An unprecedented initiative for Brazil's representations at the International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, the Muros de Ar exhibition allocated one month for submissions and evaluations of public projects to be included in the curatorial selection occupying the Brazilian pavilion starting May 26. The open call selected 17 projects in Brazil that use architecture as an instrument to mediate conflicts, transition between public and private domains, and connect distinct urban fabrics.

Collectively curated by architects Gabriel Kozlowski, Laura González Fierro, Marcelo Maia Rosa, and Sol Camacho, who were selected by the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo to organize the exhibition, the open call received 289 projects from more than 60 Brazilian cities.

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One of the most representative houses by Mexican architect José Díaz Infante that served as an experiment to study urban processes was the 'Earthquake-Resistant House' located at Ámsterdam 270. Also known as 'Kalikosmia,' this house addressed themes that broke with the purist forms common at the time, making it highly controversial. Furthermore, it was the result of an analysis based on the aftermath of the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City.

The Mexican architect defined himself as a "spatial designer," saying, "(...) I am timeless, I am not in history because I am more in science than in style. I do not belong to an era. My work has evolved in accordance with the different structures I have built. I treat each program differently, and in each project, I contribute something that I deny in the next." This was reflected in his career: in addition to being an architect, he collaborated with NASA and studied under Buckminster Fuller. As the designer of major works like the TAPO terminal and the Mexican Stock Exchange, he is today among the forgotten.

Registration is now open for the 1st National Public Photography Contest organized by the Council of Architecture and Urbanism of Goiás (CAU/GO), under the theme “Historic Heritage in Architecture and Urbanism.” Submissions will be accepted until 4:00 PM on September 24 at the CAU/GO headquarters.

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'Monumento: Humanity Behind the Concrete' is a documentary by Fernando Díaz on the construction of the National Holocaust Memorial in Buenos Aires, designed by architects Gustavo Nielsen and Sebastián Marsiglia.

The film establishes a dialogue between Holocaust survivors living in Buenos Aires and the construction of the monument, addressing the need to keep humanity's memory alive.

Watch the trailer for the documentary below.

On the morning of March 10, 2018 (Beijing time), at the 2018 Civic Trust Awards ceremony held at Manchester's iconic Old Trafford stadium (home of Manchester United), OPEN's completed project, the “Tsinghua Ocean Center,” was honored with a Civic Trust Award!

Established in the UK in 1959, this prestigious award is highly regarded, because it recognizes not only outstanding project design but also its value to the public. From urban planning to public art, the awards consider the built environment within a broader context, driven by the belief that design must serve its users.

The modernization of Bogotá between 1940 and 1970, captured through urban and architectural photo essays, has been documented in various books, magazines, and photobooks of the era, as well as in the city's public and private archives. These images reveal an intentional, even critical, approach to how modern architecture reconfigured city centers, bridging new buildings and urban spaces with the existing cityscape.

When analyzing the impact of photojournalism, it is essential to examine the work of Sady González, Manuel H. and Daniel Rodríguez. In their work, architecture and the city serve as the backdrop for scenes of urban life, figures, historical events, and daily activities; their photographs offer an indispensable visual record for understanding the city's transformation and its historical context.

In this edition of Bogotá through the Eyes of 10 Photographers, we explore the legacy of Manuel H.:

Designed by Rogelio Salmona, the Bogota Museum of Modern Art (MAMBO) appeared on Monday morning with a "For Rent" sign on its facade, drawing the attention of local media outlets like Dinero and La W.

The latter contacted the phone number listed on the sign and spoke with a Carlos Muñoz, an alleged real estate agent who confirmed that "the museum's spaces, totaling 4,200 square meters, have been put up for rent for 120,000,000 pesos a month" (equivalent to approximately 43,200 USD). The alleged agent provided details about the building's program as if marketing any other real estate listing. Furthermore, as the newspaper Dinero confirmed, calls to the MAMBO communications office went to a recorded message confirming that Salmona's building was indeed for rent.

Yesterday, Monday (September 10), the 3rd Latin American Landscape Architecture Biennial announced the finalists for the competition, which will take place in Mexico City on September 26 and 27. Organized since 2014 by the Mexican Society of Landscape Architects (SAPM), the biennial seeks to highlight the role of landscape architecture in shaping the habitat in Latin America, with a particular emphasis on the environmental and social challenges facing the region.

"We seek to encourage participation in landscape construction to showcase the broad and diverse panorama of local interventions that ultimately help define a region sharing common challenges and solutions," the organizers state in the biennial's guidelines.

The 19 built works, unbuilt projects, and research papers meet the biennial's criteria, focusing on projects that respect the landscape and its values, demonstrate a commitment to sustainability, and integrate and address social issues, among other criteria.

Discover the finalists below:

Imagine the scale of effort required to prevent 1.24 million deaths annually. This is the average number of traffic fatalities worldwide. Cities must urgently improve protection for their citizens to ensure that, amidst current urban population growth trends, this figure does not climb even higher. Yet, what if just eight actions were enough to prevent hundreds of deaths and serious injuries?

The publication “Cities Safer by Design” outlines “eight actions to improve road safety,” and we have looked at best practices and research that reflect some of these measures.

El Campo de Cebada has become a benchmark for self-management and the collective construction of public spaces, closely linked to the Spanish *acampadas* of 2011. In this article, the architecture collective Zuloark reflects on the key principles that made the experiment work.

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What is the difference between sustainable architecture and bioclimatic architecture? Both terms are frequently used within the profession, though their underlying principles were discovered centuries ago (referring to the vernacular tradition of architecture) and the terms themselves were derived from the concept of “sustainable development,” first proposed by Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Brundtland at the 42nd session of the United Nations in 1987:

But what is the difference between the two? They are highly similar concepts, varying only according to the intentions of the architect using them. To clarify: terms like sustainable architecture, green architecture, eco-architecture, or environmentally conscious architecture are often used by architects attempting to reflect a basic climatic awareness in their work, but whose actual “gestures” have little impact on energy efficiency. Their primary focus often ends up being to make the building appear “eco-friendly” through a green facade or a green roof. In most cases, these designs lack a real climatic foundation. By contrast, the second term, bioclimatic architecture (without any qualifiers), bases its entire raison d'être on the climate. The building's final appearance is secondary, as all design decisions stem from a preliminary study of the climate—treating it as a fundamental tool—and aim to understand and leverage it.

This gives rise to the concept of the “healthy building,” recently proposed by Harvard University's prestigious school of public health, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Focused on “building healthier communities around the world,” the school has launched the Healthy Buildings program at the Harvard Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment (C-CHANGE). One of its main goals has been to synthesize 30 years of public health science to identify what makes a building “healthy.” The result: the 9 Foundations of a Healthy Building. This 36-page study identifies key factors and details how they relate to human health. In addition to defining these factors, the study provides simple recommendations for each, including the regular assessment of both the factors and occupant needs. In short, it is a straightforward study—still far from frameworks like the Well Building Standard—but well-targeted and a step in the right direction.

The Dolmen Collection is based on an exploration of balance between elements of different materialities. This exercise highlights the physical properties of stone and wood, creating tension between the suspended and supporting elements. Designed by Héctor Esrawe, Manuel Bañó, Federico Stefanovich, and Alejandro Ramírez, it comprises a dining table with chairs and a cabinet.

'Alta Densidad' (High Density) is a project by architect Jorge Taboada comprising a series of aerial photographs that depict the stories of a city. This series is presented as an "archaeological vestige" where "people lose their face and identity and become invisible."

The history of social housing in Mexico has come a long way, undergoing transformations that concern not only architecture, but also the organizations leading their construction and the government. 

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Domotics = Domus ('home' in Latin) + Autonomous ('self-governing' in Greek)

True to its name, domotics enables a home to function intelligently, responding to user needs through automated systems that improve spatial habitability and comfort, increase security, and boost long-term energy and financial savings.

By utilizing sensors, motorized systems, wireless technologies, and direct integration with smartphones or tablets, domotics is here to stay. It can be integrated into architectural projects from the initial stages through various automated systems. How can this be achieved? Here is a selection of solutions classified by their benefits: energy savings, comfort, accessibility, and security.

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Designed by Fabián Leiva, the Floating Cemetery project was selected as one of the 10 winners in the Thesis Project category of the 2018 Arquitectura Caliente Competition (CAC 2018), a Chilean contest organized by Grupo Arquitectura Caliente and funded by the Ministry of Cultures, Arts, and Heritage.

In 2004, the Ralco reservoir in the Biobío Region was unexpectedly and irreversibly flooded, burying the local Pehuenche community's cemetery beneath its waters. Following years of trying to recover the bodies, studies demonstrated that salvage was unfeasible, leaving the inhabitants helpless in the face of the millions of cubic meters of water separating them from the cemetery. This situation sparked the idea to create a space in memory of a sacred, violated, and unrecoverable site—one that would bring the community closer to their deceased and eternally condemn the event.

The official results for the National Competition for the Requalification of the Public Space of the Monumental Axis of Maringá have been released. This central urban area lies between Cathedral Square (Praça da Catedral) and the Vila Olímpica sports complex. Totaling approximately 169,000 square meters, the Monumental Axis includes gardens, public spaces, parking areas, and perimeter paving along the building facades. Due to the site's vast scale, proposals had to be presented in seven sectors to facilitate phased bidding and construction. The winning project was designed by a team comprising Pedro Paes Lira, Manoela Muniz Machado, Julia Marini, Laura Figueiredo, and Juliette Tellier from the firm Natureza Urbana, with landscape consulting by Bianca Vasone, Gabriella Ornaghi, and Lilian Dazzi, and engineering consulting by Alexandre Horiye Ferreira and Felipe Macedo Barbosa.

The jury, composed of architects and urban planners Haroldo Pinheiro, José Gilberto Purpur, Mario Figueroa, Orlando Busarello, and Renato Leão Rego, selected the following winners:

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The Catalan archipelago is shaped, across almost its entire length, by a small mountain range running along it, rising from the coastline tangent to the sea to form cliffs, and extending barely a dozen kilometers at its greatest extent.

The architecture native to this coastal strip of land is repeatedly categorized as Catalan architecture, thereby overlooking and overshadowing the architecture of the inland—dark, somber, heavy, and intensely material. An architecture—that of the interior—of slow digestion, backlights, and still air, carrying a different scent.

To the northeast, we find a region where beech trees stand still, growing at a lower altitude than anywhere else in the country. Where the light is softer, more diffused; where shadows are both fainter and deeper. Where it rains differently. Where people speak differently. Where the masias are different. There they live. There they work. We are speaking of Olot. We are speaking of RCR.

On November 24, 2016, the Superior Council of Colleges of Architects of Spain (CSCAE) awarded the Gold Medal of Spanish Architecture to architects Guillermo Vázquez Consuegra and Víctor López Cotelo. This would have been routine, were it not for the complete absence of women architects among the winners, nominees, finalists, jury members, and the presenting panel.

This discrepancy was highlighted in a petition on Change.org addressed to Jordi Ludevid, then-president of the CSCAE, in which the signing architects called for greater active participation of women at all stages of the process, seeking equal representation with their male colleagues.

Architects Rafael Pina and Nicolás Maruri, from the ARKRIT Collective, reflect on the soccer fields nestled within the adobe and rammed earth settlements of Morocco's High Atlas. Having barely altered the territory, these spaces integrate and merge into the topography through minimal modifications and actions for a single, simple purpose: to play.

Construction requires mobilizing material resources and human labor, inevitably transforming the territory. Building with what is readily available is a stance that can be driven by ethics, but also by necessity. In either case, the outcome is usually economical and fitting. Resource consumption is kept to a minimum, and adaptation to the environment becomes a natural consequence.

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Open House, the international festival that invites the public to visit iconic landmarks in various cities such as London, New York, Barcelona, and Buenos Aires, launched its first edition in Mexico City with a press conference. There, Mariela Martínez, Victoria Escalante, and Mar Tomás, the festival's organizers, presented the buildings that will be part of OHCDMX, which the public can visit on April 21 and 22 of this year.

Since the installation of Speculator in 2008 —the year the Spanish real estate bubble burst— the Spanish multidisciplinary collective has been characterized by its collaborative practices, co-production processes, and civic management models. Over ten years, the numbers speak for themselves: 15 countries, 18 agreements, 29 institutions, 43 grassroots organizations, and 96 projects, including Campo de Cebada in Madrid and the La Y Cultural Hub in Caracas (Venezuela), as part of the government project Espacios de Paz.

TXP explains their methodology: "We start with a preliminary diagnosis that allows us to understand the keys, codes, and particularities of each process. We then define a context for collaborative design where the proposal is prototyped based on collective interests."

"In our practice, we propose a dynamic combination of scopes that tailors the project based on available parameters, allowing us to define a consensus-driven model that responds resiliently. We establish frameworks for collective construction that foster learning environments, serving as tools for civic appropriation and empowerment. Finally, we design management models that address the specific needs of each case, establishing protocols for use and maintenance," they add.

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On this occasion, architect Jaime Nadal, representing the ARKRIT Collective, brings us an article that delves into the controversial demolition of the famed Casa Guzmán by architect Alejandro de la Sota—a highly praised, widely published, and iconic building of the architectural renaissance in Spain.

Earlier this week, the mayor of the municipality of Recoleta (Chile), Daniel Jadue, announced the creation of a municipal real estate agency. The initiative, unprecedented in the South American country, consists of the construction of two 5-story buildings with a total of 38 apartments of 55 square meters, available for rent to vulnerable families in the municipality.

According to a report by 24 Horas, the newscast of Chile's state-owned television channel, one out of four families in the municipality shares a home with another household, a common phenomenon in Chile known as allegamiento (cohabitation). At the same time, Recoleta is experiencing rapid residential densification due to saturation and rising costs in neighboring municipalities such as Santiago Centro and Providencia.