Articles

MUDA-Architects was founded in 2015 in Beijing, China, and Boston, USA, establishing its Chengdu office in 2017. MUDA features an international team of architects composed of creative designers from diverse global backgrounds. The firm brings forward-thinking concepts, extensive experience, high professional standards, and unique creativity to the fields of architecture and design. MUDA’s design portfolio spans public, cultural, and commercial buildings, as well as urban design, landscape architecture, and interior design.

ARIZON Design was founded in Shanghai in 2008 by Junwei Shen. The firm specializes in providing master planning, design, and consulting services for boutique shopping centers, commercial complexes, and other architectural spaces. Its completed projects have won numerous international professional awards, positioning the firm as one of the most forward-thinking and specialized design agencies in the commercial retail sector. The name ARIZON is inspired by a passage from the I Ching (Book of Changes): “Great indeed is the generating power of Qian, to which all things owe their beginning,” symbolizing the use of boundless creativity to breathe endless life into architectural spaces. Championing an “ECO-FASHION” aesthetic and driven by the mission of “designing the future of business,” ARIZON strives to create greater commercial value for its clients. 

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When we speak of passive climate control, we refer to techniques that, with little to no energy consumption, create the appropriate temperature, humidity, and air quality conditions for comfort and habitability, partially or fully replacing active mechanical systems. Typically, these strategies are based on natural environmental parameters—such as air currents, the earth's thermal stability, and solar paths, among others—to regulate heat gain in the summer and heat loss in the winter, achieving optimal thermal comfort.

What if we told you that fungi could be the future of building materials? The possibilities of mycelium in architecture are becoming increasingly tangible, thanks to its capacity to be molded into everything from furniture and packaging to insulation panels and bricks. It offers excellent acoustic and thermal properties, along with remarkable fire resistance.

In Argentina, this is already a reality. Refugio Fúngico is a recent experimental biotechnological research and development project led by SUPERPRAXIS. It takes the form of a temporary installation in the city of San Carlos de Bariloche, crafted from a biomaterial made from organic waste and mycelium.

Established in March 2008, Shanghai RUF Architectural Design Consulting Co., Ltd. (RUF) is the sole branch in China of the Boston-registered US RUF Design Consulting Co., Ltd. The firm specializes in schematic design for high-end residential projects, commercial complexes, industrial parks, hotels, and characteristic small towns.

It took nearly 60 years to build the San Carlos Canal, an engineering feat that drew water from the Maipo River to irrigate the lands of southeastern Santiago.

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TEN Arquitectos is a practice based in Mexico City, New York, and Miami. Founded by Mexican architect Enrique Norten, the firm has 33 years of experience designing with a global perspective that yields a consistent international sensitivity when creating new spaces. This trajectory has been recognized with various national and international awards, including the Mies van der Rohe Award for Latin American Architecture, honors from the national American Institute of Architects (AIA) and several US chapters, Architectural Record, Architect Magazine, Architizer, Biennials in Mexico, Argentina, and Ecuador, and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), among others.

Out of necessity, buildings change uses over time. Churches become libraries, and abandoned warehouses are transformed into cultural centers. Although much has been written on the subject since N. John Habraken's concept of open building in the 1970s, a fascinating global debate is currently underway. Do we really need so much square footage dedicated to offices when the pandemic proved that much of our work can be done remotely?

"The Value of Medialab-Prado as an Original Work on Urban Heritage and Institutional Good Practice." This is the title of the open letter written by the movement defending a cultural center with nearly 20 years of history in Madrid—housed in the historic Serrería Belga building in the Barrio de las Letras.

The construction sector's contribution to today's climate crisis is deeply concerning: between material production, construction, and building operations, the sector is one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, as urban populations grow at historic rates, we find that in the development of major energy-intensive cities, reducing the discipline's environmental impact seems to rely on niche interests and individual initiatives rather than large-scale actions from academia, the profession, or policymakers.

History has shown us numerous construction techniques and applications of local materials that have proven sustainable over time—relying on the efficient use of resources that require no intensive industrial processing and eliminate the need for long-distance transportation. In some cases, at the end of their life cycle, these materials can even be returned to the environment, as is the case with adobe and wood.

Videos

“Arquitectos” is a micro-documentary series produced by AvantVisual and directed by Mauro Alfaro on the life and work of prominent Chilean architects. The series was originally scheduled to premiere at the XXI Chile Architecture and Urbanism Biennial, “The Common and the Everyday.” However, due to the suspension of the Biennial in the wake of the 2019 social uprising, the premiere could not take place.

Out of necessity, various building types have changed their use. Churches converted into libraries, abandoned warehouses turned into cultural centers—and while much has been written on the subject, from N. John Habraken's 1970s Open Building concept to Adamo Faiden's contemporary From Mixed-Use to Diff-Use, today we have, more than ever, an engaging global debate surrounding adaptability in housing. Is it truly necessary to dedicate so many square feet to office space when the pandemic proved that most work can be done remotely? This was one of the central questions during the lockdowns of recent years.

In any planning process, a series of documents—comprising both graphic and textual materials—establishes a framework for future development. In urban planning, the master plan stands out as one of the most common instruments for this purpose.

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Congratulations, you made it through 2020!

This year was filled with far too many "unexpected" and "unforeseen" events. The pandemic transformed our external environment, shifting our psychological landscapes and behaviors in tandem. As an architectural observer and critic, I have found that the most profound change the pandemic brought to the profession is in our very way of seeing. "Lockdowns" have increasingly forced us to experience culture and space through images. This mode of observation traps us within digital platforms—relying on translated texts, edited photographs, and curated videos. Consequently, our sensory understanding of space (encompassing sight, hearing, smell, and touch) has been reduced to sight alone, leaving our critique of the built environment as a mere synthesis of fragmented impressions.

When the channels of intellectual nourishment shift, the evaluation systems of space inevitably change as well. But how does this affect design? Physicist Carlo Rovelli once noted, "Sometimes, a crazy perspective sees further than our usual blurry vision." Through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic, I hope to expose issues and provoke collective reflection rather than mere complacency. In this year-end review, we attempt to respond to these shifts. Below are the ten most-discussed articles of the year, categorized into ten themes, offered in the hope of sparking further response and dialogue.

01.Social Distancing:Human——1.5m——Human
02. Female Architects:2020 Pritzker Prize Laureates: Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara
03. Representatives of the Client:Shenzhen Opera House Competition Selects 20 Design Teams in a Clash of Titans
04. Contextual Disconnect:An Open Letter to Zumthor: "Architecture Should Not Be an Island"
05. Scale:Portzamparc Responds to the "Steel Ribbon" of the Suzhou Bay Cultural Center: The Coexistence of the Monumental and the Minute
06. Juxtaposition of Tradition and Contemporaneity:Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Museum / Studio Zhu-Pei
07. Human Habitat:High-Density Hong Kong: Micro-living in 14㎡ Concrete Water Pipes
08. Experimental Exploration:KAIT Plaza, Kanagawa Institute of Technology / Junya Ishigami
09. Architecture for Animals:Kengo Kuma's New 'Casa Wabi Coop': A Grid Built of Charred Wood
10. Young Architects:2020 ArchDaily Best New Practices: 21 Firms from Around the Globe

CROX was founded by architect C.R. Lin. The name CROX represents "cross over" (interdisciplinary design), with a portfolio spanning urban planning, architecture, interiors, furniture, curation, and artistic creation. Guided by an "Avant-garde Natural" design philosophy and deep humanistic sensitivity, CROX expands design from mere art into a dialogue between culture and nature, continuously exploring the fluid and organic potential of the imagination to leave a contemporary mark. In recent years, the firm has participated in the 2016 Milan Triennale, as well as the 2016 and 2018 Venice Architecture Biennales. Its projects have been recognized with numerous prestigious international honors, including the World Architecture Festival (WAF) Awards, the Architecture MasterPrize (AMP), the Andrew Martin Interior Design Award, DNA Paris Design Awards, K-Design Award, and the JCD Design Award.

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A School to Educate with Dignity is an intervention at the Juan H. Álvarez Intercultural Bilingual Primary School in Xochistlahuaca, Guerrero, Mexico. Led by Judith Meléndrez Bayardo (M.Urb.), Arch. Antonio Plá Pérez, and Gabriel Konzevik Kabib (M.Arch.), the project arose from a request for expansions and improvements at twenty-three indigenous schools in the mountainous region of Costa Chica, Guerrero, which are affiliated with the Guerrero 50-50 Project. This program seeks to reinforce the identity of indigenous communities by preserving their native languages. Consequently, in this particular community, the native ñomndaá language carries significant weight within the educational system, and above all, in shaping cultural identity and understanding the environment. Therefore, transforming the space became essential for the architecture to contribute to this project of cultural resistance.

For more than three decades, Chile's Norte Grande region positioned itself as an important modern laboratory and a hub of development on both a national and international scale. It embodied the potential to decentralize access to services and infrastructure, as well as territorial management itself. Driven by an economic boom, a project of modernity was promoted, spanning comprehensive investment plans to the management and construction of modern architecture projects. However, following the coup d'état and the subsequent militarization of the border, resources were once again concentrated in Santiago, bringing this regionalist momentum to an end. Below are details of some of these hybrid works which, shaped by both the desert climate and European influence, responded to a local context defined by an incomplete project of modernity.