How to visualize architectural concepts in SketchUp using D5 Lite for faster design exploration.

One side effect of the global coronavirus pandemic in the field of architecture is a reflection on the future of cities and the built environment. Debate on the topic has perhaps never been so intense, with numerous proposals and visions emerging to address everything from social interaction in public spaces to the details of new uses for private ones. Regarding urban dynamics, programmatic changes may offer a way to ensure that commercial and service districts maintain their vitality.

With more people working remotely, commercial buildings face the potential of becoming partially vacant. Driven by this reflection, architects Matheus Marques, Ricardo Goncalves, Luis Favilla, and Rolando Figueiredo, from the São Paulo-based firm Hiperstudio, developed a proposal to convert single-use commercial buildings into mixed-use complexes, incorporating residential units and public gathering spaces.

Stefano Boeri Architetti has won the international competition for the construction of the largest and most innovative Rehabilitation Centre in Shenzhen, China. With his Chinese office, SBA was selected by a jury composed of local and international figures such as Peter Cook and Sou Fujimoto. Planned to be built in the next three years, the project will put in place “a set of green terraces and overlapping spaces in a sustainable system combining nature, architecture and biodiversity and including internal gardens dedicated to rehabilitation”.

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Studio Gang and SCAPE are working in collaboration with Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects on the Arkansas Arts Center currently under construction in MacArthur Park, Little Rock. The work is being realized through a public-private partnership, with a $31 million commitment from the City of Little Rock, funded through a hotel-tax revenue bond. The project will house the Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Collection, which includes 14,000 works of art from around the world.

Koichi Takada has designed a 43-story mixed-use development, in downtown Los Angeles, inspired by “California’s natural beauty and iconic redwoods”. Hoping to create the healthiest place to live in L.A., the proposed building humanizes the concept of high-rise through the use of natural materials, vertical landscaping, engaging public elements, and creating a between artificial and natural environments.

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The Atlassian Sydney Headquarters, the soon to be “world’s tallest hybrid timber building” is being built in Sydney, Australia. Designed by SHoP in partnership with BVN, the 40-story high tower will provide, once completed in 2025, a new and innovative space for technology giant Atlassian.

MuseLAB has won the Coronavirus Design Competition hosted by GoArchitect. The competition's challenge was to design a way to help people stay healthy, both in body and mind. The competition was made to recognize that COVID-19 has affected billions of lives, of every nationality, if not physically than economically and mentally.

Icons at Risk is an international initiative led by the organization Iconic Houses that seeks to protect and preserve residential projects—private homes, housing developments, and residential complexes—considered of high architectural relevance as representative examples of the ideas and principles of the Modern Movement. The initiative is based on the premise that many iconic homes around the world are currently disappearing—either falling into irreversible neglect, being radically transformed, or ultimately demolished—due to a lack of protective legislation. Because they are part of recent history, many of these structures—particularly houses from the second half of the 20th century—are not yet recognized as "heritage" and therefore lack sufficient legal protection. In many cases, these works serve as physical manifestos that reveal the aspirations and creative pursuits of 20th-century architects and designers within each country's specific urban landscape, making their historical significance clear.

Toward a New Normal with Less Urban Inequality is a petition addressed to the various levels of the Peruvian government –the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Provincial Municipalities, Ministries, District Municipalities, and Regional Governments—that aims to draw attention to and denounce the current situation facing the country's cities. Through this document, the signatories express their concern and call for priority and structural actions to improve the living conditions of all citizens in Peru.

The appearance and long-term maintenance of a work of architecture or interior design are heavily dictated by its materiality and the products used. If the selection of materials and products is not precise, the project can be compromised both aesthetically and functionally. 

This is why specification is essential to achieving the desired result, and the professionals responsible for this stage must have a broad knowledge of the materials and products available in their region. But is material specification done similarly across all architecture firms? Do the initial and final stages of the project receive the same attention? How close is the relationship between architects and materials, really?

Prete-Indígena is a directory designed to map and promote Black and Indigenous people working in the fields of design, architecture, and web development, created by Fabiano Procópio and Gabriel Biselli. It arises from the question of where Black professionals are active, not only in research but also in the practice of these fields.

The KPF-Designed 601 West Pender Street was granted approval by the Vancouver City Council. Located next to the city’s historic Rogers Building, the project generates an urban oasis within the city, replacing a six-story parking structure in the Central Business District.

Now in its fourteenth year, the 2020 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship has been awarded to Iulia Cistelecan, from the London School of Architecture, for her project “Life Between Shelters: Refugee camps of today becoming cities of tomorrow”.

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The National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) has released its annual Survey of Architectural Registration Boards, which provides exclusive insight into data collected from the architectural licensing boards throughout the United States. Based on the new data, the number of architects licensed in the United States has increased over the last two years.

The choice of materials and products made by an architect during their design and specification process is key to defining how a project will look after its completion and over time, as it ages. Choosing materials that are not appropriate could result in projects with both aesthetic and functional issues.

This is what makes the specification stage so essential in achieving expected results. During this phase, the professional in charge of specification becomes an essential part of the team and needs to have sufficient knowledge of the materials and products available in their region. But do all architecture offices have the same specification processes? Is the same importance given to this stage of the project as to the initial design phase? How close is the architect’s relationship with the materials really?

Six months after the release of the namesake book during the latest installment of the biennial, PERFORMA has launched Bodybuilding, which features thirty-five architecture studios who engage with performativity.

Is architecture a period or a comma? Are built forms hermetic bodies or catalysts for action? PERFORMA curator Charles Aubin and architect Carlos Mínguez Carrascor, published Bodybuilding: Architecture and Performance, during the most recent installment of the PERFORMA 19 biennial in New York City last November. Noticing a lack of a comprehensive, multigenerational survey on the subject, the duo’s interest in investigating the ways architects engage with performance goes as far back as a symposium they co-organized at the Performa 17 Hub in 2017. The book, which features essays by Mabel O. Wilson and Bryony Roberts, Lluís Alexandre Casanovas Blanco, and Victoria Bugge Øye, seeded the fundamental approaches now deeply rooted in the online exhibition: the impact of movement on systematic urbanization, the body’s relationship to buildings and monuments, and architecture’s role in action, be it physical or sociopolitical.

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How a work of architecture or interior design looks and ages over time is heavily determined by its materials and the products used. If the choice of materials and products is inaccurate, both the appearance and the performance of the project could be compromised.

This is why specification is essential to achieving the desired outcome at a project's completion, and the professional in charge of this stage must have an extensive knowledge of the materials and products available in their region. But is material specification the same across all architecture firms? Is this project phase given the same importance as the initial design phase? How close is the relationship between architects and materials really?

In order to ensure a proper transition into post COVID-19, architects, public health experts, and engineers are generating design guidelines to provide people with new secure, and efficient resources. Finding a balance between optimizing operations and keeping people safe, the strategies tackle the built environment that surrounds us, from restaurants and outdoor dining, to streets, offices, and retail.

Addressed to city officials, owners, and employers, the tools developed help to reopen the world, while reducing the risk of COVID-19 transmission, promoting social distancing standards, and enhancing wellbeing. Discover in this article a roundup of design guidelines securing a safe post coronavirus transition.

MAD Architects has unveiled its design for the Shenzhen Bay Culture Park along the waterfront in Shenzhen, China. The masterplan puts in place a 51,000 square meters cultural complex that includes the Creative Design Hall, the Shenzhen Science and Technology Museum, and a vast public green space.

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The levels of air pollution reached by major urban centers around the world in recent years reveal the troubled relationship we have maintained—and continue to maintain—with our environment. The gravity of the issue lies in the fact that this not only affects the overall balance of the planet, but according to the World Health Organization, the current state of the atmosphere also causes, through the simple act of breathing, the death of around seven million people each year. Shortly after governments in various countries announced measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus—lockdowns and isolation—numerous studies began to show an unexpected and promising trend: air pollution levels in many cities began to drop significantly within days of the measures being announced due to reduced traffic and a decline in industrial emissions.

The development of digital interfaces, combined with the daily bombardment of advertising images, increases the demand for clarity—a clarity we tend to take for granted. This is what Baudrillard called the "world of hypervisibility." Art, however, can offer a slowing down of perception, pointing us to deeper dimensions of experience where speed becomes delay.

Guilherme Wisnik talks with Michael Wesely, a German art photographer best known for his photos of cities, buildings, and landscapes taken with a special ultra-long exposure technique. From 1986 to 1988, Michael Wesely attended the Bayerische Staatslehranstalt für Photographie in Munich before studying at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts.

In recent months, Legado Lima 2019 has become one of the key organizations collaborating in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic in Peru. Thanks to hosting the Pan American and Parapan American Games in 2019, the country was able to apply lessons learned in infrastructure, equipment, protocols, and operations to combat COVID-19, repurposing and transforming modern infrastructure—originally built to host the continent's largest multi-sport event—to confront the pandemic.

Architecture is a discipline deeply connected to the perception and construction of space, and could be introduced in early childhood education. With this in mind, the architects at Studio dLux proposed the Bird House project, a workshop for elementary school children designed to introduce the design and construction processes of a birdhouse.

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The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has just released strategies, illustrations, and 3D design models in order to help reduce the risk of COVID-19 in schools. In an effort to assist education officials with reopening schools during the pandemic, the design guidelines are part of the AIA’s initiative “Reopening America: Strategies for Safer Buildings”.

Architectural photographer Guilherme Pucci shared with us a series of images of the Ascension of the Lord Church at the Bahia Administrative Center, designed by João Filgueiras Lima, known as Lelé. Completed in 1975, this classic of Brazilian architecture reveals Lelé's design sensitivity, visible in how the building integrates with the site's topography, the quality of the materials used—concrete, glass, wood, and stone—and the tension created by light and shadow within the church.

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