From October 5th to 8th, the Colegio de Arquitectos de Costa Rica (CACR) will host the XV International Professional Architecture Biennial. With over 30 years of history, this year’s edition will bring together representatives from 14 countries to showcase 312 national and international projects, including 125 professional and 187 student entries.

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Horizontal Monuments is a participatory intervention carried out at Plaza Juárez in Guadalajara, Mexico. The project began with the construction of a 1:1 scale replica of the obelisk located in the plaza, placed on the ground and shifting its materiality, turning this monument into a malleable and accessible object. This shift sparked a central question: what should be done with it? This question triggered a series of discussions that transformed into actions; students and local community members gathered to give voice and form to the ideas emerging from the transformation of the object. The work was conceived as an educational project to imagine alternative models of monuments capable of addressing the demands and possibilities of specific sites. Its development led to a series of collective actions described below.

For nearly two decades, Wienerberger AG has hosted the biennial international Brick Award, providing a stage for outstanding brick architecture and its designers. Architects from around the world showcase their innovative concepts using ceramic materials: 644 projects from 55 countries were submitted for this year's award. The winners of the Brick Award 20 impressed the jury with bold, creative architectural concepts for sustainable, forward-looking spaces.

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On August 28, the exhibition “Arquitectura Popular del Noreste” (Vernacular Architecture of the Northeast) opened at the Distrito Tec Open Gallery in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico. The show features a series of images of the region's vernacular architecture captured by a group of 16 photographers, alongside residential surveys conducted by two architects: Francisco Álvarez, Tania Anchondo, Marcelo Barahona, Marcel del Castillo, Colectivo El Norestense, Sofía Garfias, Nora I. Gómez, Sofía Kalionchiz, José V. Kontos, Iván Manríquez, Josué Olivo, Isaac Rincón Aiza, Jar Rock, Carolina Segura, Martín Tovar, Marcela Vela, David Verazaluce Lugo, and Ignacio Woolfolk.

Today, our perception of the construction industry has completely changed. We find ourselves in a digital era that drives us to work collaboratively in multidisciplinary teams, making BIM an essential and mandatory tool for professional advancement.

If you are already working with the BIM methodology, read to the end of the article to find out how you can improve and advance.

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Rojkind Arquitectos has proposed a "Mourning Claim" memorial for COVID-19 victims. Led by Michel Rojkind, Arturo Ortíz Struck, and Diego Díaz Lezama, the project is envisioned for Times Square in New York and the Zócalo in Mexico City. "We claim mourning for its own sake. At the very least, we can care for them, for these architectural symbols that bear witness to our lives and the lives of others," say the authors.

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Rojkind Arquitectos has revealed a "mourning claim" memorial proposal for coronavirus victims. The design project led by Michel Rojkind, Arturo Ortíz Struck, and Diego Díaz Lezama has initially envisioned the memorial both in New York City's Times Square and Mexico City's Zocalo.

"We are claiming the act of mourning. We can at least take care of that, of building symbols where we can place the testimony of our life and the lives of others," stated the authors.

Whether built, written or drawn, the work of American architect, theorist and educator Peter Eisenman (born 11th August 1932) is characterized by Deconstructivism, with an interest in signs, symbols and the processes of making meaning always at the foreground.

Chinese courtyard houses are one of the most common housing typologies spanning all the way from the northern capital of Beijing to the poetic southern cities Hangzhou and back to the picturesque regions of Yunnan. Typically referred as heyuan, these courtyards homes are simply a “yard enclosed on four sides."

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Sharing your shelf is, in a way, sharing yourself. Every element —from the titles you choose to the way you organize them— says something about your personality and your interests. 

The Santa Cruz International Biennial of Architecture (BASC) is adapting and transforming. As a result, it will become the first virtual architecture biennial in the Americas, taking place from July 20 to 27 alongside the International Construction, Architecture, and Design Fair (FICAD).

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As part of an initiative led by the Mexican architecture firm REVOLUTION Arquitectura and the Mexican Red Cross, the Temporary Housing Pavilion for Healthcare Workers was developed to protect and shelter healthcare sector workers in Mexico.

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Mexico's National Social Distancing Campaign began on March 23, 2020. However, a couple of weeks earlier, even in the face of the federal government's recommendation to continue normal activities, social media was already filled with people opting to replicate the European model and self-isolate. Right away, some architecture firms decided to close their physical offices and transition to a remote work model, while others took several weeks longer. However, this period of social and physical (spatial) distancing is experienced differently in every home. The months of this pandemic have exposed not only the inequality in accessing basic needs in dense urban areas, but also the fragility of the established social order. Whether at a macro or micro scale, all of these experiences occur within and are influenced by the built environment, making architecture both judge and jury in this equation. 

2014 Pritzker Laureate Shigeru Ban may be as well known for his innovative use of materials as for his compassionate approach to design. For a little over three decades, Ban, the founder of the Voluntary Architects Network, has applied his extensive knowledge of recyclable materials, particularly paper and cardboard, to constructing high-quality, low-cost shelters for victims of disaster across the world —from Rwanda to Haiti, to Turkey, Japan, and more. We've rounded up 10 projects of his humanitarian work, explained by Shigeru Ban Architects themselves.

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The NGO Vivienda Local, which works through collaborative self-construction in Chile, has launched a website to monitor the progress and stages of its active projects. The platform is designed to streamline operations and enhance communication between the architects using this methodology and the self-building families.

Mónica Álvarez de Oro, partner at MAO Arquitectos and an AOA director since 2018, secured her reelection for a new term in the recent electronic vote election held within the association. During the first session of the new board, she was unanimously elected as president for a two-year term.

In this week's Seminar on Culture and Contemporary Reality, organized by Escola da Cidade, Guilherme Wisnik speaks with Ana Luiza Nobre, an architect and professor at PUC-Rio, where she coordinates the Là/Laboratório de Análises Arquitetônicas.

After receiving 105 proposals from 32 different countries, the Rural Tourism Accommodation (RuTA) international ideas competition in Vietnam, organized by arquideas, has announced its winning projects.