With questions such as Where do roads come from?, popular educators in the US Black Freedom Movement like Septima Clark have long used discussions about architecture and the built environment to unpack ideas of citizenship, politics and power. People’s observations and analyses of built form offer insights into the surroundings we share and opportunities for collective action to change it. In this lecture, Jae Shin and Damon Rich of HECTOR urban design will share stories from their attempts to learn from this tradition of popular education as a resource for architecture, urban design and planning.
Tod Williams is a Founding Partner of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects | Partners. Their practice is known for their humanistic approach to architecture primarily for institutional clients such as museums, schools, and nonprofits. Prioritizing experience above all, their designs choreograph light, texture, solidity, and a deep sensitivity to the places for which they’re built. While the work has grown in scale, the foundational principles of the practice remain intact: “to serve, to make good marks on the earth, to acknowledge the work comes from not just two hands, but many hands, and, fundamentally, architecture is an act of profound optimism.”
Cover image: The Swatch Headquarters in Construction, Switzerland, Shigeru Ban Architects, 2019 (Credit: Blumer-Lehmann AG)
In the contemporary practice of architecture, digital design and fabrication are emergent technologies in transforming how architects present a design and form a material strategy that is responsible, equitable, sustainable, resilient, and forward-looking. This book exposes dialogue between history, theory, design, construction, technology, and sensory experience by means of digital simulations that enhance the assessment and values of our material choices. It offers a critical look to the past to inspire the future.
MEDS “Meetings of Design Students” Workshop is an international event that takes place each summer in a different country, focusing on various issues, themes, topics and settings that will help any designer expand their expertise.
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Fragment of the exhibition; photo by Jerzy Porębski
Exhibition concept: "Architecture requires knowledge. Broad, humanistic knowledge – necessary for the concept creation, as well as exacting, technical knowledge – necessary for the construction process. It also requires openness, a certain mindfulness, and intuition – to be able to perceive and understand the changes taking place in the world. Collage opens the path of knowledge to the promptings of intuition. That is why I like to use it as a working technique, which this exhibition suggests: here photographs, testimonies and documents merge with fleeting and open forms (still not obvious to architectural criticism, but known, for instance, from social media) – to emphasize the complexity and multidimensionality of critical engagement. # Archicollages. What is the exhibition about? It is about values. It is about architecture being first and foremost a place to live, rather than a clever and fashionable fetish – which it may at times become, and which some circles believe it to be." Ewa P. Porębska
Empirically gauging human experience of architecture in real time. Photo by Grey Matter.
Can we use today's and future empirical means to raise our understanding of the phenomenological effect of sacred spaces and structures, particularly as they relate to spirituality and faith? The work and thought of late neuroscientist Francisco Varela loom large here, but much has occurred since his passing, and a whole new world in neuroscience is unfolding. We will consider the science behind what has been termed 'aesthetic cognitivism' by some philosophers and latest empirical insights coming from theological aesthetics.
From 114 participating countries, the World Design Rankings (WDR) have once again ranked the best in arts, architecture and design, sponsored by the A' Design Award and Competition. With the objective of contributing to global design culture through advocating and highlighting good design, the rankings provide additional data and insights to economists and journalists regarding the design industry.
Sanctuary features a series of eighteen recent projects from the award-winning firm de Reus Architects. As a follow-up to Tropical Experience, de Reus Architects continues to add inspired, carefully crafted, timeless, and site-appropriate design to its growing body of work. Essays by Mark de Reus and Joseph Giovannini reveal the continued search that is inherent in design and the relentless effort to reveal how sprit of place contributes to design thinking. Each project is introduced with spectacular exterior and interior photography and gives the reader an in-depth look into de Reus Architects’ design thinking. With select projects from Hawaii, Mexico, and the Pacific Northwest, Sanctuary explores a wide range of buildings showcasing de Reus Architects’ timeless and well-executed architecture.
The first comprehensive book on the River Padma, considered the last leg of the Ganges, with a rich collection of new photographs and maps. ‘The Great Padma’ defines the life and history of the Bengal Delta, the largest delta in the world. The book contains original essays by well-known writers, researchers, and academics from diverse fields, including geography, history, literature, architecture, and food history. The preface is written by the renowned author Amitav Ghosh (The Hungry Tide). Besides unpublished photographs documenting the magnificence and diversity of the great river, and wonderful set of maps and diagrams, the book has a rich content in depicting the life and times related to this turbulent river. The wonderful design and layout of the book will make this a collectible item.
This book explores the interdisciplinary project that brings the long tradition of humanistic inquiry in architecture together with cutting-edge research in artificial intelligence. The main goal of Neural Architecture is to understand how to interrogate artificial intelligence—a technological tool—in the field of architectural design, traditionally a practice that combines humanities and visual arts. Matias del Campo, the author of Neural Architecture is currently exploring specific applications of artificial intelligence in contemporary architecture, focusing on their relationship to material and symbolic culture. AI has experienced an explosive growth in recent years in a range of fields including architecture but its implications for the humanistic values that distinguish architecture from technology have yet to be measured. The book provides an opportunity to survey the emerging field of Architecture and Artificial Intelligence, and to reflect on the implications of a world increasingly entangled in questions of the agency, culture and ethics of AI.
Cover of Neorealist Architecture, by David Escudero
Neorealist Architecture: Aesthetics of Dwelling in Postwar Italy is the new book by David Escudero, published by Routledge and awarded with a Graham Foundation grant. The book, beautifully illustrated with more than 120 images—most of them unpublished—explores the links between architecture, filmmaking, and the built environment in postwar Italy (194X–5X) seeking to ascertain whether, and how, neorealism manifested itself in architecture. It is the first book specifically oriented towards building an idea of "architectural neorealism". Hinted at in those years, the concept was internalized by Italian architectural history, but transfers between neorealism—as an aesthetic and ethic—and architecture—as one potential medium of its embodiment or expression—are still not fully understood. Therefore, the book provides an in-depth discussion of the concept of "neorealist architecture", demonstrating that the connection between both terms is not meaningless.
SMA Head Office, Cooma North snow scene, 1954. Courtesy of National Archive.
An interdisciplinary team from The University of Melbourne, Deakin University, The University of Tasmania and The Australian National University have collaborated on a new exhibition exploring the significant relationship between mass migration and the modernisation of Australia post-WWII.
The Sea Design Contest 2023 is the first international design competition entirely dedicated to the nautical sector and open to students and recent graduates from all over the world.
WeWork’s rise, failed IPO, and subsequent ousting of its CEO have been thoroughly documented in countless articles, podcasts, books, and television series. Less widely understood, however, is the extent to which WeWork challenged — and changed — the way spaces are designed, delivered, and operated.
