Articles

In September, we launched the fourth edition of our open call in Colombia, inviting architects to submit their undergraduate thesis projects. In this edition, the call received 104 submissions from more than 15 cities and 25 universities across the country, marking an 11% increase in proposals compared to 2018.

Following an exhaustive evaluation, and to celebrate Architects' Week in Colombia, we present the 13 thesis projects selected as winners by our editorial jury (Fabián Dejtiar, Mónica Arellano, and Santiago Baraya). The evaluation criteria prioritized projects that directly addressed current issues, such as urban, local, social, and environmental contexts.

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Sala Roxy is a historic venue located at 80 Mezquitán Street in the city of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. For years, this space served as a local symbol of freedom, bringing together alternative artistic and cultural expressions. First opening its doors in 1937, it operated for several decades as Cine Roxy; built in the Art Deco style, it became one of the first theaters dedicated to film screenings in Guadalajara.

Few may have heard of Hermosillo, a Mexican city of 850,000 inhabitants located in the middle of the desert, just 280 kilometers south of the United States border. It is a city of great strengths, but also immense challenges. In an increasingly urbanized world, cities have become platforms for innovation and change, particularly in developing countries. While megacities like Bogotá, Lima, and Mexico City struggle to distribute goods and services to their sprawling populations, intermediate cities like Hermosillo have the potential to offer a more sustainable alternative.

'Silogismos' is an architecture and illustration project that bases its research on archives, publications, and photographs tracing the history of modern construction in Mexico. It offers a graphic narrative on the continuity and transformation of seminal 20th-century works through the synthesis, interpretation, and juxtaposition of their ideals. These paired concepts confront thought and form through deductive inference. Ultimately, the sum of these parts reveals critical architectural meanings and motives for future reconstruction.

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Proyecto Panorama is a civil association made up of a diverse group of young people from Cancún, who have been actively working for more than two years on public space interventions in Quintana Roo through urban art. These interventions have proven to generate a positive impact on the residents' environment, strengthening the sense of identity and belonging in one of the country's most important developing regions. Since its founding in 2016, and thanks to collaborations with renowned national and international artists, Proyecto Panorama has intervened in more than 30 public spaces, as well as an elementary school in Cancún and another in the Riviera Maya, resulting in 116 murals.

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The Mexican state of Oaxaca is one of the most visited destinations in the country, drawing travelers from around the globe with its rich culinary, cultural, and architectural heritage. Located in the southeastern region of the country, it spans 93,757 km² and is divided into 570 municipalities, making it the fifth-largest state in Mexico.

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Construcciones Modernas, S.A. is a series comprising an album of popular, remembered, and forgotten buildings in Mexico City—a record and the beginning of an atlas. It is a subway line featuring all the architectural icons missing from the train cars, a tribute to the city, its modernity, and its decay.

Alberto Cruz, one of the Chilean architects who re-founded the School of Architecture of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso and founder of Amereida and the subsequent Open City, left behind more than 2,200 notebooks and folders, 200 drawings in various techniques, formats, and mediums, and around a thousand documents when he passed away in 2013.

Five years earlier, his granddaughter, historian Sara Browne, began working with Cruz to catalog his private output. Today, this entire archive is part of the Alberto Cruz Covarrubias Foundation, a space dedicated to honoring the memory of the 1975 National Architecture Award recipient.

In this email conversation with Browne, the historian examines the challenges of conserving and digitizing this historic archive, while also reflecting on Cruz Covarrubias's legacy.

CityMakers is working with ArchDaily to publish a series of articles, conversations, and interviews with various actors in city co-production, who are behind the Barcelona CityMakers Lab 2019, an event taking place from October 14 to 20.

On this occasion, we feature Oriol Estela Barnet, general coordinator of the Barcelona Metropolitan Strategic Plan, who will give a MasterClass at the Barcelona CityMakers Lab 2019 addressing the concept of “a third generation of strategic urban plans: the case of Barcelona.”

The architecture industry is a shadow of its former self. In a world where most services are acquired online, architects who ignore digital marketing are digging their own graves. Those who thrive leverage technology and digital marketing tools effectively, establishing a stronger online presence and securing more potential leads—opportunities that will surely pass you by if you are making the following six mistakes:

ArchDaily is working with CityMakers to publish a series of articles, conversations, and interviews with the various actors in urban co-production behind the Barcelona CityMakers Lab 2019, an event taking place from October 14 to 20, 2019.

CityMakers promotes the transformation of cities and territories by connecting professionals from around the world with benchmark cities to learn about their practices in global positioning, mobility, the built environment, economy, and governance, inspiring change in their own communities. 

For this first installment, we have compiled excerpts from a conversation with architect and urban planner Camilo Osorio, Executive Director of CityMakers, who discusses a paradigm shift in urban planning and the birth of CityMakers as a community that seeks to inspire change through the on-site study of exemplary cities around the world.

March 8 was established by the UN in 1975 to commemorate the struggle for equal rights and universal suffrage. This commemoration honors the efforts of women who demanded their right to vote, to work, to professional training, to hold public office, and to combat labor discrimination. This struggle is the fruit of the labor of women who sacrificed themselves for the cause. Daily events clearly show that the social landscape has changed; however, it remains essential that both men and women commit to progress and justice to make things happen.

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Malaquita is a project located on the terrace of the Hotel City Center in the heart of the Historic Center. Its design is conceived as an escape from the bustle of Mexico City, a place where the passage of time across the different eras that shape the territory is palpable: pre-Hispanic, colonial, modern, and postmodern coexisting in constant resilience. 

In the article "trends that will influence architecture in 2019," we identified a digital future for the construction sector. Growing search volumes for both BIM systems, modular and prefabricated systems, as well as 3D Printing, Automation and Artificial Intelligence point to upcoming shifts in construction methods. Is architectural academia preparing for this future of human-free construction?

CityMakers is working alongside ArchDaily to publish a series of articles, conversations, and interviews with the diverse actors in city co-production behind the Barcelona CityMakers Lab 2019, an event taking place from October 14 to 20, 2019.

For this installment, we have compiled excerpts from a conversation with architect and urban planner Victor Torres, Creative Director of CityMakers, who invites us to reflect on the need to rethink traditional models of making and learning to build cities, and on CityMakers, a community that seeks to inspire change through on-site knowledge transfer in exemplary cities around the world.

The Spanish Architecture Prize (Premio de Arquitectura Española) has been awarded biennially by the Higher Council of the Colleges of Architects of Spain (CSCAE) since 1993 to promote the quality of architectural works built across Spain.

The award has recognized built works by architects such as Enric Miralles, Mansilla y Tuñón, Sara de Giles, and Francisco Mangado Beloqui, among others, with projects including the Royal Collections Museum and the Palma Convention Center and Hotel. Explore all the winning projects below.

Videos

It is true that designers, architects, and the general public share an endless fascination with abandoned architecture. Throughout history, shifting economies, disasters, regime changes, and sheer incompetence have forced the evacuation of striking architectural structures, which today serve as curious—and even haunting—monuments to bygone eras.

This fascination has led to the publication of several articles on our site exploring the mysteries of some of the most famous sites through text and photography. Yet, this curiosity has also driven individuals to venture out and document their experiences firsthand. Such is the case of Mike Corey, a YouTuber who, through his channel Fearless & Far, has dedicated himself (among other pursuits) to exploring some of Mexico's most famous abandoned buildings.

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The Forêt Monumentale is a sustainable art and architecture exhibition featuring temporary works and pavilions designed as "site-specific" installations, created especially for a 4-kilometer trail in the Green Forest of Rouen, Normandy.