Articles

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The year 2018 has been filled with achievements and surprises for the architectural community. As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the crucial role competitions play in reinforcing the global image of each region or country. Mexico was no exception, securing nearly 18 international recognitions (including grants, competitions, nominations, etc.) that showcased its key interests and goals for the coming years to the rest of the world. This selection highlights the prominent participation of Mexican architects Frida Escobedo and Rozana Montiel—both invited and recognized on multiple occasions at some of the industry's most prestigious events—as well as outstanding projects like the Teopanzolco Cultural Center by Isaac Broid + Productora, which received several national and international awards.

Read on for the complete list.

A Portuguese architect from a traditional aristocratic family, Fernando Távora's education was shaped by a profound discursive shift upon coming into contact with modernism. He often said that he "entered university in love with the Venus de Milo and left in love with Picasso," reflecting his intellectual brilliance in recognizing modernist initiatives as something with which he had to establish a dialogue. In 1945, he wrote for the first time about a "third way" for Portuguese architecture, a contribution that resonated both in his teaching—closely tied to the Porto School—and in his practice, finding direct and striking expression in several of his projects.

With more than 350 Colombian projects now published on ArchDaily, we celebrate this milestone with a curated selection that highlights the value of drawings in conceptualizing, designing, and constructing contemporary Colombian architecture.

While drawing is often associated with a project's earliest conceptual stages, Colombian architects continue to use sketching to explain structure, program, and even construction details in an era otherwise dominated by the efficiency of 3D modeling and rendering.

This selection ranges from single-family homes to public parks, including mixed-use facilities, kindergartens, and university buildings across Colombia.

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The Instituto Tomie Ohtake AkzoNobel Architecture Prize, aimed at professionals up to 45 years old, shows that Brazilian architectural production is not currently experiencing a good moment. The responsibility, certainly, does not lie with our architects and urban planners, but with the lack of importance that public administrators, in general, have given to urban interventions and high-quality design.

One could argue, given the few outstanding proposals, that this is the result of the current economic crisis and the standstill in the real estate sector and public policies linked to the built environment, such as urban design, housing, mobility, social infrastructure, and the environment.

Lola Barcia Albacar and Marinela Forcadell Breva, known as Fotolateras, are two Spanish photographers who describe themselves as tireless travelers passionate about pinhole photography. This technique, one of the oldest in the world of photography, involves capturing images with almost no conventional photographic equipment.

This technique requires expertise, as each can captures only a single photograph and exposure times can exceed a full minute. However, the results are well worth the effort: images imbued with a captivating beauty. In the case of Fotolateras, Lola and Marinela use cameras built from cans, where the lens is simply a tiny hole drilled into the surface.

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A country's educational standards are reflected not only in students and teachers, or public curricula, but also in educational infrastructure as a space that shapes learning and experience. Technical institutes represent a vital option within the country's educational framework; however, many of these institutions have not undergone major infrastructural transformations or improvements since their founding. To address this gap, the "Institutes of Excellence" were established. These projects are part of a larger strategic plan encompassing both institutes and universities under a public higher education infrastructure investment program, proposed by the Ministry of Education (MINEDU) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

Strikingly, the attribute of "quality" is rarely associated with the vast majority of institutes within Peruvian higher education, as they are often overlooked. Driven by this observation, we examine the design of a prototype institute that represents a group of several projects, which have already been approved and are ready to begin construction. To understand how the vision of a better, decentralized education is translated into architecture, the team of specialists and architects led by Ana Carlín outlines the program's and project's guidelines and scope. Read on to learn more about this exemplary practice.

After analyzing 94 undergraduate student projects from 20 architecture schools across 8 regions in Chile, the jury of the 2018 Arquitectura Caliente Competition has announced the winning projects of its latest edition.

These projects span the entire country and encompass a wide range of typologies, from urban planning to student housing, alongside landscape architecture projects and structural initiatives for emergencies.

Below, we present the award-winning fourth and fifth-year projects:

The proposal Temporary Activation Circuit was awarded third place in the Pasarelas San Borja competition in Chile. The main objective of the competition was to recognize "the best urban design ideas that contribute to defining intervention criteria and generating proposals for the San Borja neighborhood."

As the authors explain, the third-place-winning proposal offers "a mutable and flexible system that reflects contemporary times."

In Spain, a neologism has emerged to explain a rising phenomenon: touristification. As Antonio Maestre notes in La Marea, the term refers to "the impact on neighborhood residents when facilities and services shift to cater almost exclusively to tourists at the expense of locals."

Among the consequences of this phenomenon in cities like Madrid and Barcelona is the massive proliferation of tourist accommodations. These lodging options drive and facilitate speculative processes whose negative impacts ultimately fall on neighborhood residents, who are forced to leave because they can no longer afford rising home prices or rents.

Crucial for ensuring that urban planning fosters prosperity and quality of life for all residents, public participation must be integrated into decision-making processes. Every citizen deserves a space to contribute new ideas, establish priorities, and track the progress of municipal projects. To facilitate this exchange, Consul—a platform developed by the city of Madrid—is being made available free of charge to cities worldwide. In Brazil, a workshop hosted by WRI Brasil introduced the tool to interested municipalities that are already working to implement it.

Architecture biennials showcase professional output on local, regional, and global scales. There are many such events worldwide, allowing us to discover the very best of our architectural work. In Peru, the biennial—sponsored by the College of Architects—is an opportunity to bring together different cohorts and generations, as well as to exchange ideas and experiences.

First and foremost, it must always be a professional Biennial; that is, it should call for works completed by Peruvian architects in their professional practice. That is its core purpose. I have nothing against undergraduate theses or student projects, but I do not believe this is the venue for them. Student biennials can easily be organized during national architecture student congresses. Furthermore, as this is an opportunity to showcase what is new and exceptional, I believe participation should be encouraged by charging an affordable entry fee to all Peruvian architects, whether they work in design or research, in the public or private sector.

The *smart city*, that great contemporary promise for solving urban problems, carries a history of contradictions that has culminated in a new term, an heir to concepts deeply rooted in the knowledge society: smartcitizens. Indeed, the recognition of this term highlights the need to review the impacts of the exclusively technological urban solutions that shaped early smart city proposals. Thus, the *smartcitizens* concept represents initiatives arising from collective intelligence that pave the way toward changing the socioeconomic structure of our cities, based on the capacity to stay connected, share information, and proactively engage with our environment.

*Smart cities* here, *smart cities* there, *smart cities everywhere*. For several years, we have witnessed the smart city boom, to the point where, seemingly overnight, every city is *smart*1. As a result, the popularity of the term has grown exponentially, eclipsing other, more comprehensive prior concepts such as the "sustainable city"2, or others that aligned more closely with the networked era and its resulting socioeconomic relationships, such as the "knowledge city"3.

Historically relegated to the private sphere, it was only in the 20th century that women truly began to exercise their right to the city and its dynamics. Even today, however, this claiming of space remains restricted. According to a survey by the Locomotiva Institute this year, eight out of 10 Brazilian women are afraid of walking alone at night.

In addition to the threat of violence, other barriers to women's sense of belonging, mobility, and free use of public space include the lack of policies designed to address their urgent needs, as well as their identities and perspectives.

Jaime Sanz Haro, from the ARKRIT Collective, invites us to reflect—in an article originally titled "Regulations, the New Architectural Treatise: Vitruvius, Alberti, Palladio, and the General Plan"—on the role and consequences of regulatory frameworks in urban planning.

Escola Sem Muros (School Without Walls) emerges from a desire for other possible practices and alternative ways of learning and relating: with one another, with the walls of the city, and with the learning potential inherent in each territory and individual. It brings together people who have joined for a common purpose: to go beyond physical, social, and political barriers, and to open cracks in both urban brutality and the educational formats that segregate worlds. Its methodology is based on engagement (valuing local identity), construction (the building site as a learning platform), and care (shared management of public spaces and care structures), proposing a process of holistic education.

In this post, the Arquia Foundation Blog, together with architect Carlos Cámara, invites us to reflect on learning digital tools in architecture, a recurring topic of debate in the training of new architects, given that the use of different software seems to grow more valuable by the day. Based on this reality, which is increasingly distant from the pencil, the questions in this article arise... How are these new technologies being taught to students? Are they tools that foster dependent consumption? Are these tools conditioning the design creativity of future architects?

The practice and work of Fausto Banderas Vela stood out significantly within a generation of architects working since the 1960s, forging new paths in Ecuadorian architecture. His projects do not go unnoticed; into them, he poured research, reflection, and experience. He embraced the complex dimension of architecture, conscious of the need to transcend an individual vision and focus in order to emphasize the confluence of multiple contributions.

“Architecture is a complex and collective endeavor. To my understanding, there is no possibility of confronting the subject individually; not in design, where dialogue and mutual contribution are required, nor, obviously, in construction, since a work of architecture only begins to exist when it transitions from graphic and written documents into a material reality”¹. He pointed out that architecture only truly exists when materialized. Thinking, designing, and constructing it are stages of the process embraced by Fausto Banderas, enabling him to achieve coherence and quality.

Westbank is a developer of high-end luxury residential properties and Canada's premier hotel developer—its portfolio includes Vancouver House, designed by BIG, which has become one of the world's most high-profile urban developments. The Avior is situated in Minami-Aoyama, a prestigious neighborhood near Tokyo’s renowned Omotesando shopping district. The area is a hub of architectural landmarks, home to Jun Aoki's Louis Vuitton Maison, Toyo Ito's Tod’s, Kengo Kuma’s LVMH Japan headquarters, and Tadao Ando's Omotesando Hills, among others.

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