather than close to the land. There is no doubt that sooner or later the vast majority of us, humans, will be living in cities.
In contemporary urban design, spatial organization, mobility, the demand for new connections, and the boundaries established between public and private space have increasingly become the focus of discussions surrounding the future of global cities, and equally so in Brazil. Under this model of rapid growth, certain built structures have created urban barriers, presenting distinct obstacles.
Working hand-in-hand with a wide range of product manufacturers and suppliers allows us to access valuable information to support design and construction processes using different types of materials.
To make this knowledge readily available, we have compiled a series of guides, manuals, and tips covering everything from working with laminated wood and installing cladding, to applying protective finishes and varnishes. Read 12 useful articles below.
From the Arquia Foundation Blog, architect Adrià Guardiet shares an article reflecting on three perspectives on unfinished architecture—projects where time and their occupants play a central role.
Certain architectures work with time as a design variable. Some are conceived as open, dynamic, growing structures. Others operate around the memory of the site. To name just two examples.
In these projects, time is often introduced as an entelechy—that is, as a specifically intellectual device. Yet time appears far more explicitly when architecture is pending completion, left unfinished due to economic, political, biological, or other reasons. These are what we have come to call meanwhile architectures: projects that find fertile ground for development in unstable contexts.
