Bogotá is a metropolis that celebrates the convergence of different architectures, reflecting a significant part of Colombia's diverse culture and geography. Limited by the Eastern Hills, it is not only one of the highest capitals in the world, reaching almost 2,600 meters above sea level, but its history dates back to its foundation as the center of the New Kingdom of Granada in the year 1538.
This guide aims to provide an overview of its colonial, modern, and contemporary architecture, highlighting its main buildings and architectural points of interest. From its civic spaces to renowned public projects such as museums, libraries, and cultural centers, this list of 30 sites showcases works by modern architects like Rogelio Salmona and Germán Samper, as well as contemporary ones like Equipo Mazzanti and TAB. We hope it helps you get to know the city!
Terra is the title of Brazil's participation in the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, an exhibition curated by Gabriela de Matos and Paulo Tavares that occupies the spaces of the Brazilian pavilion at the Giardini. Divided into two galleries, the exhibition challenges the canons of modern architecture while seeking alternatives for a decolonized and decarbonized future in marginalized ancestral narratives. Terra is the first Brazilian pavilion to be awarded the Venice Architecture Biennale's highest honor, the Golden Lion.
In an effort to expand access to the content exhibited in Venice, we present here the texts and images from the second gallery, titled Places of Origin, Archaeologies of the Future. The first gallery, Decolonizing the Canon, can be revisited here. ArchDaily would like to thank the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, which generously provided the material from the Terra pavilion for this publication.
https://www.archdaily.com/1136152/places-of-origin-archaeologies-of-the-future-brazils-terra-pavilion-at-the-venice-biennaleGabriela de Matos e Paulo Tavares
Designated by the United Nations (UN), June 17 was established as the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, a date that serves to raise awareness about these phenomena while promoting initiatives to address them. Broadly speaking, desertification refers to the process of land degradation in arid regions, caused primarily by human activities and climatic variations. This phenomenon leads to the loss of vegetation cover, soil erosion, and reduced agricultural productivity, among other negative consequences. Drought, on the other hand, is a prolonged period of abnormally low rainfall resulting in water scarcity, which can have severe impacts on ecosystems, agriculture, and human livelihoods.
Neuroarchitecture can be highly valuable in helping people with dementia maintain their autonomy. Creating stimulating, supportive, and safe environments helps them remain engaged and independent for longer. Designing a practical, supportive home that promotes cognitive function, emotional well-being, and social interaction is essential.
Given the rapid growth of the global elderly population, studies show that more than one-third of older adults live in their own homes despite declining cognitive and physical abilities. However, not all can be considered fully autonomous, as they often require assistance to perform some of their daily activities.
No País dos Arquitectosis a podcast created by Sara Nunes, who also runs the architectural film production company Building Pictures. The show aims to introduce the professionals, projects, and stories behind leading contemporary Portuguese architecture. With just over 10 million inhabitants, Portugal is a fascinating country when it comes to this professional field, and its architectural output far exceeds its population or territorial scale.
In this episode of the fifth season, Sara talks with designer Ana Aragão about her illustrations dedicated to architecture and cities. Listen to the conversation and read part of the interview below.
The 18th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, inaugurated on May 20th, is truly embodying its theme: "The laboratory of the future". Presented by the main curator Lesley Lokko, it invited "architects and professionals from an expanded field of creative disciplines to draw examples from their contemporary practices that would pave a path for the audience to move forward, imagining for themselves what the future may hold."
The Chilean pavilion, curated by Gonzalo Carrasco, and Alejandro Beals, as well as Loreto Lyon (Beals Lyon Arquitectos), was centered on "Moving Ecologies." The exhibition presented the current challenges regarding ecological repair and restoration, focusing on the study of soil recovery processes using endemic seeds.
https://www.archdaily.com/1003230/moving-ecologies-the-future-will-not-only-be-built-but-also-sown-and-plantedArchDaily Team
Retractable Shade, Dallas. Image Courtesy of ShadeFX
Shade refers to a region or state where sunlight is partially obstructed by objects or structures. This concept plays a crucial role in architectural design, as it significantly impacts comfort and functionality. It offers relief from direct sunlight, helps regulate temperature, and reduces glare. For these reasons, architects strategically incorporate shading elements to enhance the quality and utility of spaces, especially in outdoor residential areas. In this context, ShadeFX are manufacturers of innovative sun, rain and privacy solutions that are customized for every project regardless of size or complexity.
https://www.archdaily.com/1001187/four-retractable-shade-solutions-for-residential-exteriorsEnrique Tovar
In Brazil, over 80% of the population lives in urban areas, and walking is the primary mode of transportation in cities, accounting for 39% of daily trips, according to the ANTP (National Association of Public Transport). If we consider that public transit trips start and end on foot, walking is involved in about 67% of daily journeys. Since walking is already the reality for Brazilians, what is missing? Improving urban infrastructure to make cities more "walkable."
Contemporary family living setups mean parents and grandparents in need of care, teenagers and young adults in need of independence, and homeowners in need of the financial security of a guaranteed passive income are all finding themselves in the same situation, and under the same roof. With little extra space to move into, and few options in an increasingly squeezed housing market to move out to, the simple solution is just to add another roof.
For those in the market for more functional floorspace, detached single-story ADUs (accessory dwelling units) are a simple way to boost a home’s usability fast, while avoiding the regulatory wranglings inherent in more complex structural adaptations.
Primer Premio. Image Cortesía de Lesch Alfaro Arquitectos
The Municipality of San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca commissioned the Catamarca Union of Architects to organize the National Preliminary Draft Ideas Competition for the Southern Environmental Park, aiming to gather innovative ideas to create the province's first carbon-neutral urban park.
"Peripheral Cartographies", Laura Hurley; "Valter", Dinko Jelecevic; "Eden Archipelago", María de la O Molina Pérez-Tomé. Image Cortesía de Fundació Mies van der Rohe
As part of the collateral events of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Creative Europe and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe have announced the winners of the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture / Mies van der Rohe Awards 2023 in the Young Talent category. Alongside a series of debates, the awards ceremony took place at Palazzo Michiel in Venice.
As one takes a visual tour through the city, one might spot structures that break the rhythm of finished architectural products. These are buildings encased in grids of metal or wooden sections, sometimes wrapped in colored nets, that communicate a moment of construction, repair, renovation, or demolition. They are called scaffolding systems, temporary structures built in the city to aid in the erection or maintenance of buildings. However, they have evolved to speak their own architectural language. As city-making is a continuous process, scaffolds serve as beacons, proposing silhouettes of the height, shape, or forms of new buildings. They step into the sidewalks, acting as shade or obstructions to the flow of human and vehicular traffic. In contrast to the permanence of architecture, they exhibit a sense of temporality that helps communicate time, the growth of neighborhoods, and the evolution of a city.
The Unfolding Pavilion is a recurring exhibition and editorial project by Daniel Tudor Munteanu and Davide Tommaso Ferrando that aims to highlight previously inaccessible but architecturally significant spaces. Now in its fourth edition, the exhibition is dedicated to the Giardini della Biennale, the Venetian garden that became the main location for one of the most important architecture exhibitions worldwide, the Venice Biennale. Through a series of site-specific interventions and photographs by Laurian Ghinițoiu, the Unfolding Pavilion #OPENGIARDINI set out to explore the paradoxical state of this public space that is not publicly accessible.
Jardim Paulistano neighborhood. Photo by Alexandre Giesbrechtm, via Flickr. License CC BY-SA 2.0
More People, Fewer Trees? In the face of the climate crisis, tree-lined streets—once merely desirable—have become an essential attribute for quality of life in São Paulo. Meanwhile, population density in the infrastructure-rich expanded center seems to be the most efficient path for the capital's growth. But are these two goals truly at odds? Does higher density inevitably mean more concrete and fewer trees? In a recent column for Jovem Pan, architect and urban planner Helena Degreas highlighted the ongoing loss of urban canopy in the city. In her view, this is a reflection of the "unbridled densification resulting from the guidelines of São Paulo's Strategic Master Plan, combined with regulations regarding tree removal along urban transformation development axes." In just four years, the Pinheiros Subprefecture alone reportedly lost over three thousand trees. Indeed, defending the city's "green lungs" is one of the central arguments supporting the historical resistance of residents in neighborhoods like Jardim América, Jardim Europa, Alto de Pinheiros, and Pacaembu to any changes in zoning laws that would encourage population density in these areas. On the other hand, according to research conducted by the Coalition for Urban Transitions, an initiative of the New Climate Economy, and the Urban Land Institute, evidence shows that increases in urban density are linked to declines in both local and per capita carbon emissions and energy consumption. This reduction in emissions is driven by factors such as decreased private vehicle use, greater energy efficiency in buildings, less built infrastructure, and fewer land-use changes on urban fringes. Consequently, dense cities are greener cities. These factors underpinned the argument made by architect and urban planner Anthony Ling in defense of proposed changes to the 2015 Zoning Law in his article "The Struggle of São Paulo's Elite to Exclude the City," published in Caos Planejado. To mark World Environment Week (June 5 to 9) and contribute to this controversial debate, I cross-referenced the number of street trees per square kilometer (vertical axis) with inhabitants per square kilometer (horizontal axis) across São Paulo's 96 districts, sharing the analysis in a LinkedIn post. If it were true that population density and green density in São Paulo necessarily move in opposite directions, we would see a clear negative correlation between the two variables. However, as the chart below shows, that is not the case. As the chart demonstrates, several districts have both green and population densities above the city average—such as Jardim Paulista, Vila Mariana, Consolação, and Perdizes. In Jardim Paulista, however, part of this high green density is due to the leafy neighborhood of Jardim América, where heritage preservation and zoning laws restrict construction and high-rises—consequently keeping population density low. The same occurs in the Perdizes district, which includes part of the Pacaembu neighborhood. In fact, focusing on the top of the chart, where districts with above-average green density are located, we do observe a slight negative correlation between green density and population density. Alto de Pinheiros has low population density but boasts the highest number of street trees per square kilometer in the city. As we move to the right on the chart toward districts with higher population densities, we see a drop in green density, as in Santa Cecília, República, and Bela Vista—though it is worth noting that even these districts remain above the city average. It is also true that higher population density, even in green areas, can mean fewer trees per capita. Bela Vista and República, for instance, despite their above-average green density, are among the districts with the lowest number of trees per inhabitant (highlighting the relevance of developments like Cidade Matarazzo in Bela Vista). Conversely, Butantã, despite having a green density close to the average, is one of the districts with the highest number of trees per inhabitant. However, it is when we factor price into the analysis (represented by circle size) that São Paulo reveals its segregated nature once again, as previously identified by Properati, the consultancy that compiled the green density and price data—while population density data was sourced from the City Hall website. Broadly speaking, the districts with the highest green density are also among the capital's most expensive. Furthermore, wealthy areas concentrate most of the city's parks, such as Ibirapuera Park (Vila Mariana), Parque do Povo (Itaim Bibi), Trianon Park (Jardim Paulista), and Augusta Park (Consolação). In other words, the benefits of green spaces in São Paulo also appear to be a privilege reserved for the few. The contrast between the two "Itaims" is particularly striking: on one hand, Itaim Bibi is green, wealthy, with below-average population density and nearly 150 street trees per thousand inhabitants; on the other, Itaim Paulista is low-income, densely populated, and has few street trees (just 25 per thousand inhabitants). To be clear, I am not suggesting that the construction of new buildings along the urban transformation axes is not leading to tree removal—I myself deeply regretted the removal of a massive, century-old tree on a plot on Avenida Pompeia, near my home, to make way for a new building. The issue, however, may not be high-rise development and population density in themselves, but rather a lack of oversight and strategic planning to preserve existing trees—or to promote urban reforestation. As Helena Degreas herself points out, "in the city of São Paulo, tree planting is carried out by subprefectures on a compensatory basis—meaning that for every tree removed within a subprefecture's territory, another must be planted anywhere else in the city. It is at this point that issues related to local microclimate, soil permeability, and biodiversity are bypassed solely by the logic of real estate density." Her proposal to plant trees in the exact location where they were removed makes perfect sense. "Removing a tree from my street and planting it elsewhere makes no sense when it comes to local microclimate and resident well-being," she rightly argues. Furthermore, urban greening or even creating small garden beds on sidewalks almost always falls on property owners, without proper planning or public sector incentives. Structured, coordinated initiatives could significantly improve the microclimate and quality of life for those who use these public spaces. When properly planned, population density tends to create more resilient, efficient, diverse, and prosperous areas, both socioeconomically and environmentally, as evidence suggests. Thus, what the resistance to density in certain areas seems to reveal, rather than a legitimate defense of the city's green spaces, is the old, disappointing defense of established privileges. Extremely well-located, close to high-paying jobs and major cultural and leisure facilities, areas with high green density and low population density are among the most expensive in the city. "What they want to maintain is the quality of life in their own neighborhood—the silence, the greenery [...] but to call that public interest? No," stated Flávio Villaça, one of Brazil's most prominent urban planners, quoted by Ling in his article. Via Caos Planejado.
Courtesy of Abeer Seikaly | Photo by Hussam Da’na.
A group of 31 architects, studios, and designers have been invited to participate in the Sharjah Architecture Triennial from 11 November to 10 March 2024. For its second edition, the Triennial aims to explore innovative design solutions emerging from conditions of scarcity in the Global South. The participants, representing 27 countries, offer a diverse and international response to the theme, addressing its implications for the future of architecture. The Triennial is curated by Tosin Oshinowo and revolves around the theme "The Beauty of Impermanence: An Architecture of Adaptability."
The final installment of The Architect's Studio series at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art showcases the works of Cave_bureau, an architectural studio from Kenya. The exhibition explores the volcanic caves of Kenya, emphasizing the concept of "reversed futurism." Cave_bureau believes that by studying the past, they can develop sustainable solutions for the future.
Image created in DALL-E by Lucas Reitz under the prompt: "an illustration of shopping mall sitting and waiting areas with couches and arm chair only occupied by white middle class men"
Space as a gender adjacency and sexuality's spatial dimension are recent themes in architecture. The case of the bathroom as a gender-regulating device is a constantly discussed topic at the intersections of queer theory in architecture. The discussion is even broader within LGBTQIA+ guidelines.
Recently, I resolved that I wasn’t going to be drawn into the silly posturing about how ChatGPT would take the jobs of every experienced architect on earth before 2030, but an intelligent post on this website by Geethanjali Raman and Mohik Acharya broke that resolve. What isn’t being stressed is that algorithms that sample internet-based information are only as good as the quality of that information. Architectural history suggests that all new things have a shelf life, quickly fading from view after being hyped. Only the best will persist after a lengthy period of evaluation and criticism. Any new architecture widely praised and available since the rise of the internet is likely to be untested by time and thus not worth using as a benchmark. And let’s face it: Some of the worst buildings ever designed by humans are out there in cyberspace, crowding out better ones that haven’t yet been digitized.
https://www.archdaily.com/1003243/architects-must-resist-the-ai-revolutionMark Alan Hewitt
In this fifth feature, we met with co-chairs of design for Inclusivity architect Magda Mostafa, Professor of Design, Department of Architecture, the American University in Cairo and architect Ruth Baumeister, Associate Professor of Theory and History, Aarhus School of Architecture.
SNHU Innovation and Design Education Building / HGA. Image Courtesy of Cupa Pizarras
When designing architectural projects, protecting a building’s walls is key for ensuring its longevity, durability, and resistance to the elements, therefore preserving its aesthetic appeal. Among the protective measures available, cladding systems are exterior coverings that integrate varying textures, colors and finishes, allowing for customization and creative expression, while also providing weather resistance and thermal performance.
Exploring materials beyond traditional masonry cladding or commercial curtain wall systems, Cupa Pizarras has developed natural slate rainscreen facades. From linear to honeycomb patterns, these geometric facade layouts meet the requirements of current architectural trends, which demand more sustainable and energy-efficient buildings. The combination of high-durability tectonic slate with innovative fastening techniques, as well as the efficiency of rainscreen cladding, makes CUPACLAD a sustainable and aesthetically pleasing alternative for enhancing the LEED certification of projects.
Courtesy of Aranya Theater Festival, MAD Architects Qi Ziying
Ma Yansong revealed The City of Time, a performance space and the location of a 300-hour artist residency created for the Aranya Theater Festival in China. Following the metaphor of avian migration, the Migratory Birds 300 is an artist residency program that brings together 300 creators from diverse fields and backgrounds. From June 12 to June 25, Ma Yansong’s architectural intervention will host a wide array of artistic expressions, including shows, installations, sculptures, performance art, paintings, and videos, including 131 group works and 194 individual projects.
The 35th Bienal de São Paulo – choreographies of the impossible, organized by the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo and curated by Diane Lima, Grada Kilomba, Hélio Menezes, and Manuel Borja-Villel, presents the complete list of participating artists and collectives. The exhibition design for this edition is by the São Paulo-based office Vão.
The announced list consolidates the extensive research carried out by the curators into urgent issues of the contemporary world, revealing a diversity of forms, movements, and interpretations under the theme "choreographies of the impossible." Featuring 120 confirmed names, the list embraces voices from the diasporas and indigenous peoples, fostering a broader local and international dialogue.
Genoa, Italy. Created by @dailyoverview. Image source: @maxartechnologies
The installation of commercial ports in various locations around the world, especially at the beginning of what we now call globalization, was a preponderant and structuring factor for the foundation of numerous cities. Thus, discussing the relationship between certain cities and their ports is also discussing their history, formation, and development over time, as these areas played a fundamental role in the growth of trade, the economy, and inevitably urban life, making these cities vital and strategic centers of cultural, commercial, and social exchange.
