Articles

Every October 1st, Mexico celebrates Architect's Day to highlight and recall the collective responsibility of architecture in designing the world's future cities and settlements. Over the years—following its official establishment in 2004—celebrations have varied widely across a massive community that constantly questions its role in society and the world. This has sparked ongoing debates about the meaning of architecture, the role of architects at pivotal moments in history, and above all, what the future of architecture in Mexico holds. Where should the profession direct its efforts to build spaces that improve people's quality of life?

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.

In 1986, an urban design competition was held in Argentina titled “Ideas Urbano-Arquitectónicas para Buenos Aires” (Urban-Architectural Ideas for Buenos Aires), more commonly known as “Las Veinte Ideas” (The Twenty Ideas). Organized as part of a cooperation program between the Community of Madrid and the Municipality of Buenos Aires during the mayoral administration of Facundo Suárez Lastra, this call for entries generated a high concentration of design concepts. With the participation of more than 400 architects, it yielded a total of 120 proposals for the city. Although unbuilt, these ideas hold significant theoretical and historical relevance; in many cases, they served as the seed or starting point for the development of subsequent urban projects.

Coffee shops are spaces whose history dates back to the 15th century. Originating in Arab countries before the rise of Europe, they began to play an important social role, often described as taverns where significant conversations took place, deals were struck, and political debates unfolded. Over time, these spaces evolved and the concept expanded to European countries like England, France, Italy, and Germany, where they served as highly public gathering spots for merchants, politicians, scientists, academics, philosophers, and poets.

'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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ALL Arquitectura is a Mexican firm that focuses on developing projects at both urban and architectural scales through methodologies rooted in participatory design. One of these projects is Cancha “LA DOCE”, a collaborative initiative born from a network and a proposal for change driven by the need to develop high-quality public spaces in marginalized areas of various cities worldwide. Drawing on an activity deeply woven into the lives of local residents, ALL Arquitectura leveraged soccer as a design catalyst to encourage participation, observation, and community life.

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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.

The new edition of the Ibero-American Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism (XI BIAU) poses a different challenge. This time, along the shores of the peaceful Paraguay River, the Ricardo Brugada neighborhood, known as La Chacarita—one of the oldest in Asunción's historic center—takes center stage.

Together with the residents—who also exhibited the biennial's award-winning projects in their own private homes—national curators led 13 working groups to develop proposals for the improvement and transformation of a sector historically overlooked by the city, often associated with crime and unemployment. Some of these initiatives have already been put into practice.

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

In this edition, we feature Salvador Rueda, director of the Urban Ecology Agency of Barcelona, who will give a Masterclass at the Barcelona CityMakers Lab 2019 addressing concepts of "Ecosystemic Urbanism," the foundation of a new urban model for the city of Barcelona.

In Bogotá, a third of all households live in gated communities. This phenomenon is a misguided application of the model idealized by post-war American suburbs, which projected an idyllic, safe, happy, and perfect life—a life where mobility prioritizes motorized vehicles, utilizing simple, replicable, and, of course, highly profitable construction models.

Ciudad Isla is an exhibition by architects and professors at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Ramón Bermúdez and Sebastián Serna, in collaboration with the Institute of Science, Technology and Policy (ISTP) at ETH Zurich, which brings this issue to light. It presents a collective research project on gated housing complexes and their relationship with public space in the city of Bogotá.

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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.

One of the first things I hear upon arrival is that the sixth edition of the Academic Event of the School of Architecture (EARQ) was not only organized by students, but is also part of the graduation requirements to become an architect at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador (PUCE-SI). This management work, without a doubt, carries conditions that closely align with what we recognize as necessary in our discipline today.

Oneblock proposes a record that not only investigates the uses and potential of everyday objects—and their resulting actions or spaces—but presents drawing as a tool "requiring constant updating to represent, at all times and with the utmost clarity, what it truly aims to convey, responding to the needs of society at every point along the unstoppable timeline." Read below for an in-depth look at the work in the authors' own words.

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Bamboo is a building material that has been used since antiquity in various structures, demonstrating its superiority over modern materials such as plastic and steel. This is due to its countless benefits, as well as an incomparable aesthetic appeal that has positioned it as one of today's leading architectural trends.

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 National Architecture and Urbanism Award, presented by the Colombian Society of Architects (SCA), recognizes projects that outstandingly showcase the finest contributions to Colombian architecture.