The Guatemala Architecture Biennale 2021 begins today, serving as a platform that will bring together the region's most prominent professionals from November 16 to 18 at the Miguel Ángel Asturias Cultural Center through symposiums, lectures, and exhibitions.
Mexican architect Fernanda Canales presents her new book "Shared Structures – Private Spaces: Housing in Mexico," which explores the relationship between rooms, people, and cities. Centered on the modern culture of dwelling in Mexico, the research is developed in two parts: a series of texts addressing housing, and an analysis of 70 collective housing projects built over the last hundred years, interwoven with a compendium of quotes from architects involved in the field during this same period, such as Luis Barragán, Juan O’Gorman, Mario Pani, Alberto Kalach, Frida Escobedo, and Mauricio Rocha.
The architectural competition for the San Juan de Dios Hospital Complex in Bogotá was organized by the Urban Renovation and Development Agency (ERU) with advisory support from the Colombian Society of Architects. The goal was to reconnect and integrate the complex with its surrounding neighborhoods and the city center. This involves upgrading both the interior green areas and the peripheral public space, designing the plazas, pedestrian pathways, and interior gardens, as well as proposing options for pedestrian corridors and internal enclosures. In turn, the intervention will integrate the southern edge of the complex with the Policarpa and Sevilla neighborhoods, the north with the San Bernardo neighborhood, and the east with Las Cruces.
Ciudad Juárez is an industrial city located on the northern border with the United States, directly across from El Paso, Texas. Over the years, Juárez's economy has been dominated by the ‘maquiladora’ industry, and it was once considered one of the most violent cities in the world due to a wave of crime that took hold from 2008 to 2012. In 2020, the National Workers' Housing Fund Institute (Infonavit) reported that there are 17,871 abandoned homes in Ciudad Juárez, leading the country's municipal rankings and contributing to a total of 650,000 abandoned houses nationwide.
The term ergonomics was first coined in 1857 by the Polish scholar Wojciech Jastrzębowski, deriving from the combination of the Greek words ergon (work) and nomos (laws or rules). Although initially associated with the physical comfort of workers, today the term applies to a wide range of activities, from sports to leisure. It represents a set of guidelines and procedures designed to ensure both physical and mental well-being during any given task.
Public and private sector leaders and civil society representatives from around the world gathered at COP26, held in Glasgow from October 31 to November 12, to debate and deliberate on one of the most pressing issues of the 21st century: climate change. The summit centered on four key goals:
In the future, the Internet of Things (IoT) will play an increasingly profound role in our lives, with devices communicating independently and integrating into our daily routines as smart assistants. As a result, demand for smart home technology is growing in tandem with the range of products on offer. In a recent report, market research firm Statista predicted that this year, approximately 12% of households worldwide will own smart home devices, a figure projected to rise to over 21% by 2025—translating to more than 478.2 million users globally. But which of these devices are actually useful? A selection of outstanding technologies and designs has recently been honored with the 2021 iF Design Award, and here we take a closer look at nine of them.
This is not a book about architecture; rather, it is a book about a territory—a territory in Chile, within the Metropolitan Region, shaped by a mountain range, a river, and a valley.
Chilean architect Miguel Eyquem, co-founder of the Institute of Architecture of the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso and founding member of the Open City of Ritoque, passed away early this morning, according to social media updates from the Amereida Cultural Corporation - Open City.
On Friday, November 19, 2021, the Official Association of Architects of Tarragona and the Alejandro de la Sota Foundation recognized the team at GCA Architects for their Alzheimer's Day Care Center project, as part of the 12th Tarragona Architecture Exhibition.
In July 2020, an ideas competition was held for the design and creation of a Metropolitan Forest in Madrid, Spain. Organized by the Madrid City Council, whose urban planning policy aims for green transformation, the project envisions a global forest belt that seeks geographical continuity by linking established areas with others showing high potential for development.
The latest episode of Arquicast addresses one of the most defining and tragic events in recent history—an event that triggered radical political, social, and cultural shifts globally, and centered on an American architectural icon whose symbolism transcended the physical buildings themselves, giving rise to one of the world's most renowned design competitions. We are referring to September 11, 2001, the day a terrorist attack killed nearly three thousand people, injured over six thousand, and brought down the World Trade Center commercial complex, which included New York's world-famous Twin Towers.
"Domingos Libro" is hosted by Carmelo from Enorme Studio. Every two weeks, the series delves deep into forgotten architectural publications, books, and magazines from the '60s, '70s, and '80s, uncovering the fascinating stories behind them.
In this eleventh episode, titled "El Huevo" (The Egg), Carmelo discusses the 1978 book *L'Oeuf* by André Bruyère. An obsession with eggs led the French architect to propose an egg-shaped skyscraper for New York and write this book, which champions the ovoid as a fundamental form.
CAU/RJ has extended the registration deadline for the CAU+Mulheres Awards. Female architects and urban planners now have until November 26 to submit their projects.
Now in its second edition, the CAU+Mulheres Award is one of the Council's initiatives to promote dialogue and increase the visibility of female architects and urban planners across their various fields of work. The award features five categories: Architectural Design; Interior Design; Urban Design; Architectural Design for Emergency Situations; and Theoretical Studies (theses, dissertations, books, and publications).
Ecosistema Urbano, one of the winners of the J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize, has proposed Cloudroom as part of the 2021 edition of Exhibit Columbus in Columbus, Indiana. The installation seeks to rethink public spaces for education by raising awareness about today's environmental challenges. Floating above a wooden structure on Central Middle School's lawn, this inflatable cloud creates a community space with a shaded microclimate for learning, playing, and sharing. By fostering new learning methodologies through direct experience, it offers a welcoming environment suitable for various activities bridging the school and public space.
An ecological approach and a social focus are the two pillars of Cloudroom, an installation designed in collaboration with the students and staff of Central Middle School. The project responds to the theme “New Middles: From Main Street To Megalopolis, What Is The Future of The Middle City?", proposed by curators Iker Gil and Mimi Zeiger.
Trenzando is a territorial cooperation platform based on the reuse of the railway system. It seeks to create greater development opportunities in non-metropolitan areas, strengthening local identities and decentralizing access to knowledge and technologies. To this end, they invited architects, students, and interdisciplinary teams to participate in the architectural ideas competition "Rehabilitation of Railway Stations / Trenzando Network," which aimed to promote the recovery of the architectural heritage of railways in four Chilean localities: Rungue (Metropolitan Region), Ocoa (Valparaíso Region), Yumbel, and San Rosendo (Biobío Region).
The pandemic highlighted the importance of open spaces with good natural ventilation. Despite their controversial name, elevated plazas and hanging gardens offer spatial solutions that improve thermal comfort and provide social spaces for residents—and, in some cases, the general public—alongside spectacular views.
During the opening of the Lima International Architecture Biennial (BIALIMA 2021), the winners of the "CAP-RL 2021 Architecture for Development Award" were announced. This competition aims to showcase architectural and urban planning practices carried out by collectives and architecture firms on the outskirts of Lima, as well as in its degraded areas, delivering infrastructure and interventions through participatory and community processes that help improve the population's quality of life.
ArchDaily In-Depth Profile is an interview series featuring designers with long-term practice in specific architectural typologies. To qualify, featured firms must have been established for over a decade, or possess a substantial portfolio of completed and ongoing projects within a specialized architectural field, having developed a cohesive theoretical framework. Recently, the opening of the East Coast of OH Bay in Bao'an, Shenzhen—with its urban-terrace-like architectural form and cascading landscape design—rapidly became a highly popular landmark. This drew our attention to the planning and design team, Laguarda.Low Architects (LLA). A 20-year-old firm headquartered in New York, with offices in Tokyo and Beijing, they apply their core design philosophy—"building the fundamental concept of every master plan and architectural design on an understanding and development of its role in urban design"—to projects in cities across the globe. This edition of the In-Depth Profile dives into their two decades of achievements and insights.
Green infrastructure is an approach centered on territorial planning and environmental sustainability. Moreover, it is one of the primary strategies being adopted by communities, municipalities, and governments in cities worldwide to address the climate crisis, improve public health, reduce social segregation, and protect biodiversity. Specifically, it consists of an interconnected system of diverse green spaces that support a range of functions and benefits.
How do we design spaces that are healthy for both our minds and our bodies? That is the main question we seek to answer this March as we address our monthly topic, “Indoor Well-Being.”
The rapid growth of Brazilian cities without adequate oversight by public authorities has resulted in a series of problems stemming from a lack of decent housing. Since the 1980s, grassroots community associations and academics have joined forces to pressure the government into developing housing policies that would not only construct new homes and neighborhoods, but also secure other fundamental rights, such as healthcare and education. Today, forty years after this initial push, we observe a lack of public housing policies across all three levels of government targeting the most vulnerable populations, even as we see a growing popularization of Technical Assistance for Social Interest Housing, known as ATHIS.
“These types of projects are of vital importance because they seek to reverse social, economic, urban, and political instability, providing organized attention to community needs and creating built platforms that serve as a bridge between the intrapersonal and intra-institutional scales.” Excerpt from the project description of the Community Development Center / OCA + BONINI
Since 2008, World Social Justice Day has been observed every February 20 to support and promote the international community's efforts to achieve sustainable development, poverty eradication, the promotion of full employment and decent work, universal social protection, gender equality, and access to social well-being and justice for all. According to the United Nations, “Social justice is an underlying principle for peaceful and prosperous coexistence within and among nations," representing the core of its mission to promote development and human dignity.
