In late 2017, Colombian architect Antonio Yemail and his team moved to a new office in Bogotá. After eleven years of working in a single, open-plan space where all activities overlapped, the move became an opportunity to inventory, reconstruct, destroy, and document design processes through their physical models.

Out of 150 models produced over the years, 90 were restored and photographed again. "It is the primary visual record of how our design inclinations have evolved and linked together, because as Álvaro Siza says, a project is the model for the next," Yemail explains in a conversation with ArchDaily.

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Three architecture projects are among the 104 winners of the 2019 competition of the Directorate of Cultural Affairs (Dirac) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Chile.

Now in its ninth year, the call aims to promote the internationalization of Chilean artists and creators across a wide range of artistic disciplines. "Our mission is to strengthen and support Chile's foreign policy and our embassies and missions through high-quality artistic projects that foster the participation of our creators and artists," said Maritza Parada, Director of Cultural Affairs.

Six outstanding projects across four categories were recognized in Chile with the 2018 Urban Contribution Award (PAU), an initiative promoted by the Chilean Chamber of Construction (CChC), the Ministry of Housing and Urbanism (Minvu), the Architects' Association, the Association of Architectural Offices (AOA), and the Association of Real Estate Developers (ADI).

The award was open to any company with projects in Chile. As the project owners, these companies represent the rest of the professional team and firms involved in the work, including architects, construction companies, structural engineers, and landscape architects, among others.

2018 has been a special year for ArchDaily in Colombia: not only did we celebrate the first three years of our local site in Bogotá alongside prominent architects, and are now poised to set a new annual traffic record, but we also launched ArchDaily Colombia's Instagram account—which, thanks to you, has already reached 10,000 followers in just six months.

To wrap up this great year, we have selected the most popular projects—measured by total engagement, excluding reposts—on @archdailyco:

The Parques del Río project in Medellín has become the first Colombian representative among the winners at the 2018 World Architecture Festival (WAF18), currently being held in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Self-described as the world's largest architectural awards program, the festival announced on its second day that the project designed by Latitud Taller de Arquitectura y Ciudad won the 'Masterplanning' subcategory under the 'Future Projects' section.

The greats of twentieth-century Colombian architecture were regarded for their genuine interest in brick. To this day, many of Colombia's iconic neighborhoods are filled with brick buildings. 

Below, a selection of stunning Colombian brick projects —available in this My ArchDaily public folder as well.

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On Wednesday, November 21, the winners of the XXI Pan-American Architecture Biennial of Quito (BAQ2018) were announced in Ecuador.

Divided into six participation categories, the juries selected a series of projects and publications that stand out as meaningful contributions to their respective fields, offering relevant lessons for our discipline. The following are the winners in Category A (Architectural Design), Category B (Urban Design and Landscape Architecture), Category C (Social Habitat and Development), and Category D (Architectural Rehabilitation).

Today, Wednesday, November 21, the winners of the 2018 Gold Medal competition were announced as part of the XXI Pan-American Architecture Biennial of Ecuador (BAQ2018) in Quito.

The jury for the 2018 Gold Medal competition, comprising Astrid Petzold (Venezuela/Mexico), Ana Milovan (Uruguay), and Lucas Fehr (Brazil), determined the winning projects of the contest, which honors the best student work produced at Ecuadorian schools and departments of architecture between November 2016 and October 2018.

Daniel Libeskind will visit Chile this coming December, following an invitation extended by Mauricio Soria, the mayor of Iquique, and approved by the Chilean city's municipal council. However, the decision has drawn coverage from local media due to opposition from council members who voted against the initiative, primarily over the budget: 75 million Chilean pesos (around $110,000), which includes a "city visit, site visit, public lecture, and a preliminary draft or conceptual proposal," as highlighted on Twitter by council member Felipe Arenas, one of the dissenting voices in the municipal vote.

Although the announcement was shared by the mayor's office on Twitter on November 8, efforts to bring Libeskind to the country began exactly a year ago when the architect visited Chile to give a lecture at ENMATERIA's International Architecture and Materials Encounter. During that visit, the American architect met for the first time with Soria and his technical team in Santiago.

The fourth edition of Open House Madrid has come to a close with record-breaking attendance. The open-door events, the Open House Madrid architecture congress, and more than 30 activities held throughout October drew nearly 82,000 visitors.

According to festival co-directors Paloma Gómez Marín and Pati Núñez, these figures confirm the city's interest in the initiative: “Open House Madrid includes a variety of activities that reach highly diverse audiences, from architects, interior designers, and students to residents curious to learn more about their surroundings. We are also seeing a growing number of visitors from outside Madrid who travel here specifically for the festival.”

With the proposal  'Mining Tailings Phytoremediation Machine', the Chilean team won first place in the 11th Alacero Steel Design Competition for Architecture Students 2018 in Colombia.

The team, composed of students from Universidad Finis Terrae—Diego Concha, Tomás Aguirre, and Trinidad Hermosilla—presented a project that aims to "recover and reuse mining waste by utilizing plants with high tolerance to minerals to reduce and mitigate the site's environmental risks," as explained by the authors in the project description. The team was advised by professors Andrés Echeverría and Cristián Lecaros.

As part of Architecture Week, celebrated by the Official Association of Architects of Tenerife, La Gomera, and El Hierro (Spain), the Oraá Architecture Prizes were awarded, recognizing the best architectural achievements of the last 10 years on the islands of Tenerife, La Gomera, and El Hierro.

The Spanish accolade highlights new construction, restorations, renovations, landscape, public space, and interior design, along with special distinctions for outstanding career achievements, emerging talent, patronage, and the best architectural photography.

These are the winning projects:

With the help of Empresa de Desarrollo Urbano/Urban Development Company (EDU) and La Sociedad Colombiana de Arquitectos/the Colombian Architect's Society (SCA), Medellín has launched an international competition to design a space to remember and reflect on the period between 1983 and 1994.

These years were some of the most violent in the Colombian city's history. In January 1988, a car bomb with 80 kilos of dynamite exploded in front of the Monaco Building, the former home of drug lord Pablo Escobar in El Poblado neighborhood. This was the first of a series of attacks between rival drug cartels in Medellin.

Last October, we published the winners of the third call for final graduation projects in Colombia, also known as undergraduate theses, receiving 94 submissions from more than 10 cities and 22 universities.

Our editorial team selected six winning projects, and for the first time, a jury composed of leading Colombian architects was tasked with choosing the 2018 Grand Prize Winner: Lina Toro, Carlos Cano (OPUS, Medellín), and Jorge Noreña (Ruta 4, Pereira).

The jury awarded the Grand Prize to the thesis project Rehabitar la ladera, designed by Daniela Núñez and Roger Escalante, graduates of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Medellín campus. "The project does not limit itself to describing and documenting a housing situation based on that built intuition as a testament to local dwelling; instead, it proposes an open design project that generously and simply outlines the guidelines for intuitive yet regulated growth," Toro noted in the jury's official statement.

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Projects from Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil have been selected as winners of the 2018 CICOP Chile Award. This is the fourth national—and second international—edition of the Latin American competition open to graduation projects that develop interventions on buildings, built complexes, or areas of heritage value.

"Acting with sensitivity and technical expertise regarding built heritage helps unite efforts toward conservation and reinforces the contribution that the professional field can make to transmitting heritage values to future generations," explained the organizers of the competition, which received 92 submissions in this edition.

The competition director was Nicolas Iza, while general coordination was led by Marco Antonio Orellana. The jury comprised Arturo López Bachiller and David Avila, representing the firm Luis Vidal + Arquitectos, along with María Inés Arribas, Mabel Briceño, Antonino Pirozzi, and Carolina Vergara, representing CICOP Chile.

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The Chilean series Proyecto Habitar dives into the intimacy of homes to explore the reality of housing in Chile. Divided into 9 episodes exploring a range of housing-related themes, directors Joaquín Mora and Verónica Wüst aim to spark a discussion. "I think it is important that we start asking ourselves how we are living and how we want to live," Mora reflects.

During the filming stage, the filmmakers explored various ways to gain the protagonists' trust and tell the story of how they inhabit their spaces. "Throughout the process of working as a team, the opportunity and curiosity to use different formats arose, allowing room for exploration," Wüst comments.

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Recent environmental pollution incidents in the Chilean cities of Quintero and Puchuncaví have reignited the debate surrounding the health impacts on residents of so-called sacrifice zones. Last August, the Chilean newspaper La Tercera reported that these cities on Quintero Bay coexist with "15 major energy, chemical, and fuel companies," including a smelter, a natural gas plant, and four thermoelectric power plants.

In response, Chilean architect Leonardo Quinteros has developed "Marine Forest" as his thesis project. The proposal features a decontamination platform designed to bioremediate the bay using cultivated brown algae, drawing on research into methods for extracting and absorbing heavy metals to demonstrate the species' potential as a marine bioremediator.

Quinteros—winner of the 2015 CNPP and currently designing the new Providencia Municipal Building in Santiago alongside Tomás Villalón and Nicolás Norero—based his project on a decontamination plan known as FIC Algas. Developed by the Faculty of Ecology at Andrés Bello University (UNAB) in collaboration with the Regional Government of Valparaíso, FIC Algas

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Videos

Across nine episodes, the series Proyecto Habitar delves into the intimacy of homes to explore the reality of housing in Chile. Through the perspective of its protagonists, the series explores various housing-related issues, with directors Joaquín Mora and Verónica Wüst aiming to spark an urgent and long-overdue discussion.

"Housing is a crucial issue that will soon take center stage, as we are living within an economic system that raises various challenges we must address as a society," Mora says.

We invite you to watch the first three episodes of the series: property, rights, and community.

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