Filippo Brunelleschi and the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, completed in 1436 in the Italian city of Florence, represent an important chapter in the history of architecture, often associated with the growing distance between drawing and building. This separation, gradually consolidated over time, finds a decisive turning point in the Renaissance. Drawing becomes an instrument for anticipating and asserting authority over construction. The building site, once a space for invention and decision-making, came to be understood primarily as a place of execution.

Over the following centuries, this distance becomes increasingly pronounced, particularly with modern construction. Industrialization, technical specialization, and corporate organization fragment the building process into increasingly distinct stages. Those who design rarely build; those who build do not always participate in decision-making; those who finance, manage, and inhabit occupy positions that are even further removed from one another. The efficiency of this model made it possible to build at scale, but it also concentrated knowledge and decision-making power in the hands of certain agents.

+ 18

Amid the transformation of Uzbekistan's cities, ARC Architects develops an architecture that seeks to connect past and present. Founded in 2017 by Bobir Klichev, the studio emerged from Bukhara's architectural community and remains closely connected to the country's cultural and climatic particularities. With offices in Tashkent and Bukhara, ARC combines minimalism and ethnic references to develop a contemporary language rooted in its context.

Rather than reproducing a traditional image of Uzbek architecture, the studio seeks to understand how this heritage can be reinterpreted today, an exercise that necessarily engages with the overlapping historical layers across the country. For centuries, cities such as Samarkand and Bukhara were important commercial and cultural centers of Central Asia. Their architecture developed around inner courtyards and narrow streets, forming urban fabrics in which buildings and collective spaces are inseparable.

+ 23

In modern architecture, the promenade architecturale stood out as an essential design strategy to realize the principles of functionality, aesthetics, and integration with the urban context. Iconic projects by Le Corbusier, such as Villa Savoye (1929), illustrate this concept by guiding the visitor along an upward path that culminates in the contemplation of the roof garden, an open space where the building dialogues harmoniously with nature. A century later, the concept continues to influence contemporary projects, exploring the relationship between movement and space across various architectural typologies such as houses, museums, libraries, and parks.

+ 14

What sustains the purpose of architecture that has never been occupied? For decades, this was the question surrounding the Namibe Cinema-Studio, built on the coast of Angola in 1973. Conceived as a film screening venue, the building remained closed and abandoned, never fulfilling the role for which it was created. Yet it withstood the passage of time, becoming an icon of the Angolan landscape and architecture, until finally screening its first film nearly fifty years later.

But what kept this building alive in the collective imagination for so long? Was it precisely its bold, singular architecture that was able to give meaning to a project that never had a use?

+ 1

"Architecture that holds multitudes." This is the phrase Studio NEiDA uses to introduce itself, making its position toward the world clear: to listen to and respect the plurality of existences that move through each context. More than a statement of principles, the phrase seems to function as a method. What does it mean, after all, to design spaces capable of sheltering not only people, but also memories, knowledge, and conflicts?

There is no denying that Studio NEiDA's plural approach is, in part, rooted in its own geographical position. Working between Togo and Germany, the practice operates across two seemingly distinct contexts that are nevertheless historically connected. In a recent interview, Jeanne Autran-Edorh, the French-Togolese architect and co-founder of the studio, alongside the curator and writer Fabiola Büchele, recalls the history between the two countries, noting that, as few people know, before becoming an independent republic, Togo was a German colony that later came under French rule.

+ 7

In 2021, the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) released a survey regarding the number of cultural and social facilities in Brazil's cities. The findings were alarming: only 29.6% of Brazilian municipalities had cultural and social facilities such as museums, while theaters and concert halls were present in only 23.3% of cities. This overview speaks volumes about the scarcity of such spaces in Brazilian cities. In this context, when a women's cooperative in Maranhão or a volunteer group in Bahia decides to build their own cultural and community facility, the gesture not only fills a material gap but reclaims, on their own initiative, a right that should be guaranteed by public policy.

+ 11

Over the last decade, Uzbekistan has done what most post-Soviet countries still hesitate to do: it formally included dozens of modernist buildings constructed between 1960 and 1980 on its national cultural heritage list. Among them were the Panoramic Cinema, the Tashkent Circus, and the Palace of Peoples' Friendship—structures that, until just a few years ago, were viewed as routine, recent Soviet architecture lacking heritage status.

This decision, however, points to a challenge shared by almost every heritage system worldwide: how to legally protect architecture that has not yet reached the minimum age—formal or informal—to be considered "historic"?

+ 8

Imagine a corridor. Concrete walls two meters apart, a low ceiling, artificial lighting with neither shadow nor gradation. At the far end, a bulletproof glass window, and on the other side, a uniformed officer. You are at a port of entry. It could be in Calais, El Paso, or Lampedusa. An anonymous space, yet far from neutral. Designed so that anyone can understand: passage is not a right; it is a concession.

Yet, this corridor is no exception; rather, it is the expression of an architectural language repeated across contemporary borders. Labyrinthine airports, screening stations, walls—architectures that turn hostility into a defining element of space, demonstrating that it transcends the stern expression of the person behind the glass.

+ 7

Over the past decades, timber has expanded its presence in contemporary architecture—driven both by the development of new construction technologies and by the rediscovery of traditional building techniques, all with a focus on lower-impact environmental solutions. Schools are among the building types that best reflect this movement: it is in these environments that the environmental, constructive, and sensory qualities of timber find particularly fertile ground.

+ 28

Anyone expecting the following words to offer a discourse on materiality, sustainable building techniques, ways of carving wood, or methods of weaving straw is mistaken. Instead, this article seeks to shift our gaze beyond the aspects that frequently define the debate on Indigenous peoples' culture when it comes to "architecture."

In a worldview where the very term "architecture" is foreign, approaching their structures—if indeed that word can adequately name them—from an exclusively material or technological standpoint remains an attempt to frame their ways of producing space within Western categories. This reduces a complex cosmology to a set of measurable attributes, as if it could be transformed into a checklist applicable to any architecture, thereby erasing the very thing that distinguishes it: the relationships between territory, body, and memory.

+ 2

The World Cup will take place between November and December. This scheduling is due to the fact that average temperatures in the host nation, Qatar, can soar to 40 to 50°C during June and July.

+ 4

When the first rays of sun strike the Swedish town of Jukkasjärvi, as winter gives way to spring, this ice hotel begins to melt. Five hundred tons of water flow toward the Torne River. What were once walls, floors, and ceilings are now drops of water seeking their natural course. In this scene, which has occurred every year since 1989, everything is a contradiction: the solidity and longevity of construction versus the ephemerality and transience of ice sculpture.

+ 4

Hãhãwpuá is the name used by the Pataxó Indigenous people of Brazil to refer to the land, the soil, or, more precisely, the territory that after colonization became known as Brazil, though it has had—and still has—many other names. Amidst all these “Brazils,” Brazil as Indigenous land is the focus of the country's pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale 2024, which has consequently been renamed the Hãhãwpuá Pavilion.

We are living through a period of demographic transition—a shift we are all well aware of. The growth of the population over 60 has been exponential; however, it is not just this demographic increase that must be considered, but also the changing profile of this generation. After all, older adults are not what they used to be. 

+ 11

In 2014, when The Guardian reporter Ben Quinn opened the eyes of citizens worldwide to hostile urban design practices, coining what would become known as the "hostile architecture" phenomenon, few expected such a massive global response. A myriad of urban design strategies came to light, which restrict civic participation and segregate how the city is appropriated—elements that curb specific behaviors and hinder access and presence for certain social groups. These codes of conduct, dictated by urban design, run counter to everything studied about democratic, welcoming cities, as championed by Jan Gehl and Jane Jacobs.

+ 12

Two thousand five hundred reais is the average price of a good virtual reality headset. If you opt for the full experience, shell out another four thousand reais to add sensors and controllers. These models must be connected to a high-performance computer to process information and transform spaces into 3D models, costing at least five thousand reais. In addition to the headset, sensors, and computer, software is also required, with annual licenses that likewise run into the thousands. In short, keeping up with technology nowadays is quite a costly endeavor.

Until the mid-1950s, Brazil was a predominantly rural country, with less than 30% of its population living in urban areas. However, driven by rapid industrialization, the country experienced a massive rural exodus during its transition from an agricultural export model to an urban-industrial one, drastically altering the landscape of its cities in less than 50 years. As a consequence of this rapid transformation, a predatory and unequal model of urbanization emerged, and it was in this context that the City Statute was born.

The term “cradle to cradle” was coined by American architect William McDonough and German chemical engineer Michael Braungart in their manifesto-book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, published in 2002. This theory is not merely architectural; rather, it applies to any product, promoting a biological approach to manufacturing in which components are considered nutrients in a “healthy metabolism.”