By 2050, an estimated 89% of Latin America's population will live in urban areas. This "need" to live in urban centers has brought about a growing inequality, manifested in a lack of access to basic services and homeownership.

In this context, Venezuelan-American David Gouverneur, a professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, uses his book Diseño de nuevos asentamientos informales (Design of New Informal Settlements) to call for greater awareness of the need to address and study informality in our cities, recognizing it as an unavoidable reality.

Haven't submitted your entry for the Instituto Tomie Ohtake AkzoNobel Architecture Prize yet? There is still time! Registration has been extended to April 27! Take advantage of this last chance to participate in one of Brazil's most prestigious architecture awards.

The Instituto Tomie Ohtake and AkzoNobel continue to map contemporary architectural production, highlighting, for the fifth consecutive year, significant built projects within the current Brazilian landscape. Urban integration, commitment to the site and sustainability, as well as design and construction innovation, are the core criteria guiding the 5th Instituto Tomie Ohtake AkzoNobel Architecture Prize.

Recently, CCTN Design released renderings of the renovation scheme for the Shougang No. 3 Blast Furnace Museum. The architects have carefully preserved the iconic blast furnace of the original Shougang steel plant, including core industrial structures such as the main body of the No. 3 blast furnace, the hot blast stoves, the gravity dust catcher, and the dry dust collector. By opening up the original main control room that previously blocked the furnace on the west side, the design establishes a clear dialogue between the No. 3 blast furnace complex, the Xiuqi Lake to the west, and Shijingshan Mountain. Below, the design approach for the industrial heritage revitalization of the Shougang Museum is explained through three dialectical relationships.

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Videos

Paulo Mendes, Nadezhda Rocha, and three other architecture firms (FGMF, Königsberger Vannucchi Arquitetos Associados, and Nitsche Arquitetos) are competing in the Paulista Para Todos Ideas Festival, an initiative by Esquina.net.br and the law firm Mattos Filho, Veiga Filho, Marrey Jr e Quiroga Advogados, which is based on Paulista Avenue. Each of them has developed a street furniture proposal for Paulista Avenue with full creative freedom. The proposals will be submitted to a three-member jury comprising architects and urban planners Carlos Leite and Sol Camacho, and Renato Schermann Ximenes de Melo, a partner at Mattos Filho. The winner will be announced on December 5th.

Mexican architect Enrique Norten will receive the Fine Arts Medal in Architecture, the highest honor awarded by the National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA) to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to Mexico's art and culture. With this award, the Institute celebrates his career and his contributions to the country's culture.

Born in Mexico City on February 27, 1954, Norten was drawn to the world of design and determined to pursue creative work early on. At the age of 20, he began his architecture studies at the Universidad Iberoamericana.

Dear readers,

As the end of the year approaches, we would like to thank you all once again for making 2018 our best year yet. Thanks to your continuous support and our close connection with our readers, we now reach far more architects around the world, inspiring them to create better urban environments.

Every Sunday morning, 120 kilometers of Bogotá are transformed into an extensive cycling circuit. This is La Ciclovía, a cultural and recreational initiative in which some of the Colombian capital's streets are designated as wide bike paths, allowing both residents and tourists to travel across Bogotá by bicycle.

In a radio interview broadcast by RCN, architect Jaime Ortiz recalls the origins of the ciclovía in the 1970s, when it emerged as a proposal developed alongside other architects to open up major avenues as cycling spaces every Sunday.

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Videos

Andrés Arochi directed a video that portrays dancing bodies experiencing the space of the Luis Barragán House and Studio, a site in Mexico City famous for the introspective quality of its gardens and the characteristic mysticism of the Mexican architect. Regarding the video Dancing through the Architecture of Luis Barragán, Arochi comments:

This is not the first time that iconic works of architecture have served as a stage for dancing bodies; there is seemingly an intrinsic connection between these two art forms. Exercises like this remind us that architecture is not merely an assembly of concrete, steel, and glass ready to shelter its users, but rather a series of actions harboring a collection of breaths, moments, and movements that give meaning to a place, as Spanish philosopher Marina Garcés writes:

Videos

We interviewed Gabriela Etchegaray (curator) and Jorge Ambrosi (exhibition designer) about the participation of the Mexican Pavilion in the 16th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale. They describe the geographical, imaginary, and cultural weight of Mexican architecture; responding to the theme of Freespace—proposed by the Biennale's Artistic Directors, Irish architects Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara—this pavilion grounds the connections expressed in the interaction with the intangible and the incorporation of cultural heritage into architecture.

“Adonde vas Chiloé” is a platform created by the Colegio de Arquitectos de Chile. Conceived as a space for impartial, timely information focused on the local territory and its culture, the initiative has evolved over its three years as a radio program. Today, it serves as a platform to promote and showcase architectural work across the Chiloé Archipelago, aiming to establish itself as a national benchmark for professional association initiatives and a specialized medium for architecture, culture, and territorial development initiatives.

In contemporary urban design, spatial organization, mobility, the demand for new connections, and the boundaries established between public and private space have increasingly become the focus of discussions surrounding the future of global cities, and equally so in Brazil. Under this model of rapid growth, certain built structures have created urban barriers, presenting distinct obstacles.

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Today, August 24, architect Oswaldo Arthur Bratke would have celebrated his 111th birthday. As one of the leading figures of São Paulo's modernist architecture, he stands out alongside prominent names such as Affonso Eduardo Reidy and the Roberto brothers, among many others. He entered the School of Engineering at Mackenzie University in 1926, graduating in 1931 as an engineer-architect. Two years after graduating, he established a solid partnership with architect Carlos Botti, with whom he designed a series of collaborative projects, most notably the Grande Hotel in Campos do Jordão.

Urban form can be understood as the physical “face” of a city. The organization of public and built spaces is what determines a city's urban form. Consequently, a city can be sprawling – characterized by low population densities, a reliance on private transport, and long commutes –, or compact, featuring balanced densities and multiple centralities. Achieving this latter model requires robust land-use management closely integrated with public transit planning.

On October 20, the Museu da Casa Brasileira will host the launch of the book Uma ideia de arquitetura – escritos de Lina Bo Bardi, by Marina Grinover. During the event, the author will join José Tavares Correia de Lira (Professor at FAUUSP), Renato Anelli (IAU-USP), and Ana Maria Belluzzo (FAUUSP) for a panel discussion.

As you know, ArchDaily has joined forces with Spotify, the world's largest music streaming platform. From the very beginning, we have been sharing our own playlists for those key moments in the lives of all architects. At the same time, we have invited architects from Latin America and Spain to share the music that inspires them, or better yet, the sounds that have shaped their careers.

In this installment of ArchDaily en Español + Spotify, we share our most popular playlist: Música para Maquetear (Music for Model Making). If you have to spend your day among cardboard and renders, this ten-hour playlist will keep you company during those long late-night sessions.

A solar energy system has been under construction since September of this year at El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá, Colombia. It is currently billed as the largest photovoltaic project in Latin America, according to local and international media outlets such as El Tiempo and EFE.

Set to begin operations in the first quarter of 2019, the installation will feature over 10,000 solar panels and have a capacity of 2,800 kWp. It will generate 3,815,000 kWh annually, equivalent to the energy consumed by 1,590 homes. Additionally, the project will use 89.4 km of cabling—a length comparable to the distance between Bogotá and Villavicencio.

“Ensuring, through built works, that those ideas explained with these words stand up will be the best proof that those ideas are valid and these words true.”
(Campo Baeza – “The Built Idea”).

The Mendoza Association of Architects CAMZA has announced a new edition of Architecture Month MDA2018 under the theme "The Built Idea," to be held from August 28 to 31 at the Nave Cultural in the city of Mendoza.

Videos

From the Fundación Arquia Blog, architect Zaida Muxí brings us an article that provides basic clarifications on gender-perspective urbanism for beginners, exploring how to build cities from and for women, but not in an exclusive or exclusionary way.

To shape humanity in its truly comprehensive capacity within the dimension of gender, women's movements and feminist philosophical analysis have ethically exposed the alienation that over-identifies women with men and their symbols, while disidentifying men from women and their symbols.

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For Gabriela Etchegaray, curator of the Mexican Pavilion at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, “the exhibition draws on the language of muralism as a fundamental element in Mexico's history to reactivate reconstruction processes and collective identities. It represents the search for a shared perspective to confront the constant imbalances the country is forced to address. The disasters experienced in recent years emphasize a broader, mandatory ethical role for architecture; they urge us to build upon the territory with attention to the physical and cultural variables that determine design processes. The formulation of desires and fantasies is shaped by the echoes of its land, demonstrating that architecture should not be a reality in itself, but rather a discourse derived from reality.”

Last Thursday, Iphan—the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage—announced the third public competition for permanent positions in the institution's history. Authorized by the Ministry of Planning, Budget, and Management, the competition will fill 411 permanent positions nationwide: 104 for Analyst I, 176 for Technician I, and 131 for Institutional Assistant I.

Esquina, a blog by journalist Mariana Barros hosted on the Estadão portal, has launched the special series #EsquinaNaUrna to present presidential candidates with the primary demands for improving Brazilian cities. You can submit your question to Esquina, and the blog will select a group of questions to be answered by the leading candidates in the polls.

'Trenzando' is now underway. Designed by architect Daniela Gutiérrez and built from shipping containers, this traveling cultural center aims to promote decentralization by activating and traveling across the railway networks of northern, central, and southern Chile. 'Trenzando' will bring cultural and technological development programs—including workshops, exhibitions, seminars, training sessions, laboratories, artistic performances, and film workshops—to non-metropolitan communities.

Working hand-in-hand with a wide range of product manufacturers and suppliers allows us to access valuable information to support design and construction processes using different types of materials.

To make this knowledge readily available, we have compiled a series of guides, manuals, and tips covering everything from working with laminated wood and installing cladding, to applying protective finishes and varnishes. Read 12 useful articles below.

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The Instituto Tomie Ohtake AkzoNobel Architecture Prize has announced the selected projects for its 2018 edition. In its fifth year, this is the first time the prize has selected 13 finalist projects, rather than 10 as in previous editions.