As I left the streets of Zurich after attending a conference about the quality of life in urban environments, I came across a living example of the lecture I had just attended. I turned the corner and felt that I was inside an architectural rendering: the trees were pruned and green, there were no hanging electrical wires, cyclists drove elegantly along bike lanes, the tram moved quietly and punctually while bathers enjoyed their summer in rivers and lakes. To my surprise, I walked under an overpass and realized that even urban cities could be skilled and safe. After my stroll, I stopped for a cup of coffee and knew that the person that attended me received a fair salary and did not have to work three jobs to pay the bills (of course the coffee did not come cheap). However, these small, almost mundane observations for some, do provide a well-being and quality of life that may be difficult to measure.

Spiral staircases save valuable square meters because they occupy a much smaller area than a conventional staircase. With daring shapes and diverse configurations, they can also be iconic objects in projects. However, the design of these staircases requires careful attention so that you can prevent an uncomfortable or dangerous outcome. Although BIM software simplifies this process, it's always important to understand the restrictions and the underlying concepts.

Kengo Kuma and Associates, in collaboration with OODA, have won a competition for the redevelopment of an old industrial slaughterhouse in Porto. The competition was launched in 2017 to transform the building, now abandoned for 20 years, into an anchor for social interaction, while maintaining the memory of the early 20th-century building.

The scheme seeks to reconnect the previously important structure with the city center, through interventions such as a bridge linking the site with a nearby metro station. Meanwhile, a vernacular roof stretching across the entire site unites old and new, under which sits a museum, library, performance space, art archive, and creative laboratory. 

A pure volume, slightly lit, sits in the middle of a garden. It is a private chapel in Quinta de St. Ovídio in Lousada, built between 1989 and 2001 and designed by Álvaro Siza Vieira. The project starts from a path, where you can see the prismatic white volume from afar. As you pass through the building and some steps, you arrive at the entrance square. Here you will notice that Siza differentiated the main facade, in stone, from the other three, in white painted concrete, giving it importance.

When we say "most" architects, we're basing our conclusion on the responses to our first AD Discussion of 2018. Even though Tim Harford, author of the book Messy, contends that disorder and a bit of confusion can be linked to spaces that inspire more creativity, our readers tend to disagree. In our review of comments on our article, the majority of respondents explained that workspaces with out-of-place objects negatively affected their ability to concentrate. Many responses alluded to their more efficient and prolific results gained by working in an organized space. But that doesn't mean that all ArchDaily readers agreed; there are still ardent defenders of "control chaos" who insist that their best work emerges from working beneath piles of papers or supplies.

+ 17

• Architects

  IBUKU

• Location

  Jalan Raya Sibang Kaja, Banjar Saren, Abiansemal, Sibang Kaja, Abiansemal, Kabupaten Badung, Bali 80352, Indonesia

• Client

  Green School

• Area

  330.0 m2

• Project Year

  2007

The new year is here! And with it, a new slate of documentaries we're dying to see.

Of all the media forms, film seems to be the most adept at making a personal connection with viewers, offering a behind-the-scenes look into the lives of a great architect, the construction, and performance of a project or an issue that is confronting the entire architecture community. This year's films are no exception, as we get the chance to learn about the daily routines of Bjarke Ingels and Paulo Mendes da Rocha, projects by Tadao Ando and Glenn Murcutt, and the troubles of urbanization and gentrification.

Check out this year's list below, and find more great architecture documentaries with our Architecture Documentaries to Watch in 2017, Architecture Documentaries to Watch in 2015, our top 40 Architecture Docs to Watch in 2014, and our 30 Architecture Docs to Watch in 2013.

"Bamboo is close to an ideal structural material." This statement by Neil Thomas during his talk at Bamboo U, which took place in November 2017 in Bali, really caught my attention. Neil is the founding director of atelier one, a London office of structural engineering, whose outstanding projects include stage and scenography for the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and U2; art installations by Anish Kapoor and Marc Quinn; the Gardens by the Bay, in Singapore, among many others. From the last few years, the engineer has exhaustively studied about bamboo, its structural properties and its most diverse potential.

Each material has its own peculiarities and, when using it for building, the design and construction process must accommodate these characteristics. A steel-framed building, for example, must be designed with a certain level of accuracy so that components and parts, usually manufactured off-site, fit together during assembly. A wooden building can have its cross sections drastically modified according to the species and strength of the wood used, or even according to the direction of the loads in relation to their fibers. With bamboo, no pole is exactly the same and each one tapers and curves differently, which requires a different approach when designing and building.

But how is it possible to work with a material with so many challenges and possibilities?

Today, November 8, we celebrate World Urbanism Day. Created in 1949 by Carlos Maria della Paolera, a professor at the University of Buenos Aires, the day was meant to increase professional and public interest in planning, both locally and internationally. Paolera is also responsible for designing the symbol of World Urbanism Day, representing the trilogy of natural elements essential to life: the sun (in yellow), vegetation (in green) and air (in blue), referring to the balance between the natural environment and humans. Currently, the event is celebrated in thirty countries on four continents.

Have you ever been stuck for hours obsessing over a font that matched your work? Before starting a project, do you already think about which font you will use? Do you get annoyed when you read an important message written in Comic Sans? Or do you feel offended when a mundane sentence is written in all caps? Rest assured, you are not alone. 

Architects and designers constantly use graphic elements as expressive means in the schematization of their works. Among them, the most common are the drawings, in a constant variety of techniques, styles, and patterns. But among the elements that make up the boards, panels and drawings, techniques and models, there is a particular fragment that helps them in composition and identity: the font. 

Brazil’s Housing Development Company of The Federal District (CODHAB-DF) announced the winners of their National Architecture Design for Affordable Housing Contest. Out of 88 projects submitted across the country, three winners were chosen for each of the following affordable housing categories: single-family housing, duplexes, and apartment buildings.

In addition to the architectural design, requirements for the contest included: well thought-out structural, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems, along with construction implementation, materials, estimated budget and feasibility. The winning proposals, determined by the Judging Committee, demonstrated aesthetic, accessible, functional, low-maintenance and innovative solutions with a feasible timeline and budget.

See the winners of the contest below:

The following photo set by Fernando Guerra focuses on the Galician Center of Contemporary Art, a project by Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza Vieira.

Located in the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela, the Galician Center for Contemporary Art was developed in 1993. Its declared horizontality and respect for the surrounding buildings and the urban structure are configured in the most remarkable gestures of this project. The solid and austere volumes form the boundaries of the area to the streets, with subtractions that make it accessible. The center has several permanent and temporary exhibition rooms, auditorium, library, cafeteria and administrative rooms.

Australian ecologists, David Holmgren and Bill Mollison, first coined the term permaculture in 1978, encompassing holistic methods for planning, updating and maintaining environmentally sustainable, socially just and financially viable systems. For Mollison, "Permaculture is the philosophy of working with and not against nature, after a long and thoughtful observation." In this sense, herbal spirals are an excellent exercise to begin to understand some of the concepts of this culture, as it brings together various natural functions in a single element, making it more productive and healthy.

In this photoset by Fernando Guerra, the photographer turns his lenses to a little-known project by Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza Vieira, Meteorology Center in Barcelona.

This week we present the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto through the lenses of Fernando Guerra. Here we share a complete series from the photographer of this iconic work, along with a brief text on the subject. The University of Porto plays a major role in the world's architectural landscape, always among the highest in rankings and boasting great architects like Eduardo Souto de Moura (Pritzker 2011), Fernando Távora and Álvaro Siza Vieira (Pritzker 1992).