Architecture News

A couple of months ago, this network of competitions began, which will build 15 Social Infrastructure projects for Peru's Bicentennial. The Plan de Proyectos de Infraestructura Social Externos (PLAN PISE) is a social enterprise created to assist developing communities in the planning and construction of projects to improve their living conditions. The results have just been released, and the plan continues with the next competition scheduled for late February. Gradually, efforts are coming together to transform social and educational realities.

This edition of the competition invites us to reflect on the importance of the schoolyard as an educational space equipped to stimulate coexistence and diversity, proposing collective solutions designed by architecture students and recent graduates—a direct way to bring classroom designs to life. The site of intervention for the children will be the Villa de Jesús IE 7216 school, located in Villa El Salvador, south of Lima.

Sustainability startup Lendager Group have beat out BIG and Henning Larsen in a competition to design a new eco-village in Copenhagen, Denmark. With the project UN17 village, Lendager Group designed the first project in the world that will translate all 17 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into tangible action. After nearly 25 years of planning, the 400 new homes will complete the new city district, Ørestad South.

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Dutch architectural practice UNStudio have created a new urban vision for the City of the Future, a Central Innovation District (CID) test site in The Hague. Dubbed the "Socio-Technical City", the design covers a 1 square km area in the center of the city. The proposal aims to transform the site into a green, self-sufficient district of housing, offices, urban mobility and public spaces over the existing train track infrastructure.

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C.F. Møller Architects has unveiled new images of their proposed Carlsberg Headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark. Construction of the scheme is well underway, with the topping out ceremony taking place in Spring 2018.

The new renders offer an insight into the scheme’s proposed external finish and interior atmosphere, including the central atrium overlooking the historic site where the famed brewery business began.

The Aarhus School of Architecture has revealed the winners of their drawing competition, Drawing of the Year 2018, which asked architecture students around the globe to submit their best digital, hand-drawn or hybrid drawings under the theme of “Shaping new Realities.”

Artist Leo Villareal and the London-based architecture firm Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands are working together to design and install the first phase of The Illuminated River Foundation's public art commission that will illuminate architectural elements of the existing bridges, redefining the riverscape.

This installation marks the initial stage of the project that was announced nearly two years ago. All stages are intended to be completed by 2022. In its entirety, it will include 15 central London bridges - creating a unified artwork connected across the flowing river from Albert Bridge in West London to Tower Bridge in the center of the city.

MVRDV co-founder Winy Maas has been named Domus’ 2019 10x10x10 Editor-In-Chief. The publication began the Domus 10x10x10 in 2018 as an initiative to bring new ideas and alternative editorial styles to the magazine. The 10-year initiative leads to Domus' 100th anniversary in 2028.

As much an architect as a researcher, Maas will provide an original editorial strategy founded on intellectual exploration and catalyzing creative ways of thinking about contemporary and future design efforts. In a manifesto titled “Everything is Urbanism,” Maas describes his primary goals for Domus 2019, a series of 10 publications over 10 months that explore contemporary design questions and theoretical problems, spark dialogue, and examine ongoing architectural research.

In Louisiana Channel's latest video, an interview featuring Norwegian architect Reiulf Ramstad takes place in the city of Molde as part of the Utzon Center exhibition 'In the World of an Architect – Reiulf Ramstad Architects.' An interdisciplinary collaboration of architecture, landscape, and design, the firm has done several large-scale civic works to smaller projects along tourist routes amongst other commercial and recreational buildings.

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'Oso Hormiguero' is an exhibition presented on November 21 at Fundación Alumnos 47. It serves as a metaphor for an experimental urban research practice that explores the fictional potential of a dormant urbanization, seeking to demonstrate that by challenging our habits and everyday objects, we can limitlessly reinvent how we view the surrounding urban landscape.

This exhibition is an opportunity to propose an unusual reading of the urban environment of Colonia San Miguel Chapultepec through the revaluation of the ordinary elements that make up the everyday yet forgotten landscapes of Mexico City.
- We Are An Event

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This November, RIBA launched a national school program devoted to providing children between the ages of 4-18 access to architecture programs. This will be the UK’s first nationwide architecture program. The instructors, formally known as Architecture Ambassadors, are volunteer architecture professionals donating their time to partnering schools at which students participate free of charge.

Before launching the nationwide program, RIBA conducted a pilot version - gaging interest and success from students, school administrators, and ambassadors. The pilot phase visited over 200 schools in England and 18,000 students. Each school’s architectural workshop was highly individualized to the community and location, adding a personal aspect to the student’s introduction to the vast field of architecture. These tangible projects investigated local areas, assessing their needs, issues that affect the community, and their hopes for the future.

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Natural disasters continue to leave thousands of people homeless every year, forcing them to seek refuge without any alternatives. On many occasions, cities cannot cope with refugees, limiting their resources. In addition to this, the difficulties to sustain refugees in a dignified way, becomes increasingly complex, leading to the collapse of conventional strategies.

It is at this moment when innovation and creativity play an important role in construction practices, ultimately creating a quicker and more efficient construction model that can be replicated after natural disasters.

Undoubtedly, there are some principles that should be taken into account when designing a semi-permanent structure. Thus, we have gathered some tips and examples that you may find useful. 

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Casa Mirador at Viña Casas del Bosque won the “Architecture and Landscape” category at the International Best Of Wine Tourism 2019, awarded by Great Wine Capitals, competing against wineries from the world's ten most important wine-growing regions.

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Herzog & de Meuron's M+ Museum of visual culture has topped out in Hong Kong ahead of its scheduled opening in 2020. Focusing on 20th and 21st century art, design, architecture and moving image, M+ will be the centerpiece of the West Kowloon Cultural District, and a key venue in creating interdisciplinary exchange between the visual arts and the performing arts in Asia.

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Espacio Odeón in Bogotá has announced the winning projects for the open call Odeón o de la contingencia. This marks the Colombian venue's fourth exhibition cycle, for which curators Alejandro Martín Maldonado and Estudio Altiplano have organized an architectural competition that explores the spatial conditions of Odeón, as well as its history, present, and future.

According to the organizers, the exhibition "will present proposals that intervene in the building and question—through humor, play, and fiction—its spatial, heritage, urban, and economic conditions, while speculating on new ways of inhabiting, intervening in, and maintaining it."

As 2018 draws to a close, accommodation website Airbnb has dived into their data to reveal the most creative cities and countries from the year. Based on the percentage of hosts who are in the creative industries, the list builds on a previous survey by Airbnb which found that one in 10 Airbnb hosts and one in three Experience hosts identify as members of the creative community.

Read on below for the list of top creative countries and cities according to the new Airbnb study. For architects already planning a New Year’s getaway, check out an article we published of ten projects previously featured by ArchDaily, now available for booking through Airbnb.

On Thursday, November 22, the jury convened by the Madrid City Council, in collaboration with the Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid (COAM), announced the results of the rehabilitation project for the historic Beti-Jai Fronton in Madrid, Spain.

The competition opened for registration last June, receiving a total of 73 proposals for the intervention on the landmark building. The objective was to find the best proposal to reconcile the preservation of the building's heritage value—declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Asset of Cultural Interest)—with the most appropriate technical solutions for its future use as a sports and cultural venue.

See the results below:

The Parques del Río project in Medellín has become the first Colombian representative among the winners at the 2018 World Architecture Festival (WAF18), currently being held in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Self-described as the world's largest architectural awards program, the festival announced on its second day that the project designed by Latitud Taller de Arquitectura y Ciudad won the 'Masterplanning' subcategory under the 'Future Projects' section.

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The second edition of Living Places - Simon Architecture Prize is a competition organized in collaboration with prestigious international architecture firms, featuring 145 projects from 12 European countries and Mexico. Although European in scope, this edition of the prize includes Mexico as a special guest. The award is presented in two categories: Personal Places and Collective Places, with a €10,000 prize for the winner of each.

The jury comprised various professionals, including renowned Mexican architect Frida Escobedo, founder of her eponymous studio, the youngest designer of a Serpentine Pavilion and recently awarded a RIBA International Fellowship; Davide Rapp (Milan), an architect and filmmaker who created the film “Elements” for the 2014 Venice Biennale as the introductory video to the central exhibition; Cecilia Tham (Hong Kong, Barcelona), founder of the creative community MOB Makers of Barcelona; and Ricardo Flores (Buenos Aires, Barcelona) of Flores & Prats Arquitectos, one of the winners of the prize's previous edition.