This guide covers a workflow that moves from project parameters to generated floor plans, 3D perspective views, exterior design exploration, and site context visualization, using AI tools in place of preliminary CAD and rendering work.

Seeking to design an immersive indoor environmental experience, design studio Aqua Creations created Manta Ray lighting. In this light installation, responsive RGB LED technology mixes red, green, and blue to produce over 16 million different hues. Programmed with a customizable color spectrum, the system is dimmable from 0.1% to 100% brightness and can even load images and videos directly onto its internal memory. This allows users to infuse expressive spaces with dynamic color and movement, or conversely, cultivate a warm, focused atmosphere for private, intimate settings.

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Architectural firms have been deeply questioning the future projections reshaped by lockdown and the new dynamics of how the city and territory are experienced. On this occasion, ruta4 taller from Pereira, Colombia, presents their perspective on how the profession is practiced in the country and their shift toward a more participatory practice for the benefit of local communities. The Pereira-based architecture studio has built exemplary collaborative projects, such as the taller de Urbanautas and the Casa Ensamble Chacarrá, demonstrating through experience that empathetic architecture is a highly viable approach.

The city as we know it is collapsing, incapable of offering new ways of living. The virus is forcing us to confront the exhaustion of the buildings that make up the city and the systems underpinning how the entire urban landscape was conceived. Basic activities separated by miles along untraversable streets; halls and galleries acting as closed, artificially climate-controlled shells that can no longer accommodate crowds (and are therefore no longer visitable); subhuman capsules stacked atop one another in towers devoid of open spaces, common areas, or nature, with virtually no contact with the outside world—these will only become more dysfunctional as time goes on.

Cities are the synthesis of thousands of years of agreements—as fragile as we are, yet wonderfully adaptable to change. As a result, they remain the ultimate ecosystem for our lives to unfold. Thanks to density, they allow us to maximize the benefits of the infrastructure, services, and public spaces we have created to sustain the well-being to which we aspire.

At first glance, all of this is in crisis today as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, looking back at our history reveals far more lethal epidemics that ultimately brought substantial improvements to the way we live.  

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In Latin American countries, the most common method for distinguishing rural areas from urban spaces is based on analyzing the number of residents in a given zone, classifying as "rural" any locality with a population under 2,000. In these contexts, low density and scattered development typically allow the natural landscape to predominate over the built environment.

In the daily routine of our conventional workday, we are influenced by many distractions that affect productivity, which have already become routine. However, now that we no longer lose time commuting and are restricted to activities we can do at home, we manage our time with more holistic priorities.

The Bogotá-based firm 57Uno focuses its practice on sustainability and has now channeled its creativity toward resilience and adaptability through Arquitectura en Tránsito (Architecture in Transit). This proposal aims to address the health emergency caused by COVID-19 by repurposing decommissioned buses from one of the primary contributors to poor air quality in the Colombian capital.

Stilt settlements have existed throughout the world wherever populations sustain their lives through constant interaction with water. In Colombia, the settlements of the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta, in the department of Magdalena, are a local benchmark that has endured since pre-Hispanic times. Today, these are informal dwellings, unrecognized in the official land registry. The Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and AGRA have shared their research, compiled in a book that supports the documented formalization of these dwellings using architectural representation standards, specifically by identifying the typologies of Nueva Venecia.

The following article proposes rethinking architecture in social housing in Colombia. Natalia Carrero Rojas and Pablo González delve into the subject as educators and through their practice 57Uno, where they constantly balance high-quality housing with real estate viability.

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Students from the Barcelona School of Architecture are organizing a live-streamed architecture lecture series, featuring both local and international guests, to reflect on quarantine, confinement, freedom, repression, and viruses.

When we think of architectural visualization, sketches, drawings, and 3D renderings usually come to mind. This association is natural, as "visualization" is typically equated with imagining a project before it is built—whether to validate aesthetic and functional decisions or to communicate concepts to clients unfamiliar with technical drawings. However, beyond superficial elements like materials, layouts, textures, and colors, architects must also address highly technical, invisible factors that directly impact a building's performance.

We may still have a long way to go when it comes to addressing the diversity of flora and fauna in urban habitats, yet it is incredible how fast, easy—and even fun—the architecture that makes this possible can be.

In practice, how are we promoting spaces for animals and plants in our cities?

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One of the most important factors in design is the site's specific climate. This can pose a challenge in extreme weather, where insulating materials are required to adapt to changing conditions. However, in the case of Mexico and its privileged climate, this factor works to the architects' advantage, allowing them to create microclimates and spaces that blur the transition between indoors and outdoors.

This article is part of a collaboration with the website coolhuntermx. It was originally published on February 2, 2020, under the title "Un parque moderno para Guadalajara" and written by David Lozano Díaz.

In 1971, architect Fernando González Gortázar, at 29 years of age, was commissioned to build González Gallo Park. This commission served a dual purpose: to commemorate the late former governor José de Jesús González Gallo and to provide a substantial new public space for the developing neighborhoods in eastern Guadalajara.

Recent floods in Belo Horizonte and other cities in Minas Gerais have alarmed residents. Videos showing the force of the torrents dragging cars and toppling structures shocked the entire country. This state of emergency was not confined to Minas Gerais. Much of the Southeast faced heavy rains, causing widespread disruption. In Espírito Santo, for instance, more than 5,000 people were forced to leave their homes, while São Paulo was placed on high alert for flooding. Meanwhile, in Rio de Janeiro, an algae bloom in water sources led to the opposite extreme: a water crisis triggered by the poor quality of the water reaching people's taps.

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Roma 212 is a multidisciplinary studio dedicated to architectural design, ephemeral installations, interiors, and urban planning. Its philosophy centers on experimenting with new materials, forms, and processes, aiming to renew and rethink architecture as a cultural catalyst.

In recent days, a series of reports and articles correctly diagnosed the cause of the recent floods in the state capitals of Belo Horizonte, São Paulo and Porto Alegre, as well as in smaller cities such as Iconha, in Espírito Santo. The primary cause of these disasters was the urbanization of our cities—both planned and unplanned—which amplified the potential damage.

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“Where the city ends should not be the question,” Alejandro Aravena has repeatedly stated in various lectures, “where it begins is the question we should try to understand.” In many Latin American countries, the concentration of wealth in urban environments has led to the explosion of cities and “metropolitan areas,” giving rise to complex challenges. 

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“Interiores: Conversaciones en línea” is the title of the series of virtual encounters organized by the Faculty of Architecture, Art, and Design at Universidad Diego Portales (UDP). In this first season, Professor Alberto Sato hosts meetings between renowned architects, including Álvaro Farrú and Enrique Walker, Alejandra Celedón with Cecilia Puga; Mardones with Pezo von Ellrichshausen; Solano Benítez with Mathias Klotz; Smiljan Radic with Alberto Sato; and Fernando Perez with Francisco Liernur.

You can watch these conversations below.

Children are often overlooked or entirely deprioritized in urban planning. Globally, it is estimated that up to 500 children die every day in traffic accidents. Thousands of others are injured in collisions or develop psychological trauma that can last for years. Whether on the streets or in public spaces, feelings of insecurity or discomfort discourage children from physical activity outdoors—at a time when 80% of children between the ages of 11 and 17 are not physically active, and another 38 million under the age of five are overweight or obese.

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On World Environment Day, we ask you: Do you know where your household "trash" goes? How do cities deal with the tons of materials discarded daily? Should everything you throw "away" be wasted by being sent to landfills? 

The coronavirus crisis has shown us that certain attitudes, policies, and practices must be abandoned if we want a different future—both socially and environmentally. However, this responsibility is not solely individual. To discuss the future of waste in cities, we must shed light on the thread of recent history: the formulation of the National Solid Waste Policy (PNRS), approved in 2010, and the challenges of its implementation.

This article is part of a collaboration with the website coolhuntermx, and was originally published under the title "La Bauhaus Tapatía."

"A sort of Bauhaus" is how Mathias Goeritz, in short, tried to convince Italian architect and theorist Alberto Sartoris to come to Mexico. In 1950, through letters, he invited him to teach at the very project that had drawn Goeritz in and excited him so much: the first School of Architecture of Guadalajara, founded in 1948 by Ignacio Díaz Morales.

Rarely do we encounter an open-air fine arts museum like the Garden of Fine Arts, designed by Tadao Ando in 1994 for the city of Kyoto, Japan. Reproductions at various scales of renowned masterpieces appear among concrete columns, beams, and walls, along with ramps and glass bridges, interacting with cascading waterfalls and the background vegetation from the adjacent Botanical Gardens.

Pancho Gallardo, the Chilean architectural photographer now based in Madrid, has long admired the Japanese architect's work, particularly for, as he explains, "the use of concrete as an element that creates spaces, textures, angles, and shadows which, above all, in spaces like this open-air museum, establish a direct relationship with sunlight, where every corner becomes a dramatic composition of visual angles."

Below, he shares a series of photographs taken on-site, accompanied by more of his thoughts.

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In light of recent statements by the Federal Government and the new programs announced by institutions involved in housing production in Mexico, we believe it is essential to open a dialogue and exchange ideas to better understand the concepts of self-construction, self-production, and the “Social Production and Management of Habitat” [SPMH], as well as the role of architecture in these social processes.

To showcase Uruguay's valuable academic output, we launched an open call inviting readers in the country to submit their final thesis projects.

Out of a total of 65 submissions, the editorial team—comprising Fabian Dejtiar (Managing Editor of ArchDaily en Español); Mónica Arellano (Editor, ArchDaily México); Santiago Baraya (Editor, ArchDaily Colombia); and Belén Maiztegui (Editor, ArchDaily Argentina)—selected six. The highlighted projects are those that addressed specific challenges, their chosen form, and their representation through critical, austere, and efficient thinking. We valued proposals that not only delivered the best possible architecture through a simple design suited to its context, program, and users, but also paid close attention to human scale, mediation, and new ways of approaching architecture in cities.

Explore the selected projects below.