Videos

In discussion with Calvin Tomkins for a 2013 profile in The New Yorker, David Adjaye spoke intensely on the significance of his Sugar Hill Development. “Context,” said Adjaye, “is so important, not to mimic but to become part of the place. I wanted a building that acknowledges its surroundings.” The recently-completed project is the brainchild of Ellen Baxter, leader of Broadway Housing Communities (BHC), a non-profit that has made strides to create innovative housing schemes in Upper Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood. In an era where mixed-used developments are routine, Sugar Hill adds new dimensions to the typology by uniting affordable apartments, an early childhood education center, offices for the BHC, and the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling.

In conjunction with their full building review written by Rob Bevan, The Architectural Review has produced this video which introduces the broader public to the tenants, allowing us to better understand the building’s use, intentions, and the design philosophy.

"You cannot bullshit with concrete." - Kulapat Yantrasast

Kulapat Yantrasast is the latest to be featured on NOWNESS' In Residence series. Set within Yantrasast's home in Venice Beach, the Thai architect and founder of wHY shares his thoughts on how to create meaningful architecture, from the "process of making" to designing with a "sense of play" and how the building can form an "engaging" relationship with its user.

nArchitects have released a trailer featuring the development of their “My Micro NY” proposal, which won the adAPT NYC competition in 2013. The competition was conceived as a way of addressing the need for 1-2 person apartments in New York City (see the winning scheme and finalists here). My Micro NY, which re-negotiates minimum size requirements for New York apartments, consists of a series of modular apartment units, that when constructed together, will form the tallest modular building in the city. Watch the video to see the building being erected, and stay tuned for the full feature to be released upon completion of the building.

For the recent inauguration of the Museu dos Coches in Lisbon, between September and October Sopro Colectivo hosted their exhibition "Fado Tropical," including 26 photos by Fernando Guerra and an interview with the building's architect, Paulo Mendes da Rocha, who today turns 87 years old.

Constructed on the banks of the Tagus River, the first building in Europe by the Brazilian Pritzker Prize winner was surrounded by controversy during its construction, and today surprise visitors from all over, housing the world's largest collection of carriages. In the interview given at his own office, Mendes da Rocha talks about the specificity of the area, his approach to the historical context and memory related to coaches, and his concise adaptations of the extensive program to the complexity of the surroundings.

The ruestungsschmie.de architectural collective has shared with us their latest video mapping project on the façade of the Karlsruhe Palace in Karlsruhe, Germany. Designed to celebrate the city’s 300-year anniversary, the projection illuminates all 300 meters of the building’s façade.

The Karlsruhe Palace is the architectural and urban center of the city, from which 32 streets stem out, structuring the urban design of Karlsruhe. This unique city design served as part of the inspiration behind the audiovisual work. The project was created in partnership with Sound Selektor, who composed the soundtrack using only noises recorded from inside the castle, including doors, switches, stairs and the sounds of specific exhibits.

"When you put many children in a quiet box, some of them get really nervous," says Japanese architect Takaharu Tezuka, founder of Tezuka Architects. "In this kindergarten, there is no reason for them to get nervous. There is no boundary." Speaking at TEDxKyoto on his design for an open-air kindergarten in Tokyo, Tezuka discusses his playful and unorthodox approach to the creation of the eccentric building. The unconventional space blurs interior with exterior while accommodating a varied program of athletic, educational and relaxed space. According to Tezuka, the concept was based on a progressive philosophy employed by the school administration: "The principal says: if the boy doesn't want to stay in the room, let him go. He will come back eventually." On children, Tezuka's own philosophy is one of empowerment: "Don't control them. Don't protect them too much. They need to tumble sometimes. They need to get injured. That makes them learn how live in this world."

Tucked away on a 1.3 acre lot, this house in Los Altos, California was renovated by Bart Prince -- transformed from a rectangular cabin into an eclectic combination of forms, inspired by the owners, Dale and Margo Seymour’s, love of math, art and geometry. The newly built structure is composed of steel and glulam, creating angular forms with generous glazing to create open, day-lit spaces. To navigate the California law that glass cannot be installed in non-vertical positions, an acrylic substitute was used for many of the home’s irregular windows.

In this interview with the Louisiana Channel, José Selgas of Spanish architecture firm SelgasCano discusses his design philosophy, emphasizing the importance of connecting a building with its surroundings through the use of color and light materials. “Every relation with architecture I’ve had was a relation with nature,” he says.

Since we looked at this aerial footage of London in 2012, some major changes in the architecture of the city have occurred. Shot by the same photographer, Jason Hawkes, this new footage of London travels over greenbelts, Piccadilly Circus, the Thames River, The Shard, and Canary Wharf, among other impressive views. Take a look at London’s changed landscape by watching the video above.

"I think it is much better to say," explains Rem Koolhaas, "that we are challenged by people's needs." The closing line of this short teaser released by the filmmaker and son of Rem, Tomas Koolhaas, sums up perfectly why "REM" is one of the most highly anticipated architecture documentaries of recent years. Now three years in the making, Tomas Koolhaas' film will examine his father's incomparable oeuvre of work through the eyes of the people that inhabit the designs, eschewing the high-brow and sometimes impenetrable discourse that usually surrounds the work of OMA for something more elemental.

“We as a profession have to encourage young architects to understand that the technology they’re using is merely a tool. They have to understand how to build the building that they’re creating, but also understand that this place is going to affect somebody. So what can we do to make it a place that—in a sense—I want to be a part of, that I want to attach to?”

Architect and designer Neri Oxman, head of the Mediated Matter research group at MIT and developer of the “Material Ecology” approach, has given a TED Talk on design as the intersection of technology and biology. Oxman begins her talk by introducing the juxtaposition of left- and right-brain thinking in the design world, noting that her work seeks to marry the two by making design less about assembly of parts, and more about growth. Learn more about Oxman’s distinct work and views by watching the video above.

Participating in the What Can Design Do conference in Amsterdam, Ole Scheeren took time, along with several other creators, to discuss the impact of the working environment. Playfully dubbed, “Pod Sessions,” each talk takes place in De Vorm’s contemporary Pod chair, the PET plastic improving acoustics and signature Dutch felt providing comfort. In his Pod Session, Ole Scheeren, founder of Buro OS and lead designer on the CCTV Building in China, talks about the nature of a transitional workplace, the importance of collaboration, offices as a creative tool and the necessity of having a personal presence in a project. Having participated in projects across the world, Scheeren frequently moves to the site of his latest projects, as was the case with the CCTV Building.

Portuguese production company Building Pictures has shared with us their most recent video: Walking with CVDB. The film follows a woman as she journeys through various projects by CVDB Arquitectos, including the Braamcamp Freire Secondary School, the Arraiolos Tapestry Museum, the Jarego House, the Elderly Day Care and Residential Centre and the Cartaxo Cultural Centre.

The route is organized by the themes that have shaped CVDB’s design in recent years, such as public space, transitional space, visual continuity and materiality. In this way, Building Pictures uses the themes to connect the different spaces featured in the video.

“Something I always tell my students is that it’s important to fail on a continuous basis—and I’m not talking about the grade. I mean it’s in the spirit of risk, that you have to be willing to free yourself from a set of preconceptions in order to get to this new place. And if failing constitutes making mistakes in order to learn from these mistakes, then you have achieved an enormous amount. In fact, you’re only able to move forward because of this new-found knowledge.”

The word activist, long part of the vocabulary of social causes and political engagements, is an identifier gaining currency in architecture. As an era of “star architects” fades to be replaced by a generation eager to tackle local issues for everyday citizens, the shift has become the calling card of Santiago-based Grupo TOMA. Produced by ArchDaily as part of our partnership with The Architectural Review, the above film profiles the group of five friends – Mathias Klenner, Ignacio Rivas, Ignacio Saavedra, Eduardo Pérez and Leandro Cappetto – who have become an architectural collective interested in “the architect as a mediator, as an entity capable of linking organizations, of connecting political and economic powers."

For the past two and a half years, the group has sought out projects that convert industrial spaces of past eras into new facilities. Working without intermediaries has been a boon to the group’s experimental attitude and productivity, which might otherwise be curtailed by bureaucratic setbacks. With projects spanning from a few days to a few months, and some potentially longer, the group privileges social impact and memory over duration and material certainty.

“I think one generational shift that’s going on has to do with the interest in architecture students to be involved in the community. Students see architecture not just as a profession, like medicine or law, they see it as a kind of service profession, on the order of social work or social science, where they understand that the work they do affects communities and real people, so they want to involve the communities from the beginning in their design process.”

Surpassing the limitations of static imagery, filmmaker Daniele Marucci creates videos that bridge the filmic and architectonic for a richer and more immersive understanding of buildings and their environments. Marucci works with photographer Enrico Cano to share intimate portraits of buildings that slow down our experience by drawing attention to their subtleties. In such practice, we are given the freedom to survey the architecture but also to let our mind wander, to daydream. Often working in remote locations, the frenetic speed of the city is forgotten when a new intensity takes hold.