Articles

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In 2011, an improvement plan for the Historic Center of Mexico City for the years 2011–2016 was presented to UNESCO. Conceived as a joint initiative between civil society, private investment, and the government, the project led to the revitalization of a large part of the historic center and the social and physical recovery of many of the neighborhood's properties.

Mexico City's architectural legacy extends far beyond its Historic Center, and while the initial plan greatly benefited this area, many buildings both inside and outside Colonia Centro remain untouched. Following the 2017 earthquake, damaged buildings joined the growing list of properties already abandoned, vacant, or severely deteriorated throughout the city.

Among these, we highlight those whose rehabilitation and subsequent adaptive reuse would have the greatest impact on their surroundings, given their symbolic, architectural, and physical value.

Whether from the perspective of a French tourist, the narrative of philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, or as the starting point of Marco Polo's pioneering journeys in his Travels, the city of Venice is part of an immeasurable global literary repertoire, occupying the role of a mysterious and beautiful object that intrigues anyone who sets out to experience it. It features in art and history books when the focus is on the great works of architecture and visual arts the city holds, or when there is interest in the divergent and legendary narratives surrounding its origin. In fiction, the calm aura of its canals, the narrow alleyways, and the colors and textures of its landscape serve as a backdrop for a myriad of imagined stories.

The social initiatives of Ecuadorian architect David Regalado Ojeda in the city of Loja demonstrate a departure from the autonomous architectural project, addressing collective formal identity through a park built from recycled materials, where history is transformed into play and learning.

Artists, volunteers, and the local community collaborated on the project with zero financial investment: everything was recycled and built through community support. 

Below, a few words from architect David Regalado Ojeda:

The team comprising Diego Concha, Tomás Aguirre, and Trinidad Hermosilla (Universidad Finis Terrae) has won first place in the XXXII CAP Chile Competition. Designed for the Quillayes tailings of the Los Pelambres mining company (Coquimbo Region), the project seeks to "recover and reuse mining waste through the use of highly mineral-resistant plants for the reduction and future mitigation of environmental risks on the site," according to the authors.

The competition jury explains that the project proposes "a new way of conserving, actively addressing environmental issues frequently present in the territory. It takes existing elements as a starting point and combines them with a series of contrasting geometries resolved using steel."

Today's Google Doodle, featured on its homepage in Brazil, honors Milton Santos, a world-renowned Brazilian geographer widely celebrated for his pioneering work bridging geography and urbanization studies in developing countries. With a prolific career, Santos left a vast intellectual legacy, now compiled on a website created by his family. Organized into biographies, books, articles, research, and audiovisual materials, it keeps alive the legacy of this key figure in the fields of geography and urban studies.

The Chilean firm of Jaime Larraín and Osvaldo Larraín is notable—among many other things—for treating facades as a unified compositional element. The architects' work includes completed buildings in the cities of Viña del Mar and Santiago, which are distinguished by the unique plastic composition of their street fronts, as well as their contribution to the urban image of their respective settings.

Their projects explore the creation of rhythm, the use of color, and repetition as compositional principles, standing out for an urban design approach that—informed by these considerations—is most clearly expressed in their collective housing projects.  

Foundations are certainly not the structural elements on which architects spend the most time during the design process. Since they are typically underground and serve a strictly technical purpose, this decision is usually left to structural engineers. However, foundations play a crucial role in construction, as they are the structural elements that transfer building loads to the ground.

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The dry toilet performs all the functions of a conventional toilet without using water, while also producing resources that can be used to fertilize crops and agroforestry projects. With various construction models available, this social technology is far more than just an alternative sanitation system. When approached as a solution within our closed-loop reality, it offers an answer to various public sanitation issues, as this single technology prevents both soil and water contamination.

Operating on the basic principle of using solar heat to raise the temperature inside the waste receptacle—thereby eliminating pathogens and producing fertilizer—ecological sanitation models are highly adaptable. They improve the environmental performance of homes and public spaces, successfully meet demands based on usage, and are easy to construct and maintain.

Spain is the European country with the most "Good Practices" recognized by the URBACT program. In total, 17 good practices have been recognized across 15 cities and municipalities throughout Spain. The themes addressed by these municipalities are highly diverse, ranging from the issues chosen for intervention to the methods of implementation and the solutions proposed.  

The European URBACT program was established to foster sustainable urban development and urban innovation in municipalities across Europe. As such, any city or municipality, regardless of its size, can participate in the program. Currently, 550 cities from 29 different countries and 7,000 active local stakeholders are participating.

Today, we launch a series of publications showcasing open-access theses and dissertations that address issues relevant to Architecture and Urbanism. We recognized the need to share the remarkable academic output of our universities—which often goes unrecognized—with the widest possible audience.

In this first edition, we present the work of architect Jorge Isaac Perén Montero and his master's thesis entitled "Natural Ventilation and Lighting in the Work of João Filgueiras Lima, Lelé: Studies of the Sarah Kubitschek Network Hospitals in Fortaleza and Rio de Janeiro," advised by Professor Rosana Maria Caram at the São Carlos School of Engineering - EESC/USP.

The modernization of Bogotá between 1940 and 1970, captured in urban and architectural photo essays, was documented in various books, magazines, and photobooks of the era, as well as in images from public and private archives across the city. These images reveal an intentional, and even critical, approach to how modern architecture reconfigured city centers, placing new buildings and urban spaces in relation to the existing cityscape.

In analyzing the impact of photojournalism, the work of Sady González, Manuel H. and Daniel Rodríguez is essential. Architecture and the city serve as the backdrop for scenes of urban life, characters, events, and daily activities. Their photographs offer an indispensable visual testament for understanding the city's transformation and its historical context.

In this edition of Bogotá in the Eyes of 10 Photographers we explore the legacy of Sady González:

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As we contemplated the vestibule of the Laurentian Library, I distinctly remember paraphrasing Giorgio Vasari: I thank God for being born in the time when Álvaro Siza is alive and for being worthy of having him as a master on such friendly terms. A much more eloquent version was dedicated to the "divine" Michelangelo Buonarroti in the original Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1568), yet it rang just as true in the presence of the "mystic" Siza – an epithet bestowed by Eduardo Souto de Moura. At that moment in Florence, the architect of sculpture and the sculptor of architecture met metaphysically face to face in the form of a staircase, whose silhouette would outlive time, transformed by the Baroque and reinterpreted by many authors – from Charles Garnier to Alvar Aalto – yet perhaps by none with more enthusiasm than Álvaro Siza himself. 

Javier Reverte once said that "the adventure of travel consists of being able to experience the daily lives of other people in places far from your home as an extraordinary event." It is precisely within those extraordinary events that, upon arriving in a new country, we undergo an adaptation process that transforms the extraordinary into the everyday. Whether you share a language with your host country or face an unfamiliar tongue, the first few months are a crash course in absorbing countless new concepts—from discovering you can buy cigarettes at pharmacies to distinguishing the distinct calls of trucks selling tacos, tamales, or sweet potatoes. We learn new terms to define daily life, while simultaneously relearning familiar words that take on entirely new meanings.

The term ‘right to the city’ was on the lips of participants in the June 2013 protests, which were sparked by public transit fare hikes across several Brazilian states. It was also emblazoned on banners hanging from occupied vacant towers and abandoned buildings by the Ocupe Estelita movement, which has fought since 2008 to preserve the José Estelita Pier in Recife. Abroad, the phrase was splashed across Turkish signs when trees were felled in Istanbul’s Gezi Park to make way for a shopping mall.

But what, after all, does the right to the city actually mean—an expression vehemently invoked by social movements in recent years and one that, in Brazil, gained territoriality following the 2013 mobilizations?

Architect Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza is undoubtedly a pivotal figure in 20th-century Spanish architecture. Designer of iconic works like Torres Blancas and the current Castellana 81, Sáenz de Oiza was twice awarded the National Architecture Award (1946 and 1954), served as Director of the Madrid School of Architecture (1981–1983), and was a figure whose work and theoretical reflections shaped the course of the Modern Movement in Spain.

This year marks the centenary of his birth in the town of Cáseda (Navarra). To celebrate this milestone, the 15th Architecture Week will pay tribute to him with a major exhibition charting his entire career. Titled Centenario Sáenz de Oiza. 1918-2018 (Sáenz de Oiza Centenary. 1918-2018), the exhibition is organized by the COAM Architecture Foundation in partnership with the Directorate-General for Architecture of the Ministry of Development, and curated by his children, architects Vicente, Javier, and Marisa Sáenz Guerra.

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The 1970s and 1980s witnessed a new urban image in the Ecuadorian capital. Rafael Vélez Calisto graduated in 1970, going on to become one of its most prominent and prolific architects. He expressed his architecture for a thriving country and capital that offered unique opportunities to professionals, driven by oil exploitation, the growth of the public and private sectors, and rapid urban expansion.

The capital shifted the profile of its main corridors, gradually shaping itself as a vertical city. Along Quito's Avenida Amazonas, the dominant presence of large, still-functional estates gradually disappeared, replaced by high-rise buildings (1)—an urban landscape that continued to spread along new arteries toward the north.

In these areas, several of his notable, contemporary, and cosmopolitan buildings stand out.

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Originally published in Metropolis Magazine as El Equipo Mazzanti Heals a Gash in Bogotá’s Urban Fabric. With a Patchwork of Verdant Gardens, Anna Fixsen writes about Bicentennial Park in Bogotá. "Once a lightning rod for controversy, the innovative park now reconnects two areas at the heart of the city's historic center," she writes.

It is impossible to experience Bogotá without encountering the aura of Rogelio Salmona. Perhaps more than any other architect, Salmona shaped the urban identity of this Andean city through civic and poetic buildings. From a small balcony in his last office—located at the top of a tower he designed himself—a tableau of Salmona's legacy unfolds: directly ahead, the massive volumes of the Torres del Parque, a three-tower residential complex completed in 1970; and to the south, MAMBO, the Museum of Modern Art of Bogotá.

As we welcome the new year, don't miss ArchDaily's selection of the best architecture documentaries to watch this year!