The recent book 'Plan de desarrollo urbano de la zona noroeste de la ciudad de Mar del Plata' by Guillermo Tella, Beatriz Cuenya, Martín Delucchi, and Laura Corbalán Vieiro synthesizes the results achieved through the technical assistance and institutional coordination experience carried out during 2017-2018 for the Municipality of General Pueyrredón (province of Buenos Aires, Argentina) by the Center for Urban and Regional Studies (CEUR-CONICET) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
It seems almost impossible to imagine that a single public initiative could have spawned most of the national highways we have today in Argentina, established tourism as an economic driver for the country, consolidated the national oil company YPF against foreign competition, and driven a large part of the development of Argentine modern architecture.
Yet it is entirely plausible when we look at one of the largest territorial interventions in the country's history—a vanguard of modernity that established the automobile as a mass means of transportation in our region.
Located in the historic neighborhood of San Ignacio in the city of Bilbao, Spain, Levante Square is a prominent gathering point for residents and visitors alike. To address the lack of covered spaces protecting from the heavy rain, Spanish architecture office CANOBARDIN has designed a solution for users: a concentric structure titled "A Piece of Sky in Levante Square" that allows people to inhabit the public space and find shelter without losing touch with their surroundings, acting as a piece of the sky by day and a reflection of the square by night.
Designed to meet the construction sector's growing demand for finishes, Obra Blanca is a new event launched as a meeting point for professionals looking to showcase their products and those seeking to compare various finishing options. As a specialized exhibition, it focuses on the visitor experience and the professionalization of an increasingly comprehensive and sophisticated industry.
In this context, the urban landscape of many Peruvian towns is likely to benefit from facilities that, for many small cities, could well become iconic and even transformative elements within their urban or semi-urban environments. The precedent for this process lies in the Grandes Unidades Escolares (Large School Units) built during the Odría administration—so iconic for their rationalist architecture and masterfully executed in Lima by Alberto Jimeno. Another precedent, albeit a less fortunate one, is found in the school facilities built across many parts of the country in the 1990s. These featured an often-altered modularity and forms—accentuated by plaster and paint—that were identically recognizable in any region, as if completely disregarding the geographical and cultural specificities of Peru's diverse territory.
Proyecto Panorama is a civil association made up of a diverse group of young people from Cancún, who have been actively working for more than two years on public space interventions in Quintana Roo through urban art. These interventions have proven to generate a positive impact on the residents' environment, strengthening the sense of identity and belonging in one of the country's most important developing regions. Since its founding in 2016, and thanks to collaborations with renowned national and international artists, Proyecto Panorama has intervened in more than 30 public spaces, as well as an elementary school in Cancún and another in the Riviera Maya, resulting in 116 murals.
Sala Roxy is a historic venue located at 80 Mezquitán Street in the city of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. For years, this space served as a local symbol of freedom, bringing together alternative artistic and cultural expressions. First opening its doors in 1937, it operated for several decades as Cine Roxy; built in the Art Deco style, it became one of the first theaters dedicated to film screenings in Guadalajara.
'Silogismos' is an architecture and illustration project that bases its research on archives, publications, and photographs tracing the history of modern construction in Mexico. It offers a graphic narrative on the continuity and transformation of seminal 20th-century works through the synthesis, interpretation, and juxtaposition of their ideals. These paired concepts confront thought and form through deductive inference. Ultimately, the sum of these parts reveals critical architectural meanings and motives for future reconstruction.
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:
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.
In each edition of the Ibero-American Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism (BIAU), the event honors masters of Ibero-American architecture with the Ibero-American Architecture and Urbanism Prize.
The Ibero-American Architecture and Urbanism Prize recognizes work "directly related to architecture and/or urbanism, highlighting its aesthetic, functional, technical, social, economic, and environmental aspects. This may include built work, planning, heritage conservation and restoration, knowledge production, or social commitment," as outlined in the competition guidelines.
Construye Solar 2019 will exhibit eight sustainable social housing units in Santiago, designed and built by universities from across Chile. The initiative, according to the organizers, aims to "spark innovation in social housing construction, addressing the inherent challenges of pursuing sustainable innovation on a limited budget."
Siting a building in a city is no easy task. The quest for isolation and privacy within a complex, heterogeneous, and constantly changing urban space creates a dual condition during the design process. How can an urban building offer privacy and openness at the same time? Consequently, there arises a need for various control mechanisms to mediate between exterior and interior spaces, filtering sound, screening views, managing intimacy, and ensuring anonymity without losing the connection to the city.
The new and growing demands for change driven by urban population growth mean that, when designing, we face a highly heterogeneous and constantly transforming fabric.
Increased urban density directly impacts the open space available for new, standalone construction, leading to a juxtaposition of buildings where the simultaneity and coexistence of individual pursuits result in a varied fabric.
Ecuadorian firm URLO Studio has been selected as the winner of the ideas competition for the southern articulating axis of Quito, a contest aimed at urban renewal in the Ecuadorian capital through the development of micro-centralities along the 13-kilometer tourist route.
The Urban Agriculture Laboratory is designed by Transversal / Arquitectura Paisaje Urbanismo, located at the Semilla Museum in Chihuahua, Mexico. This project is the result of a civic initiative that combines landscape, architectural, and exhibition design elements centered around urban agriculture, permaculture, and the observation of natural phenomena. In doing so, it redefines the traditional "white box" exhibition space, transforming it into a hands-on pedagogical space, civic gathering point, and laboratory.
Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) presented the 2019 edition of its annual ranking of the world's best universities in the field of architecture, in which UCL (University College London) dethroned the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States, which had led the list for four consecutive years.
Within the Ibero-American region, the list has not changed significantly compared to 2018: Spain maintains a strong presence, while Chile leads Latin America. Discover the top-ranked institutions below!
Presented at the recent edition of the Feria del Diseño 2019 in Medellín, Iku Hábitat is a modular architectural construction system developed in Colombia that aims to streamline construction processes using designed and prefabricated components assembled with screws.
The following analysis was developed within the research project “Sustainable and Safe Building Certification,” funded by the Research Directorate of the University of Cuenca and led by Dr. Felipe Quesada Molina. This research addresses the sustainability assessment of residential buildings in the city of Cuenca.
André Gorz wrote in 1974: «Ecology is like universal suffrage and the Sunday day of rest: at first, all the bourgeois and all the proponents of order tell you that you want their ruin, and the triumph of anarchy and obscurantism. Then, when circumstances and popular pressure become irresistible, they grant you what they denied you yesterday and, fundamentally, nothing changes».
To showcase the valuable output of Argentine universities, for the third consecutive year we launched an open call inviting our Argentine readers to submit their final thesis projects, sharing the work that launched their careers as newly minted architects.
After receiving more than 60 submissions from various Argentine architecture schools and cities, our editorial team selected nine projects, focusing on those that demonstrated critical thinking toward contemporary issues, formal resolution, and representation. The selection not only recognizes those projects that delivered the best possible architecture through simple design suited to their context, program, and users, but also highlights those showing a strong commitment to human scale, mediation, transition, and new ways of approaching urban architecture. This edition's jury was composed of Fabian Dejtiar, Managing Editor of ArchDaily en Español; Mónica Arellano, Editor of ArchDaily México; and Delia Bayona, Editor of ArchDaily Perú.
Read on to explore the selected projects in detail.
In this installment, as part of the series of articles by Nikos A. Salingaros, David Brain, Andrés M. Duany, Michael W. Mehaffy, and Ernesto Philibert-Petit, we examine the importance of design sequences and generative codes in social housing in Latin America. Explore all previous publications and the new article below.
Mexico City’s vecindades (traditional tenement housing) are urban settlements located primarily in the downtown area. According to the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), these buildings first emerged in the late 18th century, though their peak occurred during the 19th century as a result of rapid population growth, serving to provide affordable housing for the city's most marginalized sectors.
The Chilean city of Valparaíso is comprised of 42 hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Its unique topography has prompted—or forced—residents to build a creative network of elevators, staircases, and alleys, connecting every corner of the city despite its rugged terrain.
