Articles

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.

Continuing the series of articles by Nikos A. Salingaros, David Brain, Andrés M. Duany, Michael W. Mehaffy, and Ernesto Philibert-Petit on social housing in Latin America, this installment explores economic alternatives to address construction costs. Review all previous publications and the new article below.

That the river is a significant element for the City of Buenos Aires is nothing new. It was through this waterway that the first founders arrived, the products of the land departed, and the labor and machinery needed to build a nation made their entry. This geographical feature holds deep historical significance and has acquired great symbolic value on an urban scale. Therefore, this article compiles a series of projects that, centering on the City-River relationship, demonstrate how these two elements can be bridged to create new areas of opportunity.

Juan Navarro Baldeweg liked to imagine his work within a dreamlike room, where the outlines of his buildings are silhouetted against a horizon of visual vanishing points, with the spectator positioned at their center of convergence. He aspired, moreover, for his exhibitions to be cumulative rather than retrospective—inviting the viewer to wander and trace connections between his works, linking them like elements of a single expressive medium or distinct formal gestures.

In contrast to the rigidity of classicist attitudes and the modern synthesis of artistic languages, Navarro Baldeweg—unbeknownst to many—champions the simultaneous cultivation of diverse, sometimes opposing disciplines and distinct arts. This fluid movement, free of preferences or boundaries across the broad spectrum of artistic practices, foreshadowed approaches that are widespread today, such as nomadism and the poetics of the "in-between." This nomadism does not stem from opportunism, but from a creative impulse, a restless eye, a trained gaze—in short, the work of a total artist.

Media outlets and social networks have been abuzz with controversy surrounding the Chinchero Airport project, a new international air terminal in Peru. The project aims to replace the current Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport in downtown Cusco and improve direct connections to nearby destinations, most notably Machu Picchu.

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:

On October 19 and 20, more than 100 sites of high architectural, engineering, environmental, urban, social, or cultural value will open their doors for free during the third edition of the OH! Stgo event.

This edition focuses on fostering connections between people and the natural environment. To this end, we present 9 of the 26 island hills that surround the city for you to visit.

Santiago is one of the cities in the world with the best access to the mountains and associated sports. Integrating these natural environments as public spaces would result in an increase in green areas per person, potentially addressing the current deficit of 3.7 m2 and reaching at least the 9 m2 recommended by the World Health Organization, according to OH! STGO.

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.