IAAC Lecture Series – Philip F. Yuan

IAAC Lecture Series – Xavier De Kestelier

Join editor Alissa North of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design as she discusses her new book Innate Terrain: Canadian Landscape Architecture, a collection of papers written by Canadian scholars and practitioners in the field of landscape architecture. Concerned with the practice and theories of landscape architecture in Canada, the book documents the breadth of contemporary practice from across the country, with each chapter author using works of landscape architecture to theorize a distinct approach practiced by Canadians in their national context. The book’s central argument is that Canadian landscape architecture is distinct because of the unique qualities of the Canadian terrain and the particular relationship that Canadians have with the landscapes of our nation.

Tectonics of Place II: The Architecture of Johnson Fain chronicles the architectural and interior design work of a preeminent international design practice based in Southern California. The firm, well-known for landmark projects throughout the United States and abroad, eschews any singular approach or style. Addressing issues of program, client, physical context, and sustainability, Johnson Fain crafts design solutions which are strikingly modern and unique. Tall buildings both elaborate their particular programs, whether residential or work-related, while becoming icons on the urban skyline. Single family dwellings, wineries and cultural facilities set in more rural landscapes interact instinctively with nature. Museums, clubhouses, and educational campuses create a sense of cohesion and shared purpose through the design of both the buildings and the open spaces that unite them. Forward-looking science and technology centers express state-of-the-art systems while reinforcing collegiality and reflection which lies at the heart of research. Beyond the brief, the architecture of Johnson Fain is human-centered, forward looking and interactive.

Building Practice features interviews with architects, designers, educators, curators, fabricators, strategists, critics, and activists who are advancing speculative design through the culture and politics of building, capturing critical and formative moments associated with building a practice. Each interview reveals strategies for linking practical and theoretical forms of knowledge and evidences the active creation of unique approaches to contributing positively to both architectural culture and the built environment. Collectively, an introduction, twelve short texts on topics that are pertinent to architecture today, and thirty-two interviews convey how architects claim conceptual territory regarding form, space, order, materiality, and aesthetics, and push for design to have meaning and value in relation to cultural, environmental, political, and social concerns. The individuals and practices profiled in this book collectively partition themselves from previous generations of experimentally motivated practices while individually exemplifying their own inimitable affinities, techniques, and sensibilities. Building Practice shares the first acts of an emerging generation of practices and identifies the peripheral yet pivotal aspects of building a practice today.

This book aims to help readers rediscover the sacredness of the everyday landscapes around them in order to shed light on the ecological imperatives of our time. Drawn from the union of art, nature, and metaphysics, it presents some of the myths and legends of antiquity as they might be recognized by our modern society of earth-shapers. Through word and image the authors reference the ecological and environmental concepts found at the core of traditional environmental knowledge and provide a new context for environmental engagement that merges the spiritual and phenomenological with the scientific and empirical. Wisdom of place can be used by anyone—from creatives to spiritual seekers, landscape architects to coders—to call forth the voice of the genius loci—the spirit of place—and reveal the creative forces and hidden currents of nature.

Since the end of the nineteenth century, the planning of cities has been understood as the discipline that establishes guidelines to project architecture for human occupation, with a focus on rationality and functionalism. Nevertheless, the city is a system of many layers and folds, constructed through the interaction of natural, cultural,socioeconomic,and political forces. This choreography, with a variety of purposes and different degrees of synchronization, creates architecture that serves both as shelter and context.Architecture, therefore,does not limit itself to the production of objects but rather appears as a field of study between and through disciplines, called upon to contribute to the organization of those forces that composepublic stages, the space where collective itineraries meet and intertwine.These stages have existed historically.

This exhibition stages a meeting point for scientific predictions and futuristic fantasies that were manifested in architecture and art from the 1960s to the 1980s. Bringing together authors from Eastern Europe and the West, the exhibition will display works that emerged from the new technological reality that followed the Second World War, and which took it along unexpected paths: foreseeing the replacement of work with games and collective pleasures in computerised societies, turning away from the overarching machine logic and replacing it with myths and romantic ideas of the human being, or looking for traces of other civilizations from space, instead of conquering it. A utopia of quantification and of scientific planning, of the separation of life and work, was replaced by a striving towards harmony between the machine and nature, the mind and the body. These projects are extensions of a technologicised world, ironic and absurd situations that present a critique of rationalism and speak of the contradictions of late modern society, demonstrating at the same time both its intellectual horizons and the limits of its utopian fantasies.

MADERA: Building with timber. Innovation for social architecture in Uruguay is an international call for the design and construction of a mid-rise social housing timber building. The competition is organized by the Ministerio de Vivienda y Ordenamiento Territorial (MVOT, Ministry of Housing and Territorial Planning) of Uruguay, the Agencia Nacional de Vivienda (ANV, National Housing Agency), with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the participation of the Municipality of Durazno.

The Urban Review welcomes submissions on topics broadly related to urban studies, planning theory, and planning practice. Submissions can be personal reflections, research-based writing, material adapted from other work, etc. We are especially interested in pieces that are grounded in a particular location.

Date: Tuesday, 7 February
Time: 2 pm
Stockholm Furniture Fair
Andreu World Stand
A04-20

Geo-Conversations: Nature and Technology in Architecture

AIA New York Center of Architecture open its doors to the public for a very special book launch by Alper Derinboğaz. He is founder of Salon, the internationally renowned architecture studio based in Istanbul, Berlin and recently Los Angeles known for its award-winning projects such as the Museum of Istanbul, pandemic-resistant office design Ecotone and zero-emission Villa Topos.

Pritzker Prize-winning architect Shigeru Ban is renowned for his innovative use of wood. Natural and beautiful, timber construction can also be a key tool in the fight against climate change through the creation of environmentally responsible buildings. Ban’s new book, Shigeru Ban: Timber in Architecture presents an in-depth examination of 45 of the architect’s works demonstrating the versatility of timber, from the undulating curves of the Centre Pompidou-Metz in France to the playful inversion of Japan’s Mt. Fuji World Heritage Centre. At this talk, Ban examines the awe-inspiring use of wood throughout his career, shares his long history of humanitarian work, and offers insights on working toward a more sustainable future through architecture. Moderated by Matilda McQuaid, Acting Director of Curatorial and previously Head of Textiles at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Followed by a reception with a sale of autographed books. Program is the official U.S. book launch for Shigeru Ban: Timber in Architecture.

Drawing on ArchDaily’s curation of more than 40,000 projects over the past 15 years, it spotlights the most innovative built environments of our age—those paving the way for a better, more sustainable future.

Curated around their 10 principles of good architecture, the special edition of The ArchDaily Guide to Good Architecture covers what’s best in architecture today and the most relevant for tomorrow.