Articles

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Brick is one of the most popular materials for architects designing with a vintage or rustic aesthetic: exposed brick walls are often touted as highly desirable for apartments, restaurants, and stores, and exterior brick facades can make a building or home feel warmer and more inviting. However, the color and cut of the brick can greatly influence the atmosphere it emanates, with white brick lending itself to more minimalist design and tan brick tending to feel more rustic and earthy. In this article, we will explore some of the most popular brick colors, ways to artificially color brick, and recent projects that use brick facades or interior brick elements effectively.

This article is part of "Eastern Bloc Architecture: 50 Buildings that Defined an Era", a collaborative series by The Calvert Journal and ArchDaily highlighting iconic architecture that had shaped the Eastern world. Every week both publications will be releasing a listing rounding up five Eastern Bloc projects of certain typology. Read on for your weekly dose: Monumental Museums and Memorials.

The 2020 FAD Awards, one of the most important architecture accolades on the Iberian Peninsula, have announced the winning projects of their latest edition.

Text by Reutov Design. I was inspired to create this project by the nature of the island of Lanzarote in the Canary archipelago. Inspired by the extraterrestrial landscapes of this island combined with the bright colors of the nature of the island of Ibiza, we managed to create a light futuristic interior.

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This essay is a summary of the book “The Multi-Skilled Designer: Cognitive Foundation for Inclusive Architectural Thinking.” Using the theory of multiple intelligences from cognitive psychology, and developments in psychometric research, the book advocates eight skills to incorporate skill diversity in design. Design problems of 21^st Century vary far too greatly—in terms of their content, scale, and complexity, and demand a repertoire of skills. To consider multiple skillsets is to recognize the presence of individual differences, representations, and approaches in design. This allows a shift from formalist practices of architecture that emphasize graphical and formal logic skills, that tend to produce the same type of designers and privilege a narrow section of designer thinkers.

The concept of “decarbonization” has been in vogue recently in political speeches and global environmental events, but it has not yet gained enough attention in the field of architecture to profoundly change the way we design and construct the world of tomorrow. Buildings are currently responsible for 33% of global energy consumption and 39% of greenhouse gas emissions, indicating that architects must play a significant role if we are to stop or reverse climate change. With carbon acting as a universally agreed upon metric with which the greenhouse gas emissions of a building can be tracked [1], one of the most important ways through which this goal can be achieved is therefore the decarbonization of buildings.

We must build the city through housing to address the country's housing deficit. Above all, we need not just “houses” but compact housing developments equipped with infrastructure, services, public facilities, and public spaces, featuring highly diverse housing typologies to accommodate a wide variety of family arrangements. The current incentives driving urban land speculation must be redirected through an Urban Reform.

In the last few decades, architecture and interior design have experienced a dramatic shift in the workflows that professionals consider standard. Hand-drafting is long gone; for many it’s nostalgic, and many more embrace the power incumbent to digital drafting tools. Some take it even further with BIM, embracing the process to lead their businesses into lasting success.

Constrained by a lack of transportation and resources, vernacular architecture has started adapting the distinct strategy of utilizing local materials. By analyzing projects which have successfully incorporated these features into their design, this article gives an overview of how traditional materials, such as tiles, metal, rocks, bamboo, wooden sticks, timber, rammed earth and bricks are being transformed through vernacular architecture in China.

As many Americans tentatively ease back into their museum- and park-going routines, numerous cultural institutions and public spaces are slowly coming back to life on a limited/adjusted basis after months of hibernation to greet them, with coronavirus precautions firmly in place. Meanwhile, large, indoor gallery-centered museums continue to plot their eventual returns. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, for example, plans to reopen in late August while the Getty Center in Los Angeles has still not announced its phased re-opening dates.

In many locales, a trickle of small but positive re-openings has taken place in recent weeks and/or are slated for mid-to-late July. With an eye toward public landscapes, open-air museums, and multifaceted art spaces with room to spread out, here’s a small sampling of places across the country that have reopened or expanded public access or are due to allow visitors in the very near future.

Renovations of Brazilian modernist buildings prompt a necessary debate on how to preserve and what best practices to employ when intervening in architectural heritage. The challenges of this type of intervention are immense. These projects must be approached with great care to maintain respect for their historical significance, preserving key elements of their composition while simultaneously updating the building to meet contemporary and client demands.

The air humidity is famous, reaching mercilessly low levels for anyone who has never visited a desert. Trees with twisted trunks, thick bark, and fuzzy leaves rise from the soil, attempting to defy gravity, but they contort in such a way that it is as if the heat were pushing them back toward the ground. The red earth is omnipresent, adding a touch of drama to every corner, as if the searing temperature whipped the land until it bled. Here in the *cerrado*, there is none of the density of a damp, dark jungle—like some menacing forest out of a Jack London novel, or an immemorial witness in a trance, as seen in a Joseph Conrad novella. 

Certain acclaimed architectural works are recognized by details or specific elements designed with such care and inventiveness that they become the immediate reference that comes to mind when we think of these projects.

One such element that frequently takes center stage is the staircase. This is evident in classics like Lina Bo Bardi's Solar do Unhão, featuring a singular wooden staircase that organizes the entire open space and defines the scale of the structure, or the iconic helical staircase of the Itamaraty Palace, designed by Oscar Niemeyer with the precise curves that characterize his work.

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Polis is a (hypothetical) coastal metropolis with a growing population. However, most of its infrastructure was built 100 years ago, lacks maintenance, and is unable to meet the city's future needs.

Compounding these issues, Polis is experiencing damage from rising floods and coastal erosion. Its residents, especially those already impacted by environmental pollution, suffer from heat waves and poor air quality driven by industrial activity and traffic congestion.

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Skating took root as a sport in California during the 1960s and 70s, a time when extreme activities like surfing found their niche among the United States populace. Beginning as an urban adaptation of surfing, skateboarding became the pastime of choice for adolescents and, by the 1980s, acquired a worldwide following. Soon, city-scapes across the globe began transforming as spaces were created for people to engage in this uniquely urban sport.

Chinese courtyard houses are one of the most common housing typologies spanning all the way from the northern capital of Beijing to the poetic southern cities Hangzhou and back to the picturesque regions of Yunnan. Typically referred as heyuan, these courtyards homes are simply a “yard enclosed on four sides."

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This article by Maria Inés García-Reyes Röthlisberger (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana) and Stefano Anzellini Fajardo (Universidad de los Andes) was originally published in issue 24 of Dearq journal on 01/01/2019 under the title "Saberes compartidos del hábitat: una arquitectura para el paisaje rural" (https://doi.org/10.18389/dearq24.2019.03) and is part of a joint dissemination partnership.

Sheet metal is characterized by an excellent strength-to-weight ratio, meaning it performs exceptionally well under heavy loads despite being lightweight and slender. Because of this, bookshelves made from sheet metal offer impressive storage capacity and have become increasingly popular in apartment design.

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