Videos

“If you took the whole world and collapsed it into one little ball, you’d find it here, in this city.”

In this video from the Louisiana Channel, Daniel Libeskind talks about the chaotic beauty of and his love for New York City. Born in Poland, at the age of 13 Libeskind immigrated to New York, where he witnessed both the building and the collapse of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers. Intimate with the site, Libeskind was later tasked with designing the masterplan for the World Trade Center's reconstruction.

Check out the video to hear the architect discuss the tolerance, complexities and fascination of his adopted home.

Originally built to house over 7,000 people in the 1970s, the Aylesbury Estate in South East London was once one of largest housing projects in Europe. In recent years it has "fallen into rapid decline" and, according to British filmmaker Joe Gilbert, "perfectly encapsulates the growing housing crisis and problems caused by gentrification." With narration by Tom Dyckhoff, this short film aims to capture the reality of a housing utopia which has de-evolved into an uncomfortable reality.

In this video, filmmaker Ryan Clancy takes us inside Detroit’s Lafayette Park neighborhood, home to the world's largest collection of buildings designed by Mies van der Rohe.

Due to the redevelopment of Detroit and the surging popularity of mid-century design, home prices and cost of living in the neighborhood have dramatically increased in just 5 years time – leaving the community on the cupse of turnover. Seeing the need to document Lafayette Park before it changes for good, Clancy uses his camera to capture the diverse group of existing residents in their homes, highlighting their relationships to the timeless architecture.

Update: following the screening period The Infinite Happiness is no longer available to watch on ArchDaily. The full collection of Bêka and Lemoine's films can be viewed on demand, here.

For two days only—between Friday, December 2 and Sunday, December 4—you can watch The Infinite Happiness, part of Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine's Living Architectures series, exclusively on ArchDaily. The film, shot entirely in Copenhagen's "8 House" designed by BIG, follows a group of residents (and passers-by) as they experience life in a contemporary housing block widely considered to embody new models of living.

[In New York] there’s this math problem: 1.8 million small households and only one million suitable apartments. – Mimi Hoang, principal of nArchitects

Last year, nArchitects released a trailer that teased the development of their winning adAPT NYC entry, Carmel Place (formerly known as My Micro NY). The competition sought to address the need for small household apartments in New York City. Now in a newly released video, the full story of the city’s tallest modular tower comes together in smooth timelapse to a dainty piano soundtrack.

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This week the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale—Reporting From the Front—will close. Six months have passed and hundreds of thousands of architects, urbanists, designers and tourists have perused both the National Participations (of which more were represented this year than ever before) and the central exhibition curated by Alejandro Aravena – the first South American to direct the most prestigious event on the architectural calendar. ArchDaily has compiled our most extensive coverage of the event and, as the 15th incarnation of Biennale shuts its gates for the last time, our collection of articles, interviews and publication excerpts remains permanently accessible.

What's the difference between a "road", a "drive" and a "way"? Or between a "street", a "boulevard" and an "avenue"? The naming conventions that we attribute to the networks that we use to move about are, in fact, a little more complex than you might imagine. In this film by Phil Edwards for Vox, the intricate world of road classification and definition is given a (long overdue) explanation – and one which might help you think a little deeper about urban mobility.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) have revealed the Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología (UTEC), located in Lima and designed by Dublin-based practice Grafton Architects, as the winner of the inaugural RIBA International Prize. A longlist of thirty projects, published in May of this year, was narrowed down to six in October before a grand jury—chaired by Richard Rogers—selected the scheme as "an exceptional example of civil architecture."

In this film, presented in collaboration with +KOTE, the After Belonging Agency—Carlos Minguez Carrasco, Ignacio Galán, Alejandra Navarrese Llopis, Lluís Alexandre Casanovas Blanco, and Marina Otero Verzier—narrate a walkthrough of In Residence, one of the two core exhibitions at this year's Oslo Architecture Triennale: After Belonging – A Triennale In Residence, On Residence, and the Ways We Stay in Transit.

Want to know how BIG's VIA 57 West was designed? Let Bjarke Ingels explain it you himself in this new 360 degree video from creative production house Squint/Opera.

Shot in incredible 4K video, the video uses motion graphics and CGI overlays to take you through the building's construction while Ingels provides commentary on the design of the"courtscraper," winner of the 2016 International Highrise Award.

And for the full immersive experience, the video can be viewed through a VR headset using the youtube app on your smartphone.

The Danish Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale, curated by Boris Brorman Jensen and Kristoffer Lindhardt Weiss, is dense with models – "a wunderkammer of architectural prototypes." The exhibition, which attempts to present new insights into how contemporary Danish architecture has been influenced by critics of Modernism (the "Modern approach"), features Jan Gehl—a famed Danish architect and urbanist renowned for his focus on improving the quality of urban life—as its standard bearer. In this exclusive film, shared by the curators, Gehl puts forward his position.

Update: Unfortunately this free online viewing was only intended for a limited time and National Geographic has now removed the video. If you didn't catch the documentary in time, you can still watch it on DVD. In place of the full documentary, we have now included the trailer above.

As a group, architects are without question among the most enthusiastic supporters of sustainable initiatives around. It should therefore be welcome news to many architects that National Geographic has released its latest documentary on climate change, Before the Flood, for free on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter—pretty much everywhere.

Presented by Hollywood superstar and recently-appointed UN Climate Ambassador Leonardo DiCaprio, the documentary is perhaps the most ambitious film about climate change since Al Gore's 2006 An Inconvenient Truth. Throughout the course of the 90-minute film, DiCaprio travels the globe to see the damage wrought by the early signs of irreversible climate change, from melting glaciers, to dying coral reefs, to flooding cities. Speaking to world leaders including Barack Obama and The Pope, as well as a whole host of climate scientists, DiCaprio's aim is not so much to convince viewers of the existence of climate change, as with An Inconvenient Truth, but instead to investigate just how far down the wrong path we've traveled, and whether there is any hope for humanity to save itself.

From the Griffith Observatory to the LAX Airport, LACMA’s Urban Light installation, the Bradbury Building, Walt Disney Concert Hall, The Broad, and more, Los Angeles is full of inspiring architecture. In his new 10K x 4K resolution video, photographer and filmmaker Joe Capra of Scientifantastic captures the beauty of LA through panoramic footage. Over a span of two years, Capra stitched time-lapse footage from two synced DSLR cameras together resulting in a spectacular view of the city.

Find out more about Capra’s work here, or view his timelapse of Rio de Janeiro here.

The biggest temptation is to jump right in. There are solutions that come to you. There are images that spontaneously appear. My method is rather to hold back as long as possible, to really imagine it spatially, so to be sure I have something to say.

Award winning documentarian and critic Matt Tyrnauer (director of Valentino: The Last Emperor, Citizen Jane: Battle For The City) has released a new documentary taking a look into the mind of world-renowned architect Jean Nouvel and his design process.

The film, titled Jean Nouvel: Reflections, follows the French architect around the world to visit his most recent works, including the Philharmonie de Paris, Institut du Monde Arabe, Fondation Cartier, Musée du Quai Branly, and Doha Tower and future projects, notably the National Museum of Qatar, his New York skyscraper, 53W53, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

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Museums are increasingly becoming key landmarks that help define the image of a city, housing part of its memory and culture. In recent decades they have gained even more importance thanks to their architectural designs. Briktop was inspired by iconic designs to create this video that features works that stand out in architectural history and are important references for all architects.

See the video and the list of works below.

Digital artist Miguel Chevalier has transformed the ceiling of the Saint-Eustache Church into a dynamic, imaginary sky chart for the 2016 Nuit Blanche Festival in Paris. The installation, titled Voûtes Célestes, illuminates the soaring ceilings with 35 different colored networks to create glowing webs of light that highlight the church’s gothic architecture.

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As the winner of the 2016 RIBA Stirling Prize is set to be announced later today, Architects’ Journal has released a documentary looking at the award’s 21-year history and its impact on the buildings and architects that have been named to the prestigious list.

The video, commissioned by AJ’s Laura Mark and filmed by Jim Stephenson, features exclusive interviews with Richard Rogers and Sheila O’Donnell & John Tuomey, and profiles past winners and each of the 6 buildings shortlisted for this year’s prize. The film also reveals AJ’s pick for this year’s winner.

Watch the full video above or check out AJ’s videos on each of the finalists, below.

How much space do we really need to take up in order to have rich and rewarding lives?

In this short documentary for The Atlantic, filmmaker Sam Price-Waldman visits Arcosanti, the revolutionary experimental community and urban laboratory envisioned by architect Paolo Soleri. Since its founding by Soleri in the northern Arizona desert in 1970, the city has grown and evolved as it has demonstrated how to create a walkable, social city that could meet the needs of future societies.

The video is narrated by architect and Arcosanti co-president Jeff Stein, who explains how the city is able to maximize the potential of architecture for providing for communities, and features interviews with several Arcosanti community members.