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.

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May 3 is a holiday originating from the Feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross, also known as the May Cross (Cruz de Mayo) or Festival of the Crosses (Fiesta de las Cruces), which has its roots in the Roman Rite celebrating the devotion to the Cross of Christ. Over time, this commemoration has evolved and been adopted across cities in Mexico, Chile, Spain, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, Argentina, Colombia, and Venezuela, where the festivities typically include floral decorations, processions, and dances.

Italian architect Gaetano Boccia has been researching drawings and architectural representation for the past two years. The Pdda (piccoli disegni di architettura) project was born with the intention of sharing Boccia's thoughts, which he has always cataloged and kept in notebooks.

Referring to no particular buildings, these drawings are part of an inspirational process that takes place in the architect's daily context and complex surroundings of Naples and Italian culture.

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Videos

Before social media took over, buildings were published on magazines, edited and refined according to their architects’ preferences. Nowadays, magazines are left on the sidelines for a much more influential platform, one that is not totally controlled by the architects. Digital communication has changed the way people view and interact with architecture, providing architects with new insights on how to design their structures.

PLANE—SITE, a global production agency involved in the world of urban, cultural, and social spaces, have put together a short video that examines the impact of social media on architecture firms. Building Images provides insights from OMA/AMO and UNStudio, two firms with different approaches to social media, who explain how social platforms have helped them see their projects in unprecedented ways.

This article was originally published on Metropolis Magazine.

Green building was always part of the firm's DNA, though a little more than ten years ago Lake|Flato formed an internal studio that would focus on landscape and resource management.

For over three decades, San Antonio’s Lake|Flato Architects have advanced the cause of critical regionalism in South Texas. Founding partners David Lake and Ted Flato met in the office of O’Neil Ford, an early Texas Modernist whose work combined structural innovation with local building traditions. When they started their own practice in 1984, Lake and Flato carried this germ with them, turning out a series of ranch houses that garnered attention for their deft blending of modern modes of living, indigenous materials, and agro-industrial vernacular.

The conversation with renowned architect and artist Zvi Hecker (born 1931) followed Crusaders Come and Go, his exhibition at Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin (June-July 2017). In the first part, Hecker introduces his historical critique of the Modernist turn in architecture and its effect on city planning. He points out the tension between an urbanistic approach and approach which focuses on the impact of the single building. In the second part, Hecker tackles the notion of the architect’s style and positions his work against or in distance to the endeavor of cultivating a stylistic signature. In the last part, Hecker elaborates on a recurring motif in his work, the motive of the open book as a symbol, concept and formal dynamic reference.

Throughout his distinguished career, Pritzker award winner Tadao Ando managed to trigger every human’s sensations upon entering his structures. It was never just the buildings’ forms that let the architect earn his status, but the manipulation of light and shadow and the impulsive sensation of sanctity that his buildings impose, are what led him to become one of the world’s most renowned architects.

To showcase Ando’s recent works and to honor their ongoing relationship with the architect, Oris House of Architecture have created a monograph titled Transcending Oppositions, celebrating his buildings and their relationship with the contemporary culture of Japan. Judging this book by its cover, readers will have a clear notion of what to expect, as the monograph reflects Tadao Ando’s architecture on fine print.

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As we have seen throughout the history of architecture, ephemeral installations and pavilions are important tools for talking about specific moments in architecture in an almost immediate way. While it is true some pavilions have been so relevant that they broke with their ephemeral quality to become permanent, such as the German Pavilion in Barcelona, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich, most are documented in photographs, plans and experiences to be rewritten in future projects.

Videos

Last month, the National Board of the Association of Architects of Chile announced Miguel Lawner as the winner of the 2019 National Architecture Award, the highest honor an architect can receive in that country. The following interview, conducted in 2015, not only delves into the details of his life story, but also reflects several of his thoughts on the political sphere.

Videos

Italian artist Federico Babina has published the latest in his impressive portfolio of architectural illustrations. “Planimal” seeks to convey the close link between architecture and the natural world, translating animals into architectural plans. Through his set of drawings, Babina reimagines the architectural spaces as “narrative subjects that host us and lead us into a fantastic labyrinth of a dreamlike reality, architectures imagined as allusively zoomorphic sculptures.”

Houses, museums, and churches are conveyed as roaring lions, crawling snakes, and swimming whales, with dynamic spaces formed from cocktails of asymmetries and symmetries, curves and straight lines, solids and voids, sounds and silences, lights and shadows.

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Past, Present, Future is an interview project by Itinerant Office, asking acclaimed architects to share their perspectives on the constantly evolving world of architecture. Each interview is split into three video segments: Past, Present, and Future, in which interviewees discuss their thoughts and experiences of architecture through each of those lenses. The first episode of the project featured 11 architects from Italy and the Netherlands and Episode II is comprised of interviews with 13 architects from Spain, Portugal, France, and Belgium.

In this article shared by the Bamboo Experimentation Laboratory at UNESP - Bauru the researchers involved report on the construction of the Workshop Shed at the Horto de Aimorés Rural Settlement. The project utilized raw bamboo combined with round aroeira columns and metal connections. Read the summary submitted by the authors and the results of this process below.

What happens when the sensor-imbued city acquires the ability to see – almost as if it had eyes? Ahead of the 2019 Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (UABB), ArchDaily is working with the curators of the "Eyes of the City" section at UABB 2019 to set up a discussion on how new technologies - and Artificial Intelligence in particular - might impact architecture and urban life. Here you can read the “Eyes of the City” curatorial statement by Carlo Ratti, Politecnico di Torino, and SCUT. If you are interested in taking part in the exhibition at UABB 2019, submit your proposal to the “Eyes of the City” open call until May 31st, 2019: www.eyesofthecity.net

Comparisons, transpositions and metaphors can be misleading if one does not unpack carefully their point of departure. The notion that the digital age introduces us to a new regime of "eyes on the street", an expression famously coined by Jane Jacobs, requires understanding exactly what the author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities implied when she used it. For Jane Jacobs, the active presence of city dwellers in the street, their unconscious or conscious monitoring of what was going on in their immediate surroundings was the best way to ensure public safety. "The public peace — the sidewalk and the street peace— of cities is not kept primarily by the police, necessary as police are. It is kept primarily by an intricate, almost unconscious, network of voluntary controls and standards among the people themselves, and enforced by the people themselves," wrote Jane Jacobs.

Architects are often noted for having bad work-life balance, a lot of stress and little free time. How can you take time off while still improving your skills as an architect? Can that time off even give you an extra edge? Compared to other fields, architecture stands out as a field in which you need to “know a little bit about everything." Thus, in order to live up to our name we must also do a little bit of everything, and as they say, a little goes a long way. So with that in mind, here are 11 activities which, while not obviously architectural, just might make you a better architect.

One year after the tragedy caused by the fire at the Wilton Paes de Almeida Building, we share this text originally published in 2018 in the newspaper "A Escola e a Cidade," produced by the publisher of Escola da Cidade.

In case of fire, protecting the lives of people is the most important. All occupants of the building should have the opportunity to evacuate on time, and the time available depends largely on the materials chosen and their behavior during fire exposure.

In order to facilitate and optimize this process, the European Union has adopted the Standard EN 13501 [1], introduced in the 2000s, which specifies a series of classes that determines the anti-fire properties of different materials. Their classifications are unified and compared based on the same test methods, and are currently used as a reference in many countries around the world.

Because of the architect’s role in choosing materials for projects, we have compiled the most important nomenclature to better understand the level of security of our built environment.

You have probably heard the term “tactical urbanism.” Though relatively recent, this approach to public space has gained visibility over the last decade, and today there are numerous examples of how to intervene in the city through a short-term, low-cost, and highly socially engaged lens. In episode #70, we chat with Rio-based architect and PhD in Urbanism Adriana Sansão, whose extensive practical work is backed by deep research on the subject. Click here to learn more!

Sometimes, residential projects are structured around specific elements of the brief, exploring their sculptural potential as a defining feature of the design. Swimming pools are a compelling case in point: they often become the focal point of a project, allowing for a high degree of creativity and inventiveness while seamlessly bridging landscape and architectural design.

It is often difficult to detect structures' potential deformations and behaviors with the naked eye, which is why interactive education and model-making have proved to be some of the most beneficial methods of learning about structural design.

To help with the learning of structures in a more playful and intuitive way, Brazilian brand Mola, have developed Mola Structural Kits, a selection of interactive physical models that simulate the behavior of architectural structures and create countless design combinations.

Following the success of the Structural Kits 1 and 2, Mola will be launching the Mola Structural Kit 3 in a Kickstarter campaign in a couple of weeks, and to celebrate, the innovative company has once again teamed up with ArchDaily for another exclusive giveaway, offering 10 of our readers the chance to win a complete structural kit, along with additional accessories.

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It is expected that within the next couple of decades, Earth will have absolutely nothing left to offer whoever/whatever is capable of surviving on it. Although the human race is solely responsible for the damages done to the planet, a thin silver lining can still be seen if radical changes were to be done to the way we live on Earth and how we sustain it. 

Since architects and designers carry a responsibility of building a substantial future, we have put together an A-Z list of every sustainability term that you might come across. Every week, a new set of letters will be published, helping you stay well-rounded on everything related to sustainable architecture and design. Here are the terms that start with letters A, B, and C.

Brutalism is merely a basic equation of reinforced concrete + geometry, but while the result of this equation is rather minimal, the architecture movement remains as one of the most debatable styles, ranging between “fascinating structures” and “is it even worth preserving”.

While many perceive Brutalism as “ugly” or “incomplete”, 17 year-old Arhan Vohra found glory in these modernist structures and launched Brutal Delhi, a photography website of New Delhi’s Brutalist buildings, shot through his camera lens.

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When we understand architecture as the activity of modifying a natural site and transforming it into an environment suitable for human coexistence—whether through a building or the urbanization of a territory—we can understand the architect's work as something that must serve the community. In this sense, the historical concept of humanism and republicanism is invoked—the public affair, in Latin.

This article was originally published on CommonEdge as "Notre-Dame and the Questions It Raises About Sacred Space."

Whether for universal accessibility, spatial fluidity, or plastic continuity, ramps bring unique and highly welcome qualities to architectural projects. That is, of course, when they can be successfully integrated into the design—typically a demanding task due to accessibility standards governing maximum slopes. 

A few days ago, we asked our Instagram followers, "What does public space mean to you?" These reflections are intrinsic to architectural discourse and come into play across various project types, particularly those involving the planning of shared spaces in cities.