Non-Visual City: An Audio Guide to Downtown São Paulo is an auditory and acoustic project essay exploring urban relationships and their events. Centered on how visually impaired people perceive the city, the proposal seeks to challenge and engage with their urban experiences to enhance their right to the city, autonomy, and citizenship. The spatial focus of this case study is the area where the open streets project for pedestrians was implemented in São Paulo's Centro Novo (República district).
The COVID-19 pandemic deepened the crisis of urban centers, especially those whose vitality, like Rio de Janeiro's, is closely tied to commercial and service activities.
Lockdown mandates and the rise of remote work substantially reduced foot traffic, which previously sustained a range of local businesses—especially bars and restaurants, small retailers, and cultural venues.
When studying indeterminate architecture, there is an almost natural instinct to label it. If not to label it, then to resolve it so that it can—even if only momentarily—become something more concrete. But what happens if we do not try to define it?
In 2019, along with a few colleagues, I visited the Bonpland Building, designed by the Argentine firm Adamo Faiden. Before our visit, during a conversation with friends, I tried to explain the concept behind many 21st-century porteño buildings: the logic of site occupation structured as front and rear blocks connected by a centralized circulation core; the building envelopes; and, in the case of the Bonpland building, a floor plan where the only structural elements were the vertical circulation and the wet cores. I commented on the building's exercise in indeterminacy and received a highly interesting response: I was told that this lack of resolution in the interior layouts was simply laziness on the part of the architects.
Steel frame is a system composed of galvanized steel profiles, with a thickness between 0.80 mm and 3 mm, cold bent, and assembled as structural frames, with vertical and horizontal studs. To wrap the structural profiles, OSB, cementitious or plasterboard sheets are used, which can be finished and painted internally and externally. Inside the walls, insulating materials can be included, such as mineral, glass wool, or others, to increase the thermal acoustic insulation. In the steel frame system, all the electrical and hydraulic parts are installed before closing the panels, making the process more efficient and without breakage and material waste. Cleanliness of the work, efficiency and speed are key points in this constructive system that is widely spread around the world.
The remarkable research paper “A Long History of a Short Block,” by Bill Easterly, Laura Freschi, and Steven Pennings, analyzed the development of a block on Greene Street in New York's SoHo neighborhood over four centuries. Throughout this period, the city remained in a constant state of development, demonstrating that the question “What is the ‘original character’ of a neighborhood?” is far more difficult to answer than it seems.
To begin with, the skyscraper-filled Manhattan we know today is a relatively recent development in its history. Before the Dutch arrived in what they would call “New Amsterdam” in 1625, the region was dominated by forests and wetlands—a rich ecosystem that even included bears and wolves.
On August 17, Brazil celebrated National Heritage Day, 21 days after a protest set fire to the statue of Bandeirante Borba Gato in the southern zone of São Paulo. This contradiction opens up an important discussion: how are we constructing memory in our cities? What are we valuing as our country's heritage?
The term historical and cultural heritage refers to the tangible and intangible creations of a given culture within society. What defines a cultural asset as heritage is its historical and social relevance, which can be linked to collective and individual memory, as it is through these memories that we understand the past. From an architectural perspective, the term heritage is constantly associated with historic buildings that typically embody Catholic religious values or the bourgeois lifestyle of the elite.
Before stamps and digital printing, wallpaper was a luxury item and a status symbol, as every design had to be hand-painted by artisans. As a symbol of wealth, it emerged to replace tapestries and paintings in 16th-century European homes. In Brazil, for instance, wallpaper only became economically viable in the 1930s, and its widespread popularization was only realized in the 1960s.
“From the problem of locomotion derive all other problems of urbanization.” It was in 1882 that the Spanish urbanist Arturo Soria y Mata made this assertion, and in response to it, created and implemented the concept of the linear city. Based on a functionalist doctrine, this city model abandons traditional structures such as squares and blocks, subordinating the design to circulation paths in its most rational spatial configuration: the straight line.
If your goal is to create an indoor forest, you have likely run into the challenge of not knowing where to put the plant you just bought.
The following tips offer creative ways to organize your planters so that lack of space is no longer an obstacle.
Ruins of once-elegant buildings eloquently illustrate the worst that can happen to a city after the end of an economic cycle. Wealthy families no longer have the resources to maintain their estates, and even middle-class buildings are partially abandoned when their owners, unemployed or struggling, relocate in search of opportunities elsewhere.
Left vacant and unused, physical heritage slowly degrades. Urban history is filled with examples across all eras and continents: Rome at the end of classical antiquity, Venice at the dawn of the modern era, Paraty after the shift in the Gold Route, and Detroit today.
Spending more time at home made many people realize that designing interior spaces goes beyond mere personal "taste"; rather, their environments directly influence our comfort, mood, and quality of life. This perspective has altered how we view the bathroom itself, prompting a search for solutions that liven up this space and rescue it from the standard monotony in which it is typically designed. To that end, we have searched our archives for several examples that break this mold, showcasing spaces that bring more personality to the home and enhance the well-being of their users.
Disability and the diversity of bodies and people should be an engaging subject for architects: it is about lived experience, problem-solving, and designing a better built environment.
While the topic involves critical theory and aspirations for collective life, it is often viewed merely as a compliance-driven field—or worse, a sensitive subject fraught with outdated terminology and archaic habits of thought. Typical design routines do not always account for the variety of human bodies.
Well-designed environments are essential to reduce the risk of accidents and response times in the event of a fall. For architects, designing safe cities and homes is crucial, especially in light of global demographic trends. Developing an architectural project through thoughtful design and correct product specification is, first and foremost, an act of care and concern for our older relatives and fellow citizens. It is essential to ask, "For whom?" and "What are their needs?" so that, from there, we can think about how to improve their quality of life.
This is a conscious invitation for architecture to play an active role in today's society—a positive shift that delivers both design and quality of life.
This September, the 4th edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial opens under the title The Available City—a perfect opportunity to spark discussion on the role of architecture in urban equity.
Mosaic tiles, ceramics, porcelain, wall tiles: when it comes to finishes, there are countless possibilities to choose from to add character and identity to our projects. However, faced with the sheer variety available on the market, choosing among them can be challenging. In this article, we will explore the differences between these cold tiles and offer tips on how to choose the option that best fits your project.
Planning urban mobility goes beyond isolated projects like bike lanes or street restructuring (which, though extremely important, are not enough). A city with high-quality mobility must enable its population to make the necessary trips to carry out their activities efficiently, safely, and pleasantly. However, mobility planning must address the needs of the city's diverse user base.
Expanding pedestrian and bicycle travel is highly desirable for several reasons: health (an active population is healthier); individual financial benefits (active travel is cheaper); and, most importantly, environmental concerns and spatial efficiency. Active modes of transportation contribute to the quality of public space (an area with pedestrians and cyclists is livelier and more pleasant).
Citymakers is working with ArchDaily to publish a series of articles, conversations, and interviews with key figures in city co-production behind the Citymakers Barcelona Lab 2021, a program returning to Barcelona from November 8 to 12, 2021.
CityMakers is a global platform of experts in urban co-production best practices, aiming to connect city co-producers and influential leaders from around the world to inspire one another and drive transformation in their cities.
For this installment, Salvador Rueda presents his article "Participatory Processes and Resistance to Change: Implementing 'Superblocks' in Barcelona."
The intentions of the 15-Minute City are laudable. I have long believed that walking is the best of all modes of transportation. I also believe that cities should be free from commercial regulations that hinder the emergence of small shops and cozy cafes in residential neighborhoods. A lively and dynamic mixed-use neighborhood can be one of the greatest gifts of urban entrepreneurship.
In the United States, we regulate the entrepreneurship of the poor much more than that of the rich. The rich innovate in cyberspace, a zone largely free of regulation. Conversely, the poor innovate in practice, in real things, under local government rules that micromanage physical space.
