The definition of a dream home has been updated—at least for those passionate about minimalism and sustainability who discover the home of Martin Freney and Zoe. Located in Adelaide, Australia, the residence was built by the couple inspired by Earthship, a sustainable architecture movement based on reusing materials to minimize environmental impact.

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Tatiana Bilbao is an internationally recognized Mexican architect who has helped position Mexico on the global architecture scene. One of the core principles of her practice is "creating dignified spaces to elevate people's lives" and building communities through spatial design.

On Saturday, May 12, at 12:00 p.m., the exhibition Perspectivas. Tatiana Bilbao Estudio opened at the Museo Amparo in Puebla, Mexico. The exhibition was first presented at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (MARCO) in 2017.

In an interview with El País, Bjarke Ingels discusses with architecture journalist Anatxu Zabalbeascoa the motivations behind his work and the factors that have made him one of the most prominent figures in global architecture.

Moving between the formal concepts that give his buildings their names—such as "snowflake" or "labyrinth"—and the competitive nature of the architecture world (his proposal replaced Norman Foster's for Two World Trade Center in New York), Zabalbeascoa questions Ingels more sharply than might be expected, at one point asking if "architecture can turn into a joke." 

For the second time, we are giving our readers the responsibility of recognizing and rewarding the projects that have made the greatest impact on the profession through the ArchDaily Brasil Obra do Ano 2018 Award. By voting, you become part of an impartial network of jurors recognizing the most relevant projects of the past year.

Over the next two weeks, the collective intelligence of our readers will filter through hundreds of projects from Portuguese-speaking countries—Brazil, Portugal, Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Macau, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Príncipe—published in 2017, selecting the best built works in the Portuguese-speaking world.

From a pool of hundreds of works published in 2017, readers will choose their favorites, and the 15 most voted will move on to the second stage of the Award voting.

Choose and vote for your favorite projects!

On Friday, January 26, the Better City International Forum took place in Mexico City. The event convened key figures from the Mexico City (CDMX) government, academia, the business sector, and civil society to outline a vision for turning this great metropolis into an exemplary city by strengthening the roles of each sector.

The 16th International Architecture Biennale China Pavilion will be on display in Venice, Italy, from May 26 to November 25, 2018. On April 27, a press conference for the China Pavilion was successfully held in Beijing, officially announcing this year's theme: "Building a Future Countryside." The curator, Professor Li Xiangning, outlined the curatorial concept and structural framework of the exhibition. He noted that the Chinese countryside has become an open field brimming with diverse possibilities and opportunities, making the theme "Building a Future Countryside" a direct response to this year's Biennale theme, "Freespace." The exhibition features six sections—"Production," "Tourism," "Community," "Culture," "Dwelling," and "Future"—showcasing recent rural projects by Chinese architects. It aims to return to the birthplace of Chinese culture to recover forgotten values and overlooked possibilities, offering a vision for the future of our countryside.

Under the title “More Living, More Humanizing,” the 14th Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism (BEAU) presented the winning projects of its latest edition today, Thursday the 19th, in Santander. This exhibition, housed in a temporary pavilion in Santander's Pereda Gardens, showcases the works selected in the categories of Panorama of Works, 2nd Research Exhibition, and 7th Thesis Projects Exhibition.

As Line 3 of the Santiago Metro begins its trial run on its way to becoming the Chilean capital's sixth line, other cities are starting studies to install cable cars and improve train frequencies. Meanwhile, biodiversity is celebrating great news. This and more in this edition of La ciudad chilena en la prensa, the ArchDaily section where we bring you updates on Chile's major cities.

Works designed by renowned architects have always drawn attention, especially from tourists who, passing through new cities, seek to catch a quick glimpse of the best those places have to offer. While this phenomenon is not new, services like Airbnb, which allow short stays in rented homes, have given it a new dimension.

This is currently the case in the Bouça Neighborhood in Porto, designed by Álvaro Siza Vieira. Conceived in the 1970s as a social housing project promoted by the Local Support Ambulatory Service (SAAL), the complex—originally built as permanent housing for workers—has always attracted architecture enthusiasts and fans of Siza's work. In recent years, however, it has also begun attracting temporary residents to units listed for rent.

The Municipality of Cascais, with technical support from the OASRS, launched the "Sommer Pavilion International Ideas Competition" in May of this year for the construction of a temporary intervention in Jardim da Parada, next to Casa Sommer, in downtown Cascais, Portugal. The project "Gravidade em Suspenso," by architect Inês Abreu Ribeiro and engineer Fernando Coutinho de Vasconcelos Pereira da Silva, was named the winner. Out of the 49 proposals evaluated, the jury considered that the winning entry stood out for its “stimulating approach to the competition theme, exploring different states of water in the form of a 'rain pavilion' and a 'fog pavilion' that relate to each other.”

The History Channel has released its first entirely Brazilian production. Titled Mil Dias - A Saga da Construção de Brasília, the series tells the story of the construction of the new capital from the perspective of four characters who built the city in the cerrado: a surveyor, an engineer, an architect, and a construction worker.

The famous and widely published Pink House, designed by Mezzo Atelier, has won the Paulo Gouveia Architecture Prize, a regional award from the Azores, Portugal, which recognizes "restoration, rehabilitation, reconstruction, and reinterpretation works whose design stands out for respecting the built heritage and prioritizing the use of local materials, without excluding the use of a contemporary language."

After nearly five years of design, plastic recovery, recycling, fundraising, and intensive collaboration, the first floating park made of recycled plastic has opened. The prototype was installed in the Port of Rotterdam, Europe's largest seaport, located in the second-largest Dutch city.

Measuring 140 square meters, the so-called “Recycled Park” demonstrates the potential of discarded materials. For this project, the Recycled Island Foundation collected plastics over a year and a half by installing “traps” in polluted rivers before they could reach the sea.

A few weeks ago, Sweden inaugurated a road that recharges commercial and passenger vehicle batteries while driving. Named the eRoadArlanda project, the two-kilometer route was built outside Arlanda Airport in Stockholm, the country's capital.

Nine of the architect's unbuilt projects, which have never been exhibited in Brazil and were only previously shown at the Venice Biennale in 2000, are featured in the exhibition, which opens in his honor a month and a half before his 90th birthday. In total, the show brings together 11 of his most radical and experimental works, which share common themes of water, nature, landscape, and territory beyond the architectural scale.

Last November, the Comptroller General of Chile ordered the halt of construction of the so-called vertical ghettos in the municipality of Estación Central (Santiago). In response, on Friday, December 14, a group of real estate developers filed a series of injunctions against the resolution, while the Chilean Chamber of Construction raised concerns regarding the suspension of projects, as reported by the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio.

At the same time, the Colegio de Arquitectos de Chile (Chilean Association of Architects), the Association of Architectural Offices (AOA), the Association of Works Directors and Municipal Works Department Professionals of Chile, the Association of Independent Reviewing Architects of Chile, and the National Association of Independent Reviewers issued a document obtained by El Mercurio. In it, they claim they "have seen [their] right to practice their profession with confidence affected [...] due to the legal uncertainty currently facing our field."

To streamline tree mapping, the Secretariat of Environment and Animal Welfare (Sema) is studying the development of an app to record information on tree species in the city's urban forest. If the study proves viable, the software is expected to be ready by the second half of this year.

The system, currently under study, is part of the Urban Forestry Master Plan, mandated by the Public Prosecutor's Office and launched in March of last year. The inventory is the most time-consuming phase of the project; however, the app will make it possible to map urban trees in certain areas of the city, collecting data such as geographical coordinates and tree health.

The results of the public design competition for the Santa Iria da Azóia Health Unit Project in Loures were recently announced. Organized by the Loures Municipal Council with technical support from the Southern Regional Section of the Order of Architects (OASRS), the team from LXM Studio, led by architect João Lisboa, was awarded first place. The jury, consisting of architects João Félix and Carlos Santos from the Loures Municipal Council and architect Victor Neves (appointed by OASRS), noted that of the 35 proposals evaluated, the winning entry stood out for its seamless integration with the surroundings, contributing to an effective visual and landscape revitalization of the adjacent space. The jury also noted that “the solution designed for the exterior openings is innovative and highly functional.”

Santa Iria de Azóia is a Portuguese town in the municipality of Loures, with an area of 7.52 km² and 18,240 inhabitants (2011 data). The site is located in the Pirescoxe area of Santa Iria da Azóia, where the built cultural heritage closest to the intervention area features two prominent buildings: the Pirescoxe Castle, classified as a Property of Public Interest, and the Pirescoxe Convent. The general objectives of the competition were:

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Provincia Festival aims to create an open space for dialogue and the exhibition of civic interest topics, emphasizing responsible participation in provincial architectural development.

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This initiative by the Placemaking Latinoamérica network aims to carry out urban actions that promote the appropriation of public space, leading up to the 2nd Placemaking Latinoamérica Encounter, which will take place in Mexico from November 5 to 11. How does it work? On the second weekend of every month, various actions will be organized across different cities and public spaces. The process is as follows: 

The first action was "urban printing," which took place from July 6 to 8 in Mexico City, Puebla, and Buenos Aires, among other cities. This involves printing clothing with custom city-themed stamps. All you need is paint suitable for printing images of your city and the clothing you want to print on.

The website Mobilize, Brazil's first platform dedicated exclusively to sustainable urban mobility, has published a list of 30 must-see documentaries on the subject. Divided into feature and medium-length films, the selected titles address urban mobility from various perspectives, ranging from mass transit and non-motorized personal transport to urban culture and the June 2013 protests in Brazil.

The NGO Soluções Urbanas launched a crowdfunding platform earlier this month to enable technical assistance, the purchase of materials, and renovation work in precarious housing. Named Arquiteto de Família, the tool was developed with sponsorship from CAU/RJ.

The platform's goal is to facilitate access to better housing conditions, and the funds raised through the tool can be combined with resources from other sources, such as microcredit and barter fairs.

The third edition of Hello Wood Argentina is approaching—the renowned timber architecture and design festival that aims to teach thinking with your hands and learning through experience.

From March 2 to 10, 2019, 10 selected projects will be built around this edition's theme: a space of containment, a space of CON-TENSION.

Discover the projects selected for Hello Wood Argentina 2019, described in the words of their creators, below.

The deck is finished, the beams and columns have already been painted, and construction is moving forward at a good pace at the Guarda Housing Complex in Perafita, Matosinhos, Portugal, which will very soon see the completion of Uma Casa de Brincar e Não Só… / Not Only a Playhouse, built as part of the second edition of “O Lugar de Partilha.” At the end of the first week on-site, there is still much work to be done for this Self-Construction Laboratory organized by Casa da Arquitectura (CA) – Portuguese Center for Architecture and curated by Roberto Cremascoli, but spirits are high, and by August 10th, everything will be ready for the local community to enjoy.