Articles

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On June 17, Mexico's Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) issued a landmark ruling ordering the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) to generate disaggregated statistical data on populations in informal or precarious settlements across the country. This resolution brings to the forefront the discussion on the role that judges can and should play when making decisions that directly impact urban planning, land management, our cities, and our housing.

This article is a part of a collaboration with coolhuntermx.com. It was originally published under the title "Luis Barragán and José Clemente Orozco,The House They Built Together ", written and photograped by David Lozano Díaz in collaboration with Lorena Darquea.

There's a lot of discussion surrounding Casa Orozco as to who the real creator is —Luis Barragán or José Clemente Orozco. And even though we know that one of them was responsible for the architecture, the answer still remains unclear. Orozco returned to Mexico in 1934, by invitation from the Mexico City government, after a seven year stint in New York. Once he arrived, he was commissioned to paint a mural inside the Palacio de Bellas Artes. Afterwards, he received commissions from the Jalisco Government to paint a series of murals for three public buildings in Guadalajara.

Sharing your shelf is, in a way, sharing yourself. Every element —from the titles you choose to the way you organize them— says something about your personality and your interests. 

Having access to a bathroom is, above all, a factor of dignity. As basic as this fact may seem, the WHO (World Health Organization) estimates that 2 billion people worldwide do not have access to basic sanitation facilities, such as bathrooms or latrines. Such inadequate sanitation causes 432,000 deaths annually, mainly from diarrhea, in addition to being an aggravating factor for several neglected tropical diseases including intestinal worms, schistosomiasis, and trachoma. In 2010, the UN (United Nations) labeled sanitation a basic right, alongside access to drinking water.

Projects for public buildings and infrastructure must always ensure the best possible forms of access and connection with the surrounding streets, particularly regarding access routes for pedestrians. However, some architects have managed to overcome the pragmatic aspect of this connection between architecture and the streets, when designing projects that have a strong duty to provide public space, by using this bond as the core of the design concept.

With most of the world living in cities and growing villages, people tend to spend the majority of their time indoors. When not at home, we are working, learning, or even engaging in fun activities in enclosed, built settings. All in all, 90% of our time is occupied inside. It is therefore essential to ensure a comfortable, productive, and healthy indoor environmental quality by following well-regulated parameters and design practices that consider temperature, lighting, noise pollution, proper ventilation, and the quality of the air we breathe. The latter is especially important, since contrary to what we might think, air pollution is much higher indoors than outdoor.

Architects don’t make buildings. Architects make drawings of buildings. But of course, someone has to make the building. The construction industry is one of the largest economic sectors and we all interact with the built environment on a daily basis, but the actual work of getting a building from drawing to structure has barely evolved over the decades. While the rest of the world has moved into Industry 4.0, the construction sector has not kept pace. Architecture has begun to embrace some digitalization. After all, not many of us work with mylar on drafting tables anymore. So with the architecture industry’s everlasting link to the construction industry, will the latter pick up some new technological tricks by association? And when it does, how will that change the role of the architect?

Feeling free and safe in the city. How many times have we felt fully free when walking through our neighbourhood, when returning home, when sitting in the park? Some urban spaces give us more autonomy than others. Some areas seem more comfortable and calm. But, to keep that calm, to what extent do we express ourselves and to what extent do we hold back? What safeguards do we take to feel as good as possible when inhabiting our environment?

In May, Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs announced that it would cancel its high-profile Quayside project because of “unprecedented economic uncertainty.” The statement marked the end of a three-year initiative to create a living, urban “testbed for emerging technologies, materials, and processes.”

Reversing the traditional order of city planning, Sidewalk Labs imagined building a new urban district on Toronto’s waterfront from the internet up, with sensors and other data collection infrastructure embedded in the fabric of a large city block. The ambitious development—with an area of 2.65 million square feet, including 1.78 million square feet of residential space—was to be built entirely from mass timber; indeed, the extensive use of modular cross-laminated timber (CLT) and glue-laminated timber (glulam) was a chief selling point of the design (by Heatherwick Studio and Snøhetta, using a kit-of-parts developed by Michael Green Architecture).

Vertical gardens, green walls, or living walls are different terms used for the same solution: the vertical arrangement of various plant species to enjoy the benefits of vegetation within a smaller footprint. In other words, the vertical application of plants maximizes horizontal usable area, a distinct advantage especially in places with limited ground space for planting.

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Unlike various construction systems and materials, the landscape is not something that can be specified, or even drawn, in the architectural design of an apartment. However, landscapes are still shaped by the building's design decisions, both from an internal and external perspective—that is, in relation to their surroundings. Facade orientation and window size, for instance, are among the ways the views from an apartment are defined, while the scale and height of the building directly impact the context in which it is situated.

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Architects in general are people who like to talk about how much they influence communities through their designs, and they are actually correct in saying that. After all, spaces together with various social factors influence how each individual feels when occupying the city or a building. But do these projects respond to all users in the same way? We propose to question the way architecture deals with the LGBTQIA+ community through an open call on our social media channels, bringing in our readers' testimonies on how they experience these spaces, and how is it possible to represent the LGBTQIA+ community in the architectural field.

In general, architects like to talk about how much their designs influence communities, and it makes perfect sense for them to do so. In the end, physical spaces and different social factors influence how each individual feels when they inhabit the city or occupy a building. But do all projects respond to all users the same way? We set out to question the way in which architecture approaches the LGBTQIA+ community, through an open call on our social networks, collecting the testimony of our readers on how they inhabit these spaces and how it would be possible to represent the community in the architectural field.

In 2013, Michael Osborne and Carl Benedikt Frey ranked 702 occupations according to their probability of computerisation in the near future, from least probable (“recreational therapist”) to most probable (“telemarketers”). "Architectural and Engineering Managers” was ranked seventy-third, and “architects” eighty-second, while “architectural and civil drafters” ranked three-hundred and fifth. Clearly, technological advancements in fields such as machine learning and robotics are rapidly confronting us with issues of changing professional demand and qualifications. In this essay, Maurizio Ferraris turns the table on us: what if what we should be concerned with is not maintaining the human element in labor as production, but rather recognising human labor as consumption? Expanding on the arguments of his 2012 book, “Lasciar tracce: documentalità e architettura,” the author sees in automation an extraordinary opportunity in defining a renewed centrality of the human element, as the production of value associated with digital exchange is read through the three concepts of invention, mobilization and consumption. 

The most recent edition of The Cathedrals of England brings to a new generation the classic 1930s Batsford guide to England’s religious architecture. Concisely written and speaking to a broad readership, the book serves as a practical guide today as it did almost a century ago, acting as a reference catalogue for every Church of England cathedral in the country at the time.

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Due to its climate and territorial characteristics, Ecuador possesses an immense diversity of bamboos: it has 6 genera and 42 identified species, of which 11 are endemic. Among them, Guadua angustifolia cane is considered the most important species in terms of abundance and physical and mechanical properties. The indigenous term guadua was used by the native communities of Ecuador and Colombia to designate this species of "native bamboo," which was later renamed "Guadua angustifolia"—meaning "narrow leaf"—and taxonomically belongs to the Poaceae family and the Bambusoideae subfamily. The use of this material is so ancient that, according to the book *Nuevas técnicas de construcción en bambú* (1978), remains have been found in buildings in Ecuador estimated to be 9,500 years old.

Across the world, urban clusters have —to a greater or lesser extent— social and economic differences. Reflected in space, these imbalances of income and access to education, health, sanitation, and infrastructure generate ruptures more or less visible —although drastically felt.

Although a daily reality for some, socio-spatial inequalities can often go unnoticed. Photographer Johnny Miller states, "Discrepancies in how people live are sometimes hard to see from the ground... Oftentimes, communities of extreme wealth and privilege will exist just meters from squalid conditions and shack dwellings." Miller's photo series 'Unequal Scenes' seeks "to portray the most 'Unequal Scenes' in [the world] as objectively as possible."

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Videos

The search for more sustainable products must begin at the design stage. In this light, it is essential for designers and everyone involved in this process to possess adequate knowledge; indeed, sustainable practices must be an integral part of the education of architects and urban planners. 

Over the years, many architecture programs have increasingly integrated this discussion into their curricula in a more meaningful and in-depth manner, either through specific elective courses or within mandatory subjects. 

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