Architecture News

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As part of an initiative led by the Mexican architecture firm REVOLUTION Arquitectura and the Mexican Red Cross, the Temporary Housing Pavilion for Healthcare Workers was developed to protect and shelter healthcare sector workers in Mexico.

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The winners of the Allen Bus Terminal Preliminary Project Competition (TOA) have been announced. This regional call was promoted by the Municipality of the City of Allen (General Roca, Río Negro, Argentina), organized by Section 2 and Section 4 of the Colegio de Arquitectos de la Provincia de Río Negro (CARN), and sponsored by the Argentine Federation of Architects' Associations (FADEA). The competition invited architects to submit proposals for a new passenger transport terminal, boosting architectural creativity and intervening at an urban scale.

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The winners of the Ideas Competition for the Casa de la Cultura, Former Governorate of the Department of Santa Cruz have been announced. Promoted and organized by the Municipality of Santa Cruz, the initiative invited Chilean students and architects to develop architectural proposals to convert the old Santa Cruz governorate building into the future Casa de la Cultura, highlighting the value of the property, which is considered of high heritage significance as the city's last remaining early 20th-century architectural vestige.

Architect Gabriela de Matos, creator of the Arquitetas Negras project, was named Architect of the Year by the Rio de Janeiro Department of the Institute of Architects of Brazil (IAB-RJ). Alongside her, IAB-RJ also honored the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) during an online event held this week to announce the winners of the 58th Annual Awards and the 37th Architect of Tomorrow Award.

Dedicated to exploring the intersection of race, gender, architecture, and the city, Gabriela highlighted in her speech the importance of recognizing that "although the field of architecture and urbanism is still elitist and racist, it is precisely the training of architects and urban planners who view architecture as a social tool that can help bridge the gaps and inequalities in our society."

Following the decision of a jury comprising leading figures in national architecture, combined with the public vote, the winners of the 2020 Best Brick Architecture Award were announced. The award aims to recognize outstanding national architecture projects featuring exposed brick, highlighting the architectural value of a material central to Chilean identity.

Proyecto Taller is a documentary series that aims to debate, reflect on, and examine architectural teaching and learning methods, seeking to define their points of contact and overlap with professional practice. Within this ambiguity between making and teaching how to make architecture, many architects have managed to integrate their careers as designers with their work as educators in academic environments, where they teach students how to design.

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?

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The winners of the Urban Architectural Design Ideas Competition for the Health Innovation Center (CIS) in Ecuador have been announced. Organized by the University Health Company (EUS EP) and the University of Cuenca, the competition invited architecture professionals and students to generate innovative solutions in the medical field to link academia, research, and teaching. The initiative frames health as a set of preventive actions and highlights the importance of social issues, such as comprehensive support for patients with chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes, and arthritis.

Today, our perception of the construction industry has completely changed. We find ourselves in a digital era that drives us to work collaboratively in multidisciplinary teams, making BIM an essential and mandatory tool for professional advancement.

If you are already working with the BIM methodology, read to the end of the article to find out how you can improve and advance.

While MASP is closed in accordance with World Health Organization guidelines, you can still explore the museum's collection through Google Arts & Culture or via its #maspemcasa digital programming.

Flores & Prats, in collaboration with Ouest Architecture, have won first place in the competition to renovate the Ancien Théâtre des Variétés in Brussels, Belgium. The project addresses the transformation of the former theater into an international laboratory for artistic creation, conceived as an open and inclusive public space.

The 2020 FAD Awards, one of the most prestigious architecture accolades on the Iberian Peninsula, has announced the finalist projects for its latest edition.

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.

The Chilean historian, monk, and architect Gabriel Guarda, co-author of the Benedictine Monastery Chapel alongside Martín Correa in Santiago, Chile, passed away today at the age of 92.

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.

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The winners of the National Ideas and Preliminary Projects Competition for the “San Patricio del Chañar Sports and Cultural Park” (PDC.SPDC, Neuquén, Argentina) have been announced. Promoted by the Municipality of San Patricio del Chañar, sponsored by the Argentine Federation of Architects' Associations (FADEA), and organized by Region 1 of the College of Architects of Neuquén Province (CAN), the competition invited architects across Argentina to submit proposals for a new urban green space that will serve as the city's Sports and Cultural Park. By offering high-quality amenities for public use, the initiative aimed to promote the benefits of sports, culture, and outdoor life, fostering social interaction, community living, civic activity, and collective belonging.

Bogotá's urban landscape will undoubtedly be transformed by the arrival of the metro. One of the structures that will be affected is the Monument to the Heroes, currently located at Carrera Caracas and Avenida Calle 80. In response to this urban icon, the Colombian Society of Architects organized a public competition for the architectural schematic design of the new Monument to the Heroes. 

Slate 1 CAU+Plural, composed entirely of women architects and urban planners, received 11,568 votes in the election for CAU/SP, held on October 15. The election, which recorded the highest turnout of architects and urban planners in the history of the Council of Architecture and Urbanism of São Paulo, marked the first time a single slate garnered nearly 40% of the valid votes.

In an unprecedented achievement, the slate secured the majority of seats in the Council, winning 49 plenary seats. Out of 77 total seats, 52 will be occupied exclusively by women. Thanks to this strategy, the next term will see a 77% female composition—with 54 titular members and 66 alternates, respectively. This effectively reverses the previous composition, where 76% of the state council was represented by men.