Articles

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Obra en Obra is a multidisciplinary project led by architects, whose work focuses on experimenting in different ways with the built architectural object, as well as its processes and spaces, through the intersection of architecture with other disciplines such as dance and the visual arts. Conceived as a private, citizen-led, and professional non-profit initiative, Obra en Obra operates in partnership with various firms, conceiving architecture through the senses and experience—a perspective that arises from reversing processes and exposing confrontations.

According to Vitruvius and Pausanias, its origin derives from the tree trunks used in primitive constructions of dwellings and religious buildings. In Egypt and Persia, they were commonly found in palaces and temples. In the Romanesque period, beyond structural necessity, they were employed for the pedagogical purpose of teaching the Holy Scriptures. During the Gothic era, they became stylized and clustered, eventually reaching a second peak during the Renaissance and Neoclassicism, evolving into a symbol of an almost nostalgic rationality. Ultimately, they were heavily and pedantly decorated during the Plateresque and Baroque periods, until all ornament was abandoned in favor of their structural and organizing capacity under the new order imposed by modernity through the free plan.

Colombian firm DARP has won second place in the design competition for the memorial space at the former Mónaco Building in Medellín, Colombia. Organized by the EDU and the Colombian Society of Architects (SCA), the international competition sought to design a space of memory and reflection on the period between 1983 and 1994, located on the site of the demolished building that was once the home of drug trafficker Pablo Escobar.

On Tuesday, April 23, Archiprix Chile 2019 announced the winners of this year's edition at the Centro Cultural Estación Mapocho, honoring the thesis projects of young Chilean architects with three top prizes and three honorable mentions. The award ceremony was preceded by a lecture by Martín del Solar, co-founder of Grupo Talca, a Chilean practice featured in the 2016 Venice Biennale.

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BEMA is a new space by dèrive Lab opening its doors in the Historic Center of Querétaro, Mexico. The project restores and reactivates a building that previously functioned as a squash court, an event hall, and a commercial kitchen. This new space aims to become a platform that fosters impactful cultural and artistic projects to rethink the city, providing a sanctuary for gathering, production, and the exchange of ideas and experiences around urban issues.

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From March through June, “Real,” the new exhibition by Argentine artist Leandro Erlich, will be on display in Córdoba, Argentina.

Originally published in ArquitecturaAhora, architect Ana Sugranyes explores the origin and evolution of the concept of the right to the city, from 1960s Paris to its global expansion.

In the name of social integration or sustainability, the United Nations New Urban Agenda (2016) also incorporated a reference to the right to the city. “Words, then, are of no use: they are just words,” says Alberti. Meanwhile, Chile maintains its high level of income inequality, which has a direct, correlative effect on the deep socio-spatial segregation of its territories and cities; this, in turn, corresponds to worrying levels of social, cultural, and structural violence. 

Do you have ideas on how to improve existing social housing to transform environmental conditions? That was the question posed by Proyectar a Conciencia 2.0, a competition open to students and faculty throughout Chile, aiming to intervene in the Family Heritage Protection Program (PPPF) of the Chilean Ministry of Housing and Urbanism (MINVU).

Since the mid-twentieth century, Latin American cities have undergone metropolization processes in which transportation has been heavily impacted by the exponential growth of private vehicle use. This is driven by rapid, unregulated urban sprawl that causes cities to spread extensively across the territory. This physical expansion is compounded by deficient public transit management and weak domestic socioeconomic conditions, both of which severely constrain the development of transportation systems.

Córdoba, Argentina's most populous city after Buenos Aires, is a prime example of this paradigm, featuring one of the largest urban footprints in the world at 576 square kilometers (excluding its metropolitan area). Its physical structure is radiocentric, with transport corridors converging in the city center, creating a dense core where services are concentrated and an ever-expanding periphery.

In this article, Beatriz Coeffé Boitano presents a portion of her Master’s thesis in Arts and Cultural Management at King’s College London, titled “Brutalism Revival: media as active spaces of urban memory.” The piece reflects on the documentation and construction of a collective discourse around urban memory through social media platforms, focusing on the demolition of the brutalist Robin Hood Gardens complex by Alison and Peter Smithson.

Today, when it comes to urban planning, the design and pursuit of inclusive cities is generally promoted. That is, fostering collective environments where all sectors of society can thrive.

How much easier would this task be if spaces were created where different segments of society could express their needs regarding how they live?

“Leo Leo! Que Ves? La ciudad contada por los niños y las niñas” is a project that originated in the city of Córdoba in 2017, within the framework of the artistic and cultural activities program of the Undersecretariat of Culture at the National University of Córdoba. It continues to develop activities such as “Ciudad niñez-ca,” led by Paola Antonietti and workshop facilitators Camila García Reyna, María Paz Pérez Roque, Rocío Maldonado, Gabriela Soto, and Matias Zanetti, alongside FAUD's Urbanism 1A department and the City and Territory Studies Workshop.

We explore this project through the words of its creators.

Videos

Mares is an urban transformation and social economy project developed by estudio SIC, VIC (Vivero de iniciativas ciudadanas) and TXP (Todo por praxis) in Madrid, Spain. The project reclaims four former buildings across four different districts of the city, converting them into innovation hubs. Each hub is linked to key urban challenges: Mobility, Food, Recycling, Energy, and Care.

José Luis Fernández del Amo (1914–1995) belongs to the landscape of postwar Spanish architecture, with projects and works that stood apart from the academic aura. His works circulated like clandestine messages that opened up new paths, hinted at truths, supported collective wills, and vanished into a crowd driven by diverse interests. Like many of his generation, he had to begin his professional career trapped between the conflicts of disillusionment and a spiritual shift in his outlook on life—a disillusionment born from the searing cruelty of a civil war that provoked, in those who endured it, an internal shift in response to the drama unleashed by such conflicts.

While many of the homes built during the Modern Movement—as design experiments on new ways of living—fostered the early emergence of "programmatic hybrids" by typically linking the residences of artists, painters, or architects with their workspaces (one need only recall, for instance, the atelier Le Corbusier designed for painter Amédée Ozenfant in 1922), today, new work models and hyperconnectivity have further driven the development of a new typology where workspaces are integrated into residential architecture. Architects, writers, photographers, designers, and painters increasingly choose to integrate their studios and workshops into their homes, merging living and working into a single whole.

Concéntrico is an International Architecture and Design Festival that, through a democratic approach open to all citizens and visitors, aims to reflect on the urban environment and the city.

Videos

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On Thursday, September 5, ArchDaily México celebrated its seventh anniversary. This year, Proyecto Público Prim was chosen as the venue—an early 20th-century building of great architectural value featuring interventions by architect Alberto Kalach and the firm PRODUCTORA. The venue served as the backdrop for some of the most influential figures on the contemporary scene to connect with the ArchDaily México team.

The article series by Nikos A. Salingaros, David Brain, Andrés M. Duany, Michael W. Mehaffy, and Ernesto Philibert-Petit investigating social housing in Latin America continues by exploring the choice of building materials. Read all past articles and the new piece below.

1- Design Capable of Establishing 'Emotional Belonging' 2- Anti-Patterns of Latin American Social Housing 3- Geometry of Control 4- Biophilia, Connectivity, and Spirituality 5- Using the Work of Christopher Alexander 6- Construction Strategies for Social Housing 7- Examples of Patterns and Generating Codes 8- Design Strategies 9 - Design Sequence 10 - Practical Suggestions for Successful Projects

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Ciudad Juárez is an industrial city located on the northern border with the United States, specifically bordering the city of El Paso, Texas. Over the years, Juárez's economy has been dominated by the ‘maquiladora’ assembly industry, and the city was once considered one of the most violent in the world due to a wave of crime between 2008 and 2012. In response to these conditions, in 2014, a group of friends from Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, eager to contribute to their city's resilience and recovery, came together to discuss and pitch ideas for reclaiming streets, plazas, and parks through sociocultural projects and public space interventions, ultimately giving rise to Nómada Laboratorio Urbano.