This guide covers a workflow that moves from project parameters to generated floor plans, 3D perspective views, exterior design exploration, and site context visualization, using AI tools in place of preliminary CAD and rendering work.

In the last few years, Europe has become a leader in refurbishment architecture by renovating and remodeling buildings and historic city centers. These initiatives have halted horizontal expansion and promote equitable city development. 

This trend has not only become a contribution towards the densification and revitalization of underserved sectors but has also allowed families who had been displaced to the periphery to inhabit city centers and improve their quality of life.

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Wood-based materials manufacturer EGGER combines decor from furniture and interior design, as well as flooring, to create something entirely new.

The building site is perhaps one of the most meaningful spaces for architects, as it is where the project comes to life, where techniques are actually applied, putting the project and the designer to the test. Many building sites are affected by work alienation, but they were once a place where craftsmen could learn and pass on knowledge. Today, with the evolution of construction techniques, centuries-old methods are in danger of being forgotten. This brings us to Guédelon Castle, located near the French village of Treigny.

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The little-known and remote area of North Caucasus is an intricate assemblage of territories, ethnicities, languages, religions, and, consequently, architectures, from Tsarist-era buildings to mosques, traditional bas-reliefs, and Soviet Modernism. The setting of controversial events and a heterogeneous cultural environment, in many ways, North Caucasus is a borderland between Europe and Asia, the former USSR and the Middle East, Christianity and Islam. Photographs by Gianluca Pardelli, Thomas Paul Mayer and Nikolai Vassiliev provide an introduction to the architectural landscape of the region.

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William Morris was one of the leading figures of the 19th-century Arts and Crafts movement. Guided by his political ideals, his practice spanned architecture, decoration, and design, eventually extending to writing—always striving to foster workplaces as spaces of pleasure and contemplation.

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By now,  it is clear that technology has taken over almost every aspect of our lives. It has changed the way we communicate, how we connect, how we work and study, and has even modified our buying and eating habits.  Architecture and construction were not the exceptions, and technology is also now present in the way it is being thought, designed, and built.

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The Neighborhood Plan is an urban planning tool that encourages residents to propose initiatives to improve their neighborhoods. It was established in São Paulo by the Strategic Master Plan municipal law with the goals of aligning local issues with the city's broader structural demands, identifying the need for public, social, and recreational facilities in neighborhoods, strengthening the local economy, and fostering job opportunities.

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We’re in an age of unprecedented technological innovation. The architecture and construction industries are increasingly becoming more and more automated, as firms seek to take full advantage of new machinery and new ways of working to make the design process more efficient. With this increase in automation, however, comes lots of questions too. Will robots ever replace architects? Will the near future see a fully automated construction industry? A pertinent question, too, is the complicated case of automation and the individuality of design – does automation take away from the individuality of design?

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Videos

Escola da Cidade has shared with us a lecture series on Japanese Architecture and Culture, which is part of the Estúdio Deriva program. This series features the following lectures: "Ambience Without Hierarchy: SANAA and Electronic Music" with Guilherme Wisnik, "Contemporary Japanese Culture" with Gabriel Kogan, "The Professional Practice of Japanese Architects" with Lourenço Gimenes, "A Graphical Analysis of Toyo Ito's Mediatheques" with Marina Lacerda, "Destroy to Build: The Impact of Tokyo's Reconstruction Plans in Akira" with Beatriz Oliveira, "Jidai no nagare, the Flow of Eras: Japanese Wood Joinery" with Heloisa Ikeda, and "The Tōkaidō Road: Travel, Woodblock Prints, and Cities of the Tokugawa Period (1603-1868)" with Fernanda Sakano. Watch all the lectures here.

Videos

As a design feature, cantilevers can exist for any number of reasons, as rational results of form-making, impressive feats of engineering, or just unnecessary spectacles. Either way, they often result in buildings that appear both heavy and light at the same time and they present safely precarious situations for their inhabitants. The video describes what cantilevers are as well as some of the structural principles which govern their design like tension, compression, moment, and shear. It also goes over some great examples by architects like MVRDV, Rem Koolhaas, Ensemble Studio, and Richard Rogers. Finally, it concludes with appreciation for structural engineers and lists a few of the ones responsible for some of the most daring of delicate dangles.

The discussion around how we plan the cities we want to live in is a never-ending conversation. As our world experiences shifts that impact urban designs in both predictable and unpredictable ways, some principals have held true- that cities that rely less on private transportation, create walkable neighborhoods, boast a multitude of public parks and spaces, and are designed at a more human scale tend to be favored and well-recieved by the people who inhabit them. Enter the concept of New Urbanism. Backed by these ideologies with a modern spin on is how they might apply to our 21st-century lifestyles, New Urbanism a planning strategy that has been both praised and critiqued since its implementation.

Throughout the 113 years of celebrating Japanese immigration, discussions surrounding Japanese culture have gained considerable attention. As Brazil is home to the largest Japanese community outside the archipelago, the country's connection to Japanese cultural expressions is clear. Many cities settled by Japanese immigrants preserve their Japanese history and culture to this day; consequently, the architectural field has consolidated itself primarily through buildings that represent the political and social dimensions of Japanese immigration, fused with new technologies and construction methods. 

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A growing number of theorists and practitioners have been discussing the impact of gender and race on the profession and theory of architecture. Issues linked to the relationship between the built environment, sexual orientation, and gender identity, however, remain particularly understudied, perhaps because of their relative invisibility and less clearly identifiable discriminatory consequences. Moreover, they are also completely neglected by design theory in the Francophone world. This article partially remedies the situation.

3D printing (as known as three-dimensional printing) is a type of rapid prototyping technology. It is a technology that uses powdered metal or plastic and other bondable materials to construct objects by printing layer by layer based on digital model files.

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

Martin C. Pedersen talks with Ron Rochon, managing partner at Miller Hull, about Carbon and the role of architectural firms in eliminating emissions. Discussing the EMissions Zero initiative, the current shortcomings of carbon offsets, and the way forward, the piece also questions the possibility of setting goals with the absence of an internationally, agreed-upon carbon cap.

What is the role of corporate offices today? The coronavirus pandemic highlighted profound needs and transformations in all of our lives: in relationships, work, consumption habits, and rising inequality. Unquestionably, the question of workspaces came to the fore during a historical phase when, for the first time in the postmodern era, people saw their personal freedoms restricted.

Most people were forced to work from home, and since the beginning of quarantine, reflecting on the future of workspaces became inevitable. Interesting data shows that the coronavirus merely accelerated a practice that had been gaining traction for years in some countries. According to studies conducted jointly by Global Workplace Analytics and FlexJobs, between 2005 and 2015, the number of professionals in the United States who do at least 50% of their work from home or another location outside their offices grew by 115%, and today this number reaches 4.7 million, or 3.4% of the workforce.

ODA has just launched its latest project, an urban vision for the future of the streets of New York. The project titled Beyond the street- Reimagining the flower district proposes to transform a city block from the outside in, altering the pedestrian experience and introducing new zoning changes that would give landowners air rights or tax credits in exchange for handing over their inner courtyards to be transformed into public/private spaces.

ArchDaily had the chance to talk with Eran Chen, founding principal and executive director of ODA, about the firm’s very special proposal that seeks to improve our urban environment. Check the interview and watch ODA’s explanatory movie.

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Perforated wall panels offer a variety of benefits: they can provide passive ventilation, shade, and unique aesthetics to any façade. In the case of companies like Dri-Design, which specializes in customizable and sustainable metal wall panels, perforated panels can be produced according to a wide variety of specifications, including different colors, materials, sizes, textures, shapes, and styles of perforation. Dri-Design’s perforated imaging series even allows architects to apply images onto their facades by varying the size, location, and density of the perforations.

Below, we examine three case studies of buildings using different perforated panels, considering each of their panel specifications and overall aesthetic effect on the buildings.

Videos

Charles (June 17, 1907 – August 21, 1978) and Ray Eames (December 15, 1912 – August 21, 1988) are best known for their personal and artistic collaboration and their innovative designs that shaped the course of modernism. Their firm worked on a diverse array of projects, with designs for exhibitions, furniture, houses, monuments, and toys. Together they developed manufacturing processes to take advantage of new materials and technology, aiming to produce high-quality everyday objects at a reasonable cost. Many of their furniture designs are considered contemporary classics, particularly the Eames Lounge & Shell Chairs, while the Eames House is a seminal work of architectural modernism.

Adaptive reuse or the process of transforming an older building by reusing the structure and changing its original purpose, has gained relevance over the years especially because it allows a complete optimization of the performance of the existing built environment. In a piece, originally published on Metropolis, author Elissaveta Brandon explores how "architects and developers are transforming the staples of the South—located throughout a 120-mile region from Winston-Salem to Fayetteville—into infrastructure fit for today". Transforming historic mills into design hubs, and mixed-use complexes, the article highlights 3 examples from North Carolina.

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As part of the activities of the 2019 Santa Lucía International Festival, organized by Las Artes Monterrey—a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the visual arts of Monterrey, Nuevo León, and its metropolitan area—Estudio Núñez Zapata (formerly Covachita Taller de Arquitectura) built the pavilion ¿Cómo podremos dormir juntos? (How Will We Be Able to Sleep Together?) on a private vacant lot adjacent to the Macroplaza. The project was subsequently selected to be exhibited at the Mexican Pavilion during the 2021 Venice Biennale.

The human scale spans both physical dimensions and sensory perception. Designers create spaces and objects like steps, doorways and chairs that are closely aligned to human measurement and how we see the world. But as we look beyond the human scale, new ideas and typologies emerge that help us rethink how we conceptualize architecture and build for the future.

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The 2021-2022 A' Design Awards are now open and accepting early entires. The A’ Design Award & Competition provides valuable feedback and experience to its contestants. The A’ Design Award winners will proudly display their award trophies and design excellence certificates which grant them a high level of exposure and recognition.

The 17th Venice Architecture Biennale is currently unfolding, and its 60 national pavilions reveal a wide range of answers to the question "How will we live together". This year's edition restates the Biennale's role as a platform for inquiry, prompting a collective re-evaluation of pressing issues such as migration, inequality, climate change or the role of technology. While in Venice, Archdaily met virtually within the Korean pavilion with curator Hae-Won Shin, as the pandemic prevented the exhibition's creators to be present at the Biennale. The conversation explored the thinking behind "Future School" and how it creates a framework for collective learning and exploration.