Noise, high-rises, cars, buses, subways, and a relentless flow of people coming and going. This is how large cities are portrayed in cinema. This imagery is compounded by distant personal relationships and the promise of anonymity within the crowd, shaping a vibrant, connected routine that can also feel oppressive and isolating. Today, we find ourselves in a constant search for balance between the benefits of the megacity and the challenges imposed by its scale.
The Santiago Architecture Film Festival is celebrating its first decade since its inaugural edition in October 2012. To mark this milestone, it has invited members of its community to answer the question that has guided its work: What do we talk about when we talk about film and architecture?
The Escola da Cidade, through the event XVI International Seminar – Cities in Debate: Contemporary Perspectives and Practices, organized by Professors Silvio Oksman and Sabrina Fontenele, welcomed architect Joice Berth for a talk on citizenship.
Natural light is a key design element that can improve indoor comfort in architectural projects. VELUX Academy offers courses, videos on daylighting design, and information modules featuring exclusive content on the subject. This expert-curated content challenges how architects and designers think, ensuring the best possible design outcomes for their clients.
Located in northern Spain, Logroño is a crossroads of both borders and architecture. It is not only a key stop on the Camino de Santiago and a gathering place for lovers of fine food and excellent Rioja wine, but works from its long architectural history can be found seamlessly interwoven throughout the city, often going unnoticed: from the ancient ruins on Monte Cantabria to Rafael Moneo's modern City Hall—not to mention the contemporary design of the High-Speed Rail Station by Ábalos + Sentkiewicz or the upcoming Bosonit building by Kengo Kuma in the historic center.
There is no need to worry about getting lost. Over its eight editions, the team behind the Concéntrico Festival has curated an extensive series of locations: new squares, interior courtyards, and hidden public spaces that speak volumes about the role of the urban fabric when discussing architecture in Logroño.
According to the National Fire Academy of Chile, a fire is defined as “fire out of control.” Once a fire starts, temperatures can reach 1000° Celsius, generating flames and smoke that endanger both human lives and buildings.
According to a report by ONEMI, the main causes of structural fires – those occurring in homes, buildings, and commercial premises – include domestic accidents, electrical failures, and gas leaks.
Shortly before commemorating another world day for walkers pedestrians, an article in Obras magazine reveals that 40% of the roads in the Xochimilco and Milpa Alta boroughs lack sidewalks. This is despite mobility laws mandating the construction of complete streets integrating universal design across all boroughs in Mexico City.
What is it like to walk past the buildings and houses on the street where you live? Or the street where you work, study, shop, or take your children to school? What relationship do these buildings and houses have with the sidewalk? How do they treat pedestrians? Do they make you want to walk past them? Do they welcome or repel?
So often overshadowed by romantic and professional partnerships with men, women architects have been, and still are, constantly tested and subjected to symbolic violence, disguised as jokes or "simple" banter. The conversation in episode 51 of the Betoneira Podcast, with professor and researcher Silvana Rubino, raised an ever-urgent debate: what is the place of women in architecture?
Privately owned public spaces, commonly known as POPS, originated in New York City in 1961 as a public policy incentive to create open, public-use areas on private property, with maintenance provided by the owners.
"Domingos Libro" is hosted by Carmelo from Enorme Studio, delving into forgotten architectural publications, books, and architecture magazines from the 1960s, 70s, and 80s that hide the most fascinating stories behind them.
After a hiatus in 2022, the series returned with episode 19, titled “Always Young,” which tells the story of Ettore Sottsass Jr. Now, it presents "No One Is a Prophet in Their Own Land," a tribute to the recently deceased master of architecture Ricardo Bofill.
Founded in 2018 and based in Argentina, LINA Plataforma (Laboratory > Intervention + Architecture) presents itself as a global research and experimentation platform linked to cultural heritage, aiming to reflect on the relationship between heritage, sustainability, and design education.
We know that Brazilian cities are exclusionary. They fail to prioritize public transit, which disproportionately harms the poorest residents. They segregate wealthier neighborhoods, driving the working class to live on the urban peripheries. And even there, a large part of the population can only afford housing in the informal market.
Doris Mary Clark Núñez is considered the first female Peruvian architect. With a life marked by difficulties, scrutiny, and restrictions solely due to being a woman in a professional world that had traditionally been male, Clark Núñez stands as a model of activism and resistance, as well as a pursuit of subversion and paradigm shifts in traditional debates and structures. Her life was dedicated—through teaching, political action, and academia—to laying the foundation for expanding the field of influence for women in architecture.
On August 31, the Laboratorio Arte Alameda in Mexico City hosted "30/30," an audiovisual performance divided into two 30-minute segments. Blending sounds ranging from drone, noise, and techno to dream pop with live digital image processing, the performance explores the concept of memory, conceptualized as an architectural-digital space in constant motion and transformation.
At a time when a lack of public safety daily plagues Brazil's major cities, impacting how we behave in the urban environment, we must examine not only how we act within this space, but also how we build it and with what intentions we modify it.
High walls, fences, cameras, alarms, and razor wire are already part of a landscape that feels fearful, constantly seeking to "protect" private property, often to the detriment of public space appropriation.
The Metropolitan Region of Campinas is one of Brazil's largest urban centers. With more than three million inhabitants and an annual GDP exceeding R$ 150 billion, it is one of the country's most dynamic economic regions.
Yet, it is also highly vulnerable to climate change. Urban sprawl and the growing demand for water place Campinas on the map of areas with a high risk of water scarcity, according to WRI's Aqueduct tool.
With the aim of bringing visibility to the state terror committed during the Argentine civic-military dictatorship that began in 1976, the Secretariat of Human Rights of the National Ministry of Justice and Human Rights commissioned the Institute of Architecture and Urbanism of the National University of San Martín (IA-UNSAM) to develop an architectural proposal for a new memory space on the grounds of Campo de Mayo, in the province of Buenos Aires.
From fungi to architecture: this is how the team at Mushbio introduces their decorative cladding panel inspired by the Andes. Manufactured using parametric design, the panel is made from mushroom mycelium. Beyond contributing to cultural identity by mirroring the topography of the Ecuadorian and Latin American landscape, it offers thermo-acoustic properties, lightness, and a unique aesthetic, bringing nature into interior spaces.
As part of his recent releases over the past few months, the globally renowned reggaeton artist Bad Bunny debuted his new music video for the song "El Apagón," a track from his latest album "Un verano sin ti." Although the song was already streaming across various platforms, few anticipated that the video's release would serve as a powerful political stance on the current situation in Puerto Rico.
Over its 457-year history, the built landscape of Rio de Janeiro has taken shape in diverse ways. During its first few centuries, the city developed around Rua Direita (now Rua Primeiro de Março), consisting primarily of two-story row houses, typically featuring a single door and two windows on the ground floor. This layout stemmed from the measurement standard of the era, the *braça* (fathom), with plots usually measuring three *braças* wide (each *braça* equivalent to 2.2 meters). Rio's land ownership profile has always driven its urban form, and the Portuguese plot—with its narrow frontage and deep lot—defined an era and left an indelible mark on the city's development.
The Mexican firm Faci Leboreiro, led by Carlos Faci and Marina Leboreiro, has been recognized at the Grands Prix du Design in Quebec, Canada, for the interior design of their project Estudio Basalto, receiving the Gold Certification in the Office category. The fifteenth edition of the competition—which celebrates international excellence and exemplary practice among architects and designers—was held at the Théâtre Le Capitole before a jury of prominent professionals and academics.
While the construction industry has been advancing into new fields like nanotechnology and 3D printing for years, it is still one of the most technologically lagging sectors. Many innovations remain purely experimental, and despite constant efforts to reverse this trend, we face a troubling reality: construction is one of the world's most polluting and waste-generating industries.
Mitigating climate change and adapting to the risks of more frequent extreme events demand a rapid and radical transformation of cities worldwide, as they account for the majority of global greenhouse gas emissions. However, the impacts of a changing climate are not shared uniformly across all cities; those who feel its most intense effects are precisely the most vulnerable populations. Achieving inclusive, low-carbon urban transformations tailored to diverse urban contexts requires bringing the global climate agenda down to the local scale—to the people who live in and know their neighborhoods.
