Architecture News

Luis Rojo de Castro and Begoña Fernández-Shaw Zuleta received the 2019 First COAM Award and Luis M. Mansilla Award for the renovation of Aulario B Founder's Hall, located on the Runnymede College Campus in Alcobendas, Madrid. 

The governor of Espírito Santo, Renato Casagrande, signed a decree this week mandating the installation of solar energy harvesting systems in new state buildings. The law also applies to facilities constructed with state funds transferred to municipalities through agreements, accords, or covenants.

Materials and technology come together in new spaces and experiences. When looking to innovations in advanced construction, the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE), together with students at the University of Stuttgart, have been creating a series of experimental pavilion for many years. These structures tell a story of computational design and computer-aided manufacturing processes for advanced construction.

+ 8

The XI Ibero-American Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism (XI BIAU) concluded last Friday, October 11, in Asunción, featuring lectures by Jorge Scrimaglio, one of the two winners of the 2019 Ibero-American Architecture Prize, and a closing lecture by Solano Benítez and Gloria Cabral, co-founders of Gabinete de Arquitectura.

Videos

The third edition of the “Architecture and Wood” exhibition was held in Puerto Montt, Chile. This edition aimed to continue expanding the range of exhibitors by once again inviting prominent professionals to participate in an architectural commission, exploring and speculating on the constructive and formal possibilities of the material. The event serves as an invitation to showcase the value of timber architecture in the southern part of the country.

Videos

Ecosistema Urbano, after winning a public competition, has developed the Landscape Design Project for the Louis Pasteur Boulevard and the main public spaces of the Teatinos University Campus in Málaga, Spain.

The project presents a new campus that is both open to the natural landscape and digitally connected, allowing users to interact, view real-time information, and adapt various public space elements to their needs, including the configuration of bioclimatic conditioning systems.

+ 15

As part of Design Week Mexico 2019, Diez Company opened Maison Diez Company to the public. Led by Rodrigo Fernández, this dedicated design and lighting project brings together various elements to create an environment centered on illumination. This unique project in Mexico returns with a renewed concept, showcasing new proposals in a house in the Juárez neighborhood, aimed at those who enjoy architecture, design, hospitality, and construction.

RIBA announced the 2020 RIBA International Prize jury and stated that it will be led by French architect and urban planner Odile Decq with the participation of Es Devlin, Jeanne Gang, Rossana Hu, and Gustavo Utrabo.

Part of the Mission Rock master plan in San Francisco, MVRDV unveiled their contribution, in partnership with Perry Architects, a 23-story mixed-use building, including offices and residential units. The firm joins other big names like Studio Gang, Henning Larsen, and WORKac in designing one of the vertical entities in this waterfront.

Architect and illustrator Matías Kim has shared with us a series of drawings featuring some of Oscar Niemeyer's most iconic works. With simple, precise lines, Kim explores the plasticity of the modern architect's works through static and moving images, revealing the interiors of projects such as Casa das Canoas and the Cathedral of Brasília.

Dutch design practice Mecanoo has designed a new neighborhood currently under construction in Manchester. Called KAMPUS, the developed is located at the former Manchester Metropolitan University campus in the heart of the city. As a melting pot of buildings and spaces, KAMPUS was made to celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the city with respect to the historic quality of Canal Street.

+ 6

Alejandro Zaera-Polo (born October 17th 1963) is an internationally recognized architect and scholar, and founder of London, Zurich, and Princeton-based firm Alejandro Zaera-Polo & Maider Llaguno Architecture (AZPML). First rising to prominence in the 1980s with his writings for publications such as El Croquis, Zaera-Polo has had a prolific career in both the academic and professional realms of architecture.

An entire day of the XXI Chilean Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism was dedicated to the guest city, São Paulo. The program opened with a presentation of the architectural works, student projects, research, and publications representing the city that were selected through the event's open call.

Boxing Boxes is a project resulting from two years of architectural research by Carlos Ortega Arámburo and Daniel de León Languré that combines boxing, as a tool for self-discipline and violence control, with a structure that activates civic space in marginalized areas. For this year's Lisbon Architecture Triennale, the Mexican architect, along with a local interdisciplinary team, installed the equipment in the Portugal Novo neighborhood, in Olaias, Lisbon.

The first phase of the planning vision for Mission Rock in San Francisco was initiated. The masterplan developed by the San Francisco Giants and Tishman Speyer put in place four buildings designed by internationally renowned architecture firms MVRDV, Studio Gang, Henning Larsen, and WORKac. The scheme also includes a 5-acre waterfront park by SCAPE.

After eight days of intense work in Santiago, architecture students from 12 universities across Chile developed urban activation prototypes to facilitate mobility and public use in various areas of the Franklin neighborhood. The projects were created for the XXI Chilean Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism.

Contemporary educational architecture has moved away from replicating closed buildings that resemble prisons or hospitals more than environments designed to foster the academic development of younger generations. Whether a university, high school, elementary school, or preschool, educational infrastructure must encourage free and creative thinking, moving past the obsolete notion that students should be trained like soldiers who cannot question authority. This is where the architecture of these spaces plays a leading role, serving as the setting where students spend a significant portion of their lives.

In the heart of the southern Ecuadorian Andes, near the city of Cuenca—a UNESCO World Cultural Capital—PPAG Architects is building the Stiehle German School, having won the invited competition.

A seven-story residential building collapsed this morning in Fortaleza, Ceará. Located in the upscale neighborhood of Dionísio Torres, the building was over 40 years old and was undergoing renovations. A video recorded yesterday by a resident shows the precarious state of the structure's support columns, with exposed and corroded rebar.