David Basulto

Founder & Editor in Chief of this wonderful platform called ArchDaily :) Graduate Architect. Jury, speaker, curator, and anything that is required to spread our mission across the world. You can follow me on Instagram @dbasulto.

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Future Architecture: Creative Exchange 2019

Next week, the annual Creative Exchange Conference organized by Future Architecture Platform will take place at the  Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO) in Ljubljana, bringing together the 25 selected emerging creatives and a selected group of architects and architectural institutions to showcase ideas and trends for the future development of architecture and the profession.

Hashim Sarkis appointed Curator of the 2020 Venice Architecture Biennale

Today the Board of la Biennale di Venezia named appointed Hashim Sarkis as the Curator of the 17th International Architecture Exhibition. Held bi-annually in the capital city of Italy's Veneto region, the 2020 edition of the Biennale will take place from May 23rd to November 29th.

Sarkis is the director of his practice Hashim Sarkis Studios (HSS), with offices in Boston and Beirut, and currently the Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning at the MIT. Sarkis was a member of the international jury of the Biennale Architettura 2016 curated by Alejandro Aravena, and participated with his firm in the Pavilion of the United States (Biennale Architettura 2014) and Albania (Biennale Architettura 2010).

Thom Mayne Joins SCI-Arc as Full-time Distinguished Faculty

Pritzker laureate Thom Mayne goes back to SCI-Arc, the renowned school he cofounded back in 1972. More from their press release:

Live From WAF: Reinier de Graaf, Jeanne Gang, Li Xiaodong, Peter Cook

We are pleased to partner with the World Architecture Festival to bring you live streaming of each day's keynote addresses. On Wednesday, tune in for lectures from Peter Cook, Li Xioadong and an impressive group of speakers. Follow us on Instagram at @archdaily to see more updates from our team on the ground.

Carlo Ratti to Curate the 2019 Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (Shenzhen)

The Organizing Committee of the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (Shenzhen) (“UABB (Shenzhen)”) announced the team of Chief Curators of 2019 UABB (Shenzhen), which includes Architect and Director of MIT Senseable City Lab Carlo Ratti, CAE Academician Meng Jianmin and famous curator and art critic Fabio Cavallucci

"A School of Schools": Interview with Jan Boelen, Curator of the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial

Design, in all forms, is a fundamental part of our daily lives; it's even at the core of the new economy. As a result, design education is such an important topic for discussion that design curator and educator Jan Boelen puts at the center of the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial.

As the curator of the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial, together with associate curators Vera Sacchetti and Nathine Botha, Boelen questions the role of education in design today -- just as the Bauhaus celebrates 100 years.

In a rapidly changing world with an uncertain future we cannot anticipate what will happen in the next few years, nor even the skills that we will need. Instead, we need to develop "learning as an attitude" to constantly deal with change, as Jan discusses in our video interview.

To address these issues the curators laynched an open call with 753 submissions, from which 120 were chosen to be part of "A Schools of Schools". In this strong response Boelen found projects that "are an answer and maybe already a forecast of a new kind of design where speculation, criticality and relational aspects are infusing the traditional design world, that is making solutions for the issues that we have today."

The 120 participations are organized around six schools which occupy six cultural venues in central Istanbul, encouraging visitors to explore the city while visiting the Biennial. Here are the schools and our picks:

Moscow Urban Forum: Rem Koolhaas, Vladimir Putin and the Future of Moscow

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Vladimir Putin. Image Courtesy of MUF

For the last eight years, Moscow has hosted the Moscow Urban Forum, a yearly gathering for experts to reunite to discuss pressing issues of today’s metropolises. Some of the most renowned architects and urbanists, city mayors, government officials, economists, developers, academics, citizens and professionals from diverse fields and nationalities come together in the iconic Russian city and its important venues like Menage or VDNKh. But it was the presence of two of the world’s most influential men in their respective areas of influence which marked the importance of this year Moscow Urban Forum: Rem Koolhaas and Vladimir Putin.

The event is part of a long-term, comprehensive urban process in which a series of coordinated projects have changed the face of Moscow, putting it on par with other European capitals. Ahead of the 2018 World Cup, many of these projects reached completion, making this edition of the Moscow Urban Forum a special one. The Garden Ring, the Krymskaya Embankment, the renovated Luzhniki Stadium, the Gorky Park renovation, the Garage Museum, the My Street Program, the Moscow Central Circle, and the Velobike Public Bike System, among many other initiatives, show the commitment of the city to improving the quality of its public spaces. Upcoming projects such as the new Hermitage Museum by Asymptote, the V-A-C Foundation in Red October by Renzo Piano, the Moskva River Embankment by Project Meganom, and the renovation of the Tretyakov Gallery by OMA show that this responsibility extends beyond the World Cup.

Participants Announced for the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial

The 4th Istanbul Design Biennial, curated by ​Jan Boelen with Nadine Botha ​and ​Vera Sacchetti, has just announced the participants of this year’s edition. Under the theme “A School of Schools”, it seeks to explore how design education, and education in general, can evolve and adapt in a new age of artificial intelligence.

Organized by the ​Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) and sponsored by ​VitrA​, the Biennial will bring together old and new knowledge, academic and amateur, professional and personal, engaging multigenerational, transdisciplinary practitioners from Turkey and abroad. The event will run for six weeks, from September 22 to November 4, and willinhabit ​six of the city’s most iconic cultural institutions​, which will play host to the biennial's many schools, exploring the multiple dimensions of design as learning.

Details about the venues and participants:

Extended Deadline: Submit Your Project for the 2018 World Architecture Festival Awards

Update: The final entry deadline has been extended to June 1st. Register your projects here.

It's time to get your applications ready! Now in its 11th year, the World Architecture Festival will take place in Amsterdam from November 28 to 30. Organizers expect nearly 500 architectural practices to compete for prizes in over 30 categories. The event moves to the historic Dutch city following two years in Berlin.

The Festival is the world's largest live architecture awards event--all shortlisted architecture projects are presented in person by the architects to an esteemed panel of judges. And this year, nearly half of the 120 judges are expected to be women.

This year’s Completed Buildings final super-jury will be chaired by MVRDV's Nathalie de Vries, and will also include Sir David Adjadye, Li Xiadong and Harvard GSD dean, Mohsen Mostafavi.

Building Burning Man: The Unique Architectural Challenges of Setting Up a City in the Desert

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The Black Rock Lighthouse Service by Jonny & Max Poynton. Image © Dan Adams

Every year in August, a temporary metropolis is erected in Black Rock City, Nevada. This is Burning Man, an annual event of art and architecture that attracts some 70,000 participants. The people who come to Burning Man come from all walks of life. What is incredible is that they come together to construct an ephemeral city that lasts for 7 days. These people assume the role of architects and construction workers and use the desert to build all sorts of shelters in a fast, sustainable way. The desert is so remote, and everything built in Black Rock City is packed and taken home at the end of the event, and some of the art is burned on site. This poses a unique architectural challenge. The people who have come to build these structures have to plan them way in advance to accommodate all the challenges of working in the desert, but the result is worth it - a striking, unique city, democratically built, set against a desert landscape, and for only one week.

We had the chance to interview Kim Cook at the World Architecture Festival in Berlin. Kim Cook is Director of Art and Civic Engagement at Burning Man. Kim Cook and her team are tasked with increasing the impact of Burning Man’s arts and civic initiatives. As part of her role, Kim engages with artists and community leaders to increase opportunities for funding, collaboration and learning.

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ArchDaily X MINI Clubman Refurbishment Initiative

"The Greenest Building is the one that is already built." (Carl Elefante, FAIA)

The world’s urban population will double by 2050, and cities need to come up with sustainable ways to accommodate this mass movement. We often see projects being built as quickly as possible to support growth, but these buildings end up lacking character, and they make the city look altogether generic. A smarter and more sustainable solution is to increase the density of existing centers, as well as to recover existing structures through refurbishment and repurposing.

To turn what is old into something new is a challenging process. It requires a bold vision and a rigorous commitment to design.

Ramon Vilalta of RCR Arquitectes Speaks of Pritzker Win and Post-Prize Ambitions

Two days ago ArchDaily had the distinct honor to interview Ramon Vilalta, one of the three architects named as 2017 Pritzker Laureates. Vilalta gave us an exclusive insight into history behind his collaboration with Rafael Aranda and Carme Pigem and how their connection to their small hometown of Olot, Spain has influenced a career that has produced exceptional projects by their firm, RCR Arquitectes.

ArchDaily: How did your studio/practice begin? Why did you start quickly after graduating?

Ramon Vilalta: In that sense we were very disciplined people. We finished our degrees quickly and once we were finished we decided to share a studio; we chose to confront architecture by sharing it, and by really sharing it. We each have different personalities – each one has his or her own style but what comes from the chemistry between the three of us makes us special, I think. This was, I feel, a big decision that wasn’t easy at the time.

From 2016 to 2017: Architecture and Our Future

TLDR; Best of 2016.

Dear readers,

This 2016 has been a hectic, frenetic year with complex geopolitical, social, and cultural issues placing our world at a crossroads of an uncertain future. Do we look back into the nostalgia of a safe past, or do we step up and be an active part of a hopeful future?

As architects we have a tremendous responsibility in this scenario; historically, our profession has shaped the collective ideas of the future, generation after generation, by weighing-in on the crises that arise in our societies. In the absence of clear leadership to guide us towards an inspiring future, this is our opportunity to serve as agents of change for the future we deserve.

Renovation of Chilevisión / elton_léniz + Ramírez y Rodríguez

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Architects: Elton_Léniz
Associate Architects: Alvaro Ramírez, Germán Rodríguez
Client: Chilevisión
Renovation: 1211m2
Year: 2005-2007
Location: Inés Matte Urrejola 0825, Providencia, Santiago, Chile
Photography: Natalia Vial
Predominant Materials: Madera, Prodema, Vidrio, Piedra pizarra

ArchDaily: What Happened in 2015, and Where We Are Heading in 2016

Dear readers,

This has been an intense year at ArchDaily, and I’d like to look back and share what we’ve done during 2015, and give you a glimpse of what will come during 2016.

Our focus on the emerging countries is something intimately tied to our mission. I’m very happy to see that as a society we understand the importance of cities for the future of mankind, and that we are actively improving them through the traditional way of making architecture, but also more and more in an expanded field and in a multidisciplinary collaborative way.

We started this project in 2008 in a very instinctive way, but always understanding that we should provide value to architects. Today, we are publishing in 4 languages (including the new ArchDaily China!), reaching more than 400,000 daily readers who are viewing 120 million pages every month - and bookmarking thousand of projects on My ArchDaily. This scale has made us understand what is adding value - and what is not - to architects in a very insightful, data-driven way. Our analysis for our end of the year posts has shown us how important it is for you to have access to technology and resources than can help you on your work.

Iñaqui Carnicero and Carlos Quintáns to Curate Spain Pavilion at 2016 Venice Biennale

Iñaqui Carnicero and Carlos Quintáns have been selected as co-curators of the Spanish Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2016, directed by Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena, under the theme "Reporting from the Front."

Iñaqui Carnicero is an architect and a Visiting Professor at Cornell University, and has been recognized by numerous international awards such as the Design Vanguard Award, AIANY Housing Award, Emerging Architects Award, FAD and COAM Award.

Carlos Quintáns is Professor of the Architectural Construction Department of the A Coruña Architecture School and director of the Tectónica magazine, recognized with awards such as the COAG, FAD or at the Spanish Architecture Biennale.

AD Interviews: Vicente Guallart / Moscow Urban Forum

During the 2015 Moscow Urban Forum, city experts from different regions and countries united to exchange practices, projects, and trends. The event fueled discussion on the city of Moscow, which is currently working on its expansion plans, new transport infrastructure, and a series of urban initiatives that are having a positive impact on the quality of life in the city.

AD Interviews: Santiago Calatrava

Earlier this year we had the chance to interview Spanish-born architect Santiago Calatrava in his New York apartment. Trained first as a structural engineer, he has designed and completed over 50 projects, which include bridges, transportation hubs, theaters and even a skyscraper. Calatrava has built a career through public architecture, and thanks to open competitions he has received commissions for mostly large-scale, cultural and transport projects. Many cities around the world—from Europe to the US and Asia and beyond—can proudly lay claim to the structurally dramatic projects that Calatrava has dreamed up.

His architectural explorations fuse engineering and art, and result in impressive structures that are honest in revealing the forces at play. In this respect, he is a pioneer; when working on his earliest projects, he didn’t have access to software and tools that are ubiquitous today. 

We asked him about his definition of architecture, his high-profile commission for the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, and the challenges he has faced while running his practice. The WTC hub is one of Calatrava's most-anticipated projects in New York; though its inherent complexity has resulted in a long construction period, he has created a project rich in not only form, but also in spatial quality.

Some of Calatrava's projects use an almost modern-day gothic vocabulary—where big spans, vaults and thin lines define large spaces. Other works, such the St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York, mobilize larger masses and big, stacked walls.

Watch the interview above to learn how Calatrava sees the intersection of art and architecture. 

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