The book examines the contemporary Asian city through the prism of urban design in assimilating new and established drivers of growth. This includes intensified forms of residential development, specialized commercial centers and technology parks, that drive the momentum of the contemporary city, while acting to restructure and reshape forms of capital investment. New spatial patterns are facilitated by tranches of urban expansion, redevelopment, regeneration and suburbanization that have emerged as by-products of both formal and informal development processes. The book also examines the Asian city language embodied in the local morphology—the essential values of the street, block, temple precinct and monument, and how these can be incorporated as drivers of new urban identities that relate to the changing culture and configuration of city neighborhoods. All of these continue to impose different levels of impact on the creation of livable cities and the quality of life for their inhabitants. In this way urban design can look to the future while respecting the past.
Traditional thought fused with modern science when Hiroshima’s nuclear annihilation on August 6, 1945, proved the interdependence of space and time. Since the war, Japanese architects have probed the relativity of spacetime through critical debates, pivotal theories, and consequential buildings. The Hypospace of Japanese Architecture pushes past clichés of an exotic Japan to confront the modernity of an island nation whose habit of importing foreign ideas is less about assimilation than transformation, less a process of indigenization than one of cultural invention. The realization that buildings are dynamic events—phenomena of space-in-time, not inert objects outside time—continues to inform Japanese architecture and suggests how we can rethink the history, theory, and practice of architecture more generally.
This book is a dedication to the work and sure process of Affiniti Architects. Their architectural design process is critical to achieving a high level of design quality, which legacy homes require. Affiniti Architects spotlight the key elements that mold the overall image of legacy architecture for generations. From analyzing site plans to capturing the essence of indoor-outdoor living, the firm showcases the fluidity of design that they’ve accomplished through the years.
#XFORMAS of Doing Architecture (#XFORMAS de Hacer Arquitectura) seems to be as diverse and flexible as the project about which it is written, a project designed under self-imposed rules based on personal questions from its creators, Nicolás Valencia, Fabiola González, and Yair Estay.
They consciously connect their interests biographically with those of their generation, namely: the discrediting of the so-called ‘Starchitect’ figure; the emergence of the American continent together with a new idea of situated practice; the lack of reference to architects who do not design buildings; and the sense that architecture as a degree course defines destiny more according to who the student is as a person than the paths the course itself enables, causing a clash between study and practice. These interests, influenced by the social/cultural changes at the beginning of this century, the political crises, and the declining global economy, have led to critical reflections about the profession. The two parts of this publication, distributed in two separate but complementary books, describe the multiple possibilities of #XFORMAS, its derivatives, and the questions facing the discipline.
Nuanu City, a new creative and sustainable project in Bali, Indonesia, and iFarm, a global provider of vertical farming technology, are pleased to announce an open call for architects to design a state-of-the-art vertical farm. The contest seeks innovative minds who can offer design solutions aligned with the town's vision and its architects' plans for sustainability and food safety while also contributing to the preservation of the environment and biodiversity of this beautiful subtropical region. We encourage submissions that incorporate harmonious biometric architecture to house rows upon rows of lush berries, crunchy salad leaves, and delicate tomatoes grown indoors in soft glow of LED lighting by ML-based technology.
Sustainability is much more than simply deciding for or against a specific product. It is a concept that must be integrated into the way we build and design architecture, as well as the intelligent use of existing buildings and their potential renovations. From a sustainability perspective, demolishing an old building is just as unsustainable as building a new one. Both use large amounts of embodied energy that can be avoided when all planning parties consider new ways of working and collaborate more closely.
In this sense, the efficient use of raw materials and the reduction of waste for reuse is essential. Polycarbonate in façades, for example, has a life cycle of at least 20 years on average and can be recycled and reused in many ways, thus doubling its useful life until it can no longer be usefully recycled.
The new Valode & Pistre monograph retraces more than 40 years of architectural creations all over the world. Written by Philip Jodidio, the book, entirely in English, reviews the achievements that have marked the history of one of the finest international architectural firms, from its founding projects to the biggest competitions, including the Équerre d'Argent won in 1992 for the L'Oréal project in Aulnay. Today, the agency has 9 new partners around Denis Valode and Jean Pistre: Nicolas Bonnange, Financial and Human Resources Director, Yannick Denis, Architect, Elena Fernandez, Architect, Stéphane Ferrier, General Secretary Valerie Poli, Architect Benoît Rivet, Architect Guohong Song, Architect and Director of VP China, Caroline Valode, Communications Director Mathew Wiggett, Architect. The author, Philip Jodidio, was editor-in-chief of Knowledge of the Arts for more than twenty years and has published numerous articles and books, mainly on contemporary architecture.
Co-Designing Publics brings together a mix of academics, activists, and practitioners to discuss and debate discourses from scholarly research, grassroots activism, and design ideas for future action. The “Co-Designing Publics” global research network, funded by a grant awarded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, has a sustained focus on the public realm and its production through informal strategies in cities of the global south.
This autobiographical monograph presents a retrospective of the 40-year innovative graphic design practice of husband-and-wife team, Nancy Skolos and Thomas Wedell. The two have seamlessly merged the boundaries between graphic design, photography and typography, fusing two-and three-dimensional space through overlapping type and image. Long-time influential designers and educators, and 2017 AIGA medalists, Skolos-Wedell’s work has been widely exhibited and published in the US and internationally. The book has been written as a series of interviews between Skolos and Wedell, and beautifully designed by the artists themselves. The result is a work of total design that showcases their unique way of thinking and working. Prototypes, iterations, and studio set-ups shed light on the process behind the finished work which unfolds in chronological order, subdivided in decades: 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s, 20s, with each section beginning with a timeline of notable events. While a time-based taxonomy may seem unimaginative, it was critical for presenting the evolving working methods. To provide the most direct view of the studio’s collaborative design process, much of the text unfolds as a series of interviews with each other.
Project Archive reforms the contemporary architectural discipline’s understanding of the built environment. The content encourages the audience to acknowledge the role of architecture as a political actant. Featured projects prioritize an attitude that goes beyond its formal elements of the current architectural canon. The projects give importance to both formal aesthetics and the ability to serve the urgent social needs of a community. Included projects also forefront lower-tech solutions. They enforce culturally resilient models of domesticity as sustainable living and a longer-term response to ongoing environmental crises. Thus, showcasing extra-canonical works provides an opportunity to reflect on diverse solutions. The content endorses learnings from regionally specific and environmentally resilient models of architecture. This book provides diversity in knowledge systems, and varied responses to; reforming traditional modes of domesticity, response to environmental and social crises and diverse conditions of a landscape. Developed through a decentralized research process, the book also creates space for interdisciplinary projects with contributions from sociologists, anthropologists, historians, architects, etc. Featured list of writers include members at varied levels within academic institutions, architecture enthusiasts and independent researchers.
With global building stock projected to double in the next two decades, the challenge of reducing the carbon expenditure becomes a planning-design-construction opportunity. This urgently warrants an assessment of existing architectural practices and employment/usage of building systems, by professionals and experts to facilitate sustainable and optimistic experimentations. It is high time that we rethink the creative aspects of not just technology and buildings systems, but also the culture and the foundation of the building industry.
Higher noise emissions, higher wind loads and a desire for greater energy efficiency – the structural requirements for façades in multi-storey residential buildings and skyscrapers are becoming increasingly demanding, for both new builds and renovations. This is the result of the urban densification that is taking place in response to the acute lack of available housing and the more extreme weather conditions brought about by climate change.
Professor Neelkanth Chhaya, Ar. Tony Joseph, Dr. Soumini Raja and Students
Avani Institute of Design conducted its first mid-semester exhibition for their first-year students on February 22nd, 2023, with the theme "Dhi" - Reflection. The students from the foundation studio displayed projects they completed as part of the programme. It included exercises in ink, pencil, and color. It also included perception drawings and film analysis.
Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakıf University Faculty of Architecture and Design has been organizing the International ISL@H (Islamic Architectural Heritage) Conferences every two years since 2017. This year, the 4th International ISL@H Conference will be held on December 18-19, 2023, hosted by FSMVU and in cooperation with partner universities; International Islamic University Malaysia, Universitas Islam Indonesia, University of Prishtina, Samarkand State Architectural and Civil Engineering Institute and Ecole Polytechnique Sousse. The conference has both face-to-face and online participation, and the languages of the conference are English and Turkish.Participation and presentations are free of charge and detailed information about the conference can be accessed from the attached poster and website. We will be glad for your participation. ISL@H 2023 Organizing Committee islah.fsm.edu.tr
Brussels Housing. Atlas of Residential Building Types (photo by Maxime Delvaux)
Modern urban terraced houses or row houses emerged in Europe from the 17th century onwards. Usually two to three storeys high and with a garden at the back, they formed the traditional urban block. In Brussels, this bourgeois form of housing took on a particularly varied and inspiring form – including the well-known Art Nouveau residences – and forms the DNA of the city to this day. This publication analyses 100 selected examples illustrating the emergence of the terraced house and its further development in other forms of housing. The result is a broad panorama and a history of the architecture and development of the city of Brussels with its particularly heterogenous cityscape.
VM01 House / Blue Heron. Image Courtesy of Western Window Systems
A home’s entry is often its first impression, and modern architects are using large scale glass to create impressions that are dramatic, surprising, and uniquely welcoming. See how six architects designed unique entries for homes, regardless of size and location.
The Design Challenge Let a crisis become an opportunity! New rules intended to grow more density offer designers a chance to rethink the San Francisco home. Send us your visions for 21st century duplexes and quadriplexes that offer up innovative approaches to lifestyle and architectural style, and show that the single family house is not the only dream home in California. As society grapples with challenges including homelessness, a changing climate and social fragmentation, consider forms of housing that are light on the earth, obtainable in cost and social in nature.
