In the midst of programmatic diversity and experimentation, the Rio de Janeiro office gru.a is an encouragement to those who wish to venture into the expanded field of architecture. Formed by partners Caio Calafate and Pedro Varella in 2013, gru.a demonstrates the potential of the profession when it dialogues with other disciplines.
Entries to the annual Architecture Drawing Prize are judged in three categories, hand-drawn, digital and hybrid. Last year, Dafni Filippa, a post-graduate student studying for a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture (MLA) at the Bartlett School of Architecture, won in the hybrid category and was also judged overall winner of the Prize with her Flood-responsive landscape performance, a virtuoso drawing created through a variety of rendering and modelling techniques produced by hand, in plaster and through and across multiple software platforms.
At ArchDaily, our work is grounded in stories. Between practice and projects, editorials and news, we write to share how architecture and design is changing both how we live and why. We also hold a responsibility in our choice of which stories get told and those that don't. The following is a reflection about design in Los Angeles, a beautiful, immense, sprawling, and diverse city that I've called home for many years.
Staying at the forefront while renewing business lines and contacts is key to thriving in any industry. Building on its legacy of 32 in-person and two digital editions, Expo CIHAC returns to Centro Citibanamex, establishing itself in 2022 as a premier hub for the architecture, construction, and interior design sectors in Mexico and Latin America.
What if policymakers, when deciding how to allocate public investments, looked beyond massive concrete structures and also turned their attention to forests?
Viewing the conservation, restoration, and management of native vegetation—in other words, nature-based solutions—as viable investment alternatives to improve urban infrastructure is an innovative approach that can yield major benefits for society. A prime example lies in the water treatment and supply sector: forests can play such a crucial role that they can be considered a form of natural infrastructure.
Being a region characterized by its wide variety of landscapes, biodiversity and thermal floors, the design of interior patios in Colombian homes accompanies the living, resting, access, and circulation spaces, being, on many occasions, protagonists and a source of contact with the surrounding nature.
Every new generation enters the workplace with its own communication style. From viral TikToks to provocative statements like “We rarely use email,” Gen Z’s entrée into the workforce will certainly make its own waves. But what do we need to consider as we recruit, try to retain, and sell to this next generation of designers?
CityMakers is working with ArchDaily to publish a series of articles, conversations, and interviews with the various actors in urban co-production behind the CityMakers Barcelona Lab 2022, an event taking place from November 14 to 18. For this edition, Víctor Torres, an architect with a Master's in Territorial Planning and Environmental Management from the University of Barcelona, presents his article "Renaturalizing the City from the Smallest Scale: The Neighborhood."
The metaverse promises to revolutionize our way of life. By integrating immersive technologies like virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), it hopes to add another layer to the way we experience everyday life. It is suggested that the metaverse will create virtual spaces where people can meet and share experiences regardless of geographical constraints. The possibilities seem endless: exchanging knowledge, encouraging professional collaboration, developing and democratizing art, education, culture, and even enabling political engagement. Social interactions are at the core of the idea of a metaverse. This raises the question: how can the new, virtual spaces acquire the properties of public spaces?
As part of the effort to make the construction sector more sustainable in the face of the climate crisis, the bioeconomy has stood out. While the road to net-zero architecture is still very complex, the emerging shift in culture and general thinking is evident, and innovation seems to be driving this transformation.
As researcher, designer and MIT professor Caitlin Mueller once said, “The greatest value you can give to a material is to give it a load-bearing role in a structure.” Load-bearing components – foundations, beams, columns, walls, etc. – are designed to resist permanent or variable forces and movements. Similar to the bones of a human body, these support, protect and hold everything together. To fulfill that indispensable function, they must be made from materials with outstanding mechanical properties, which explains the prominence of cement and steel in structures. However, their high performance comes at a high cost: together, they account for 15% of global CO2 emissions. This makes us wonder, is it possible for structural materials to be truly sustainable? We know solutions like greener versions of concrete already exist, but there are many other alternatives to explore. And sometimes, the answer is closer than we expect; in the earth beneath us and the nature that surrounds us.
In architecture, the concept of daylighting refers to when buildings allow natural light inside to provide a number of benefits, from enhanced visual comfort and productivity, to improved health and higher energy savings. However, to reach optimum levels of sunlight, reaching a balance is key; while too much can produce an uncomfortable glare and tremendous amounts of heat, too little can lead to health deficiencies and a greater dependency on artificial lighting. In that sense, the qualities of polycarbonate panels are unmatched, becoming an attractive choice for facades and roofs by achieving a soft, diffused light with varying levels of transparency, brightness and opacity.
Earlier this year the unprovoked barbaric Russian invasion of neighboring independent Ukraine forced millions of people to flee their cities and the country in search of safety. I talked to one of Ukraine’s top architects, Oleg Drozdov, who was forced to relocate his practice and architecture school he co-founded in Kharkiv, to Lviv, 1,000 kilometers to the west, next to the Polish border. His staff and professors — many of them assume both roles — resumed their work just weeks after the war broke out.
March 20, 2020: I am in New York, “the epicenter of Covid-19,” the news on TV keeps blaring, as if proud of the achievement. New York has always been excessive, so why not now? More cases, more hospitalizations, more ICU admissions, more intubations, more deaths. The news is terrifying and at the same time completely at odds with the day-to-day experience of the city, which has become so strangely quiet, so peaceful. No traffic, no construction noise, no annoying car alarms, no random screams in the middle of the night. Even the ambulances are mostly silent without cars to fight against.
Within the framework of the project "Inclusive Preparation, Effective Response: Strengthening community preparedness and protection systems through an inclusive and gender-sensitive approach in the communities of the Cantagallo area in Lima," developed by the consortium of Plan International, COOPI - Cooperazione Internazionale, and Humanity Inclusion, the studio Arquitectura del Medio, led by Alejandro Merino and Gianella Díaz, seeks to implement a demonstration project in the Shipibo-Konibo Community of Cantagallo in the district of Rímac, Lima, taking environmental considerations and replicability into account.
"Harmonious Contradiction" is the third and final summer exhibition at Sotheby's East Hampton Gallery New York and the first collaboration between MASA and Sotheby’s. Running from August 24 to September 18, this group exhibition features brass and polished bronze floor works by eight contemporary artists from Mexico City-based Masa Gallery, in conversation with a curated selection of contemporary and post-war works from Sotheby's.
The determination of focal points in the environments offers dynamism, personality and activates internal and external environments from the enhancement of decorative objects or construction elements. Here are some examples for you to understand what it is and how to use it in the design and decoration of your home.
Indians have traditionally lived close to the earth, their cultures shaped by symbiotic relationships with ecosystems. Indian arts and crafts strongly rely on nature for its form, philosophy, and existence. Native landscapes aroused the artistic sensibilities of resident communities, evolving craft practices that met utilitarian and ritualistic needs. The intersectionality of ecology and culture is evident through ancestral forms of craft.
