Videos

October has become a busy month in the design world. If you’re living in the United States, New York specifically, it means Archtober: a portmanteau that means the city is flooded with architecture activities, programs and exhibitions, piled onto an already rich design calendar. One of these events is the New York Architecture & Design Film Festival, which started on Tuesday night and runs through Sunday October 18th, and will screen 30 films from around the world in 15 curated, themed programs.

This week, I was able to visit the festival to absorb the atmosphere and speak to the festival's director Kyle Bergman, to learn the ins and outs of this year’s festival, how things got started, and where it will go in the future.

Is the Solar Decathlon Still Relevant? The short answer is “yes,” but probably not for the reasons the United States Department of Energy intended.

The Solar Decathlon, currently underway at Orange County Great Park, in Irvine, California, “challenges collegiate teams to design, build, and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive.” The overall goal of the competition is to demonstrate the viability of solar power to the public, while also providing the participating students with hands-on design, engineering, and construction experience. When the first Solar Decathlon took place in 2002, the viability of solar power was anything but certain, and the venue on the National Mall in Washington DC gave credence to the pursuit of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources.

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Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM) has won the top prize in British architecture, the RIBA Stirling Prize for their Burntwood School. Beating out competition from Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSH+P), Niall McLaughlin Architects, Heneghan Peng Architects, McInnes Usher McKnight Architects (MUMA) and Reiach and Hall Architects. Announced by RIBA president Jane Duncan, the selection was reported to have been a unanimous decision among the judges, with the school described as "a grown-up building to inspire grown-up behavior."

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Managing your own architecture firm is hard, and while pretty much every architect starts with a strong idea of the type of firm they want to be, without constant care it can be easy to get sucked into doing jobs you need to do to keep the lights turned on, rather than the jobs you wanted to do from the start. In this article, originally published by Archipreneur as "9 Creative Business Development Strategies For Architects and Designers," Sabrina Wirth explores the ways you can not only keep work coming in, but make sure it is the right type of work too.

Whether you’re a large architecture firm or a small, boutique design studio, everyone needs a plan for generating new business. The prospect of working on RFPs (Request For Proposals) and RFQs (Request For Qualifications) to win a place on the shortlist, however, is daunting and something very few people look forward to.

Fortunately, it’s not the only path to attracting new projects. In fact, the most effective business development strategies involve more time spent on proactive relationship-building (before the project is made public), and less time on responding to RFPs and RFQs, which are available to anyone.

Below are 9 strategies that can help you define a good business development approach to get you ahead of the competition and win more clients and projects:

Videos

As everyone knows, if you stack layer upon layer of small stones atop one another, what you eventually get is a pile of stones. It's among the least dramatic phenomena in the whole of nature; add string though, and the whole process is transformed. That's the idea behind Rock Print, an installation at the Chicago Architecture Biennial created by Gramazio Kohler Research of ETH Zurich and Skylar Tibbits of MIT's Self-Assembly Lab, which uses just these two elements to create a dramatic four-legged column that is self-supporting and can be quite literally unraveled into its constituent parts after use.

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Education is changing fast all over the world. In recent decades, a great number of small local initiatives focused on the individual person, pursuing creativity, curiosity and diversity, have been disrupting through the secular traditional model of education. We have also seen an increasing number of online initiatives which expand access to knowledge to people who didn't have it before - the only requirement is a computer with internet. And the best of it: most of them are open and free. But what about architectural education? Has it experienced the same transformation?

In partnership with Radical Pedagogies, an ongoing multi-year collaborative research project led by Beatriz Colomina with a team of PhD students of the School of Architecture at Princeton University, we will be publishing a series of paradigmatic cases in architectural education. In this article, Daniel Talesnik (PhD Candidate in History and Theory of Architecture at Columbia University) presents the first radical case in Latin America: the reform led by Tibor Weiner at the University of Chile influenced by the principles of Bauhaus.

Following their selection of 100 ideas to help solve London's housing crisis last month, New London Architecture (NLA) and the Mayor of London have narrowed down the entrants to ten winners which they believe offer exemplary models for the UK capital. The selected designs range from radical architectural solutions, such as Floating Homes and Baca Architects' proposal to create 7,500 new homes in a matter of mere months by floating small abodes in London's canals, to radical economic solutions such as David Kroll's recommendation to separate the value of properties from the value of the land they occupy.

In addition to being displayed alongside the 90 other proposals in an exhibition put on by NLA, these ten projects will be presented to the Greater London Authority to be assessed for their feasibility as real-world solutions to the crisis. Together, these ten designs provide insights into potential solutions - but also the many different causes - of London's housing crisis. Read on for images and descriptions of all ten designs.

Efficiency is the name of the game in the business world. And as any working architect knows, working at an architecture firm is as much about business as it is design - even if in architecture, efficiency can be hard to come by. By using applications that span platforms, though, you can remain efficient no matter where you go.

Following the success of our list of 22 Websites You Didn't Know Were Useful to Architects, we’ve assembled a list of 20 productivity apps to keep you on track. Whether you’re trying to keep your schedule in check, remember your passwords, or simply get the most out of your shrinking sleep time, there’s an app that can maximize your ability to do what you’re doing.

In a culture dominated by smartphones and Instagram, with estimates that over one trillion photographs will be taken this year alone, it might seem impossible for photographs to make and shape issues in the ways they once did. Despite this, images still steer debates with shocking resiliency and, with luck, become iconic in their own right. As architecture is synonymous with placemaking and cultural memory, it is only logical that images of the built environment can have lasting effects on the issues of architecture and urbanism. It's never been easier for photographs to gain exposure than they can today, and with social media and civilian journalism, debates have never started more quickly.

When it comes to sustainable architecture, the focus has historically been on designing buildings to reduce emissions. In recent years though, this focus has expanded to take into account the full life-cycle impact of a building and its components. But is this enough? In this article from ArchitectureBoston's Fall 2015 Issue, originally titled "Old is the new green," Jean Carroon FAIA and Ben Carlson argue that not only are most green buildings not designed with the full life-cycle of their materials in mind, but that even those which are they rely on a payback period that we simply can't afford. The solution? A dose of "radical common sense" in the form of preservation.

“Radical common sense” is the term a fellow preservation architect uses to describe a mindset that values repair over replacement. Why is this radical? Because, while reuse of water bottles and grocery bags is rapidly gaining ground, reuse of buildings and building components is not. And it’s not hard to see why: It is almost always less expensive and easier to replace a whole building and almost any of its elements — doors, windows, light fixtures — than to repair and reuse. Replacement also can offer measurable and consistent quality with product certifications and warranties not available for repaired items. Theoretically, a new building can ensure “high performance” and significantly reduce the environmental impact of building operations while creating healthier spaces. What’s not to like?

Maybe the old saying applies: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. We want and need “sustainability.” We want and need buildings, towns, and cities that are not bad for the environment nor the people who live and work in them. But is “new” the solution or the problem?

Architect and designer Neri Oxman, head of the Mediated Matter research group at MIT and developer of the “Material Ecology” approach, has given a TED Talk on design as the intersection of technology and biology. Oxman begins her talk by introducing the juxtaposition of left- and right-brain thinking in the design world, noting that her work seeks to marry the two by making design less about assembly of parts, and more about growth. Learn more about Oxman’s distinct work and views by watching the video above.

Plans for Apple's newest California "spaceship" has been unveiled. Named after its bordering streets, Central & Wolfe hopes to transform a 1970s office park in Sunnyvale into a "futuristic office campus." The 19 acre site, located just five miles from Apple's main Cupertino campus (currently underway), was designed by HOK and is currently under review.

If built, it will replace nine aging buildings with a clover-like design comprised of three interconnected structures - each rising six stories.

Last week, the Chicago Architecture Biennial opened to over 31,000 visitors and much fanfare, and for good reason - it is the largest architecture event on the continent since the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, featuring over one hundred exhibitors from over thirty countries. With a theme as ambiguous as "The State of the Art of Architecture," and with the hope of making the biennial, according to directors Joseph Grima and Sarah Herda, "a space for debate, dialog and the production of new ideas," the event was sure to generate equally wide-ranging opinions. Read on to find out what the critics had to say about the Biennial.

Founded in 2000 by Antón García-Abril and Débora Mesa, Ensamble Studio represents that rare and highly sought-after ideal of 21st century architecture: a firm whose work is as intellectually rigorous as it is visceral and viral, with work that is equally at home in both the 2010 Venice Biennale and on the popular website Viralnova. In this interview - the first installment in his column for ArchDaily "City of Ideas" - Vladimir Belogolovsky visits the studio's founders at their unconventional home, the Hemeroscopium House in Madrid, to talk about their experimental approach to design and their conception of the city of the future.

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Videos

What is the state of architecture today? What motivates different architects from around the world to improve the conditions of the planet's inhabitants? If you find yourself in the City of Chicago in the next few months, you will be submerged in a discussion of what architecture is, and what it can and should be in the future.

The ArchDaily team spent the end of last week at the opening of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, an anticipated celebration of architecture at a scale previously unseen in North America. Supported in large part by the city of Chicago itself, Mayor Rahm Emanuel expressed that he wanted his city "to be dead center" in a conversation about how architecture can positively impact cities around the world. In response, curators Joseph Grima and Sarah Herda reviewed the work of over 500 architects worldwide and selected over 100 architects from more than 30 countries to "demonstrate that architecture matters at any scale."

Under the title "The State of the Art of Architecture," Grima and Herda looked to the architects themselves to reveal not one theme in particular, but to highlight the built forms, strategies and speculations that emphasize the "agency of the architect." Spread over seven venues (The Chicago Cultural Center, Millennium Park, Stony Island Arts Bank, Graham Foundation, 72 E. Randolph, Water Tower Gallery and IIT), world-renowned, well-known architects exhibit projects alongside up-and-coming instigators. Some of the installations are serious, others are more light-hearted and provocative; on the whole, however, they provide an inviting global snapshot of the challenges facing architecture production today. 

“There is a certain tradition, history, and continuity that you can read in European architecture”
- Spela Videcnik, OFIS arhitekti

A product of context and history, Europe has influenced the architecture world in a way that perhaps no other continent has. The continent is the topic of the latest video from the Fundació Mies van der Rohe, produced in relation to their European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture, in which prize-nominated architects from 16 European cities are interviewed on what they believe brings them together, and what makes them different.

As a US citizen who has previously lived in Europe for two years, I was struck by the essential question prompted by the video: “Is there a European identity in architecture?” And if so, what exactly is it? To try to answer this question, I sat down with ArchDaily’s managing editor Rory Stott - a Brit - to debate differing perspectives.

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Videos

In the following article, originally published in Spanish on MetaSpace as "Assassin's Creed 2 - Arquitectos que hacen videojuegos"(Architects Who Make Video Games), Spanish architect Manuel Saga interviews María Elisa Navarro, a Professor of Architectural History and Theory, who worked with Ubisoft Montreal as a historical consultant on the design team for the video game Assassin's Creed II, from the first rough drafts up to its launch in November of 2009.

While getting her PhD at McGill, María Elisa Navarro was a consultant for the entire development process of the game as part of a research project between the university and Ubisoft Montreal. She worked on the project in complete secrecy with "a small team of 20 people and then later more than 400 in a huge basement in Montreal." Navarro worked on everything from late 15th century wardrobes to the correction of architectural errors in the recreated cities, going over the look and ornamental details of the buildings.

"Sometimes, for gameplay purposes, they needed to have walls with a lot of texture so that Ezio could climb them, but when the time came to lay those parts out, there were some inaccuracies. For example, I remember a balcony with a wrought iron railing that couldn't have existed in that time period. I was responsible for detecting those issues," Navarro noted in her conversation with MetaSpace.

Read the full interview with Navarro after the break.

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Oscar Properties has unveiled a collaborative project with BIG that will bring 140 new apartments to Stockholm's Gärdesfältet area. The project, 79 & Park will be comprised of a mountainous stack of prefabricated wood-clad units that are designed to "harmonize" with the neighboring Royal National City Park. Lush terraces, connecting to units that range from one to six bedrooms, aim to soften the "boundary" between park and building.