Last week, the Global Designing Cities Initiative (GDCI) released Designing Streets for Kids to set a new global baseline for designing urban streets. Designing Streets for Kids builds upon the approach of putting people first, with a focus on the specific needs of babies, children, and their caregivers as pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users in urban streets around the world.
The world of gastronomy is about far more than just food; space plays a vital role in the overall dining experience. To achieve this, architecture transcends mere functionality to cultivate distinct atmospheres through the meticulous curation of light, acoustics, color, texture, and form, ensuring both intimacy and comfort for diners.
The city of Lima—capital of Peru, a preeminent culinary destination—features a diverse array of restaurants and cafés that reflect the country's rich heritage. Below, we present a selection of 10 restaurants and cafés offering unique dining experiences across the city.
99+Imaginaris invited renowned architects from around the world to speculate on the future of Barcelona. Within the context of the Model Festival, curators Eva Franch i Gilabert and Josep Maria Montaner, alongside the design, coordination, and exhibition design by the Enric Miralles Foundation, brought together a wide-ranging series of sketches, ideas, visions, and models—from an edible Barcelona by Areti Markopoulou to a Barcelona of inflection points by Zaida Muxí.
The resulting exhibition catalog is a diverse archive of drawn manifestos—a document that allows us to review and debate future ways of living in the city. The curatorial text for 99+Imaginaris, along with the individual visions of its contributors, is presented below.
For another episode in the series on Social Interest Housing (HIS), Arquicast has selected a crucial chapter of our recent history: the Minha Casa Minha Vida Program (MCMV). The episode discusses the foundations of the so-called housing deficit, the program's progress, and its shortcomings.
In November 2022, the Network of Latin American Architecture Biennials REDBAAL will mark its first ten fruitful years, celebrating this milestone by launching the Fourth Edition of the Oscar Niemeyer Award for Latin American Architecture, the prestigious ON-04 Prize. This August, the jury's decision was announced, revealing the top three winners and recognizing the work of architects from Brazil and Mexico.
The capital of South Korea, officially known as Seoul Special City, is the largest metropolis in the country. From modern skyscrapers, high-tech subways, and expressions of pop culture, to traditional temples, palaces, and pagodas, Seoul is a captivating melting pot of old and new that all are guaranteed to enjoy.
If you plan on visiting Seoul and taking in most of what the vibrant city has for locals and tourists alike, the following list features 30 unique projects for you to indulge in and explore, providing you with a starting point for your metropolitan travels.
The firms Gênesi and EVO Arquitetos were awarded third place in the national competition Iconicidades, organized by the Government of the State of Rio Grande do Sul and launched in April this year. The initiative sought to select the best proposals for transforming public spaces into areas that stimulate the creative economy in the cities of Pelotas, Rio Grande, Santa Maria, Cachoeirinha, and São Leopoldo.
The Second Studio (formerly The Midnight Charette) is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features different creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions.
A variety of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes are interviews, while others are tips for fellow designers, reviews of buildings and other projects, or casual explorations of everyday life and design. The Second Studio is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.
This week David and Marina are joined by architect Tom Kundig, owner and design principal of Olson Kundig to discuss his childhood amongst artists and architects; mountain climbing, skiing, and a near-death experience; his philosophy and positive outlook on life; the practice and his partnership with Jim Olson; architectural processes, tools and his experience with materiality; opening a New York Office; and more.
Originating as protection against low temperatures around 3,500 years ago, carpets and rugs have, over time, evolved into a true art form, reaching a high level of specialization by the 16th century. Rugs, carpets, and tapestries of various shapes, colors, textures, and patterns are integrated into different areas of the home to meet users' needs and enhance spatial comfort, sometimes extending far beyond their original purpose.
Today, understanding the properties of materials used in vernacular construction is essential to ensuring a better quality of life and spatial habitability, both of which have evolved alongside new technologies in the market. Spatial design now represents a commitment to the natural environment and, consequently, to improving quality of life.
The award-winning Children Village project in Canuanã was developed by architecture firms Aleph Zero and Rosenbaum between 2016 and 2017. Located at a rural school that has been operating for nearly 40 years in Formoso do Araguaia, Tocantins, the complex serves approximately 842 boarding students. The architects were commissioned to redesign the accommodation—which consists of two identical villages, one for girls and one for boys, each designed for 270 students—and to devise an architectural solution to reorganize the students' living spaces within the school grounds.
A direct consequence of global warming, heatwaves have become increasingly devastating and frequent with each passing summer. The most recent of these has been sweeping across Europe for days, worsening in western nations, such as Belgium and the United Kingdom. The melting runway surface at Luton Airport and the fires in the village of Wennington, London, and in Calatayud, southwestern Spain, are just some of the incidents that underscore the critical scale of this crisis.
Modernist architecture came about in the early 20th century as a response to large-scale changes in technology, construction, and society; particularly through the use of glass, steel, and reinforced concrete. The style was typically associated with the function of buildings from an analytical viewpoint, rational use of materials, the elimination of ornamentation, and openness to structural innovation.
Paul Tunge is a Norwegian writer, director, and cinematographer of Arthouse Films who has been involved in film production since the early 2000s. Having written, directed, shot, and produced four independent films, alongside 3 documentaries, each of his projects has been featured during major film festivals across all continents, in galleries, and various national cinemas and cinematheques.
Tie-in sales are one of the major consumer rights issues and are typically banned in most market economies. They occur when a seller conditions the sale of one product or service on the purchase of another. In Brazil, the Consumer Defense Code, under Article 39, Subsection I, expressly condemns this practice. Meanwhile, Law 12,529/2011, which structures the Brazilian competition defense system, establishes in Article 36, Subsection XVIII, that tie-in sales constitute an infraction against the economic order.
Bringing fire indoors is something many people want during winter. In addition to warming the environment, fire creates a unique sensation that goes back to the beginnings of human habitation, leading us to a certain emotional comfort. Before, a chimney and a stock of firewood were needed to guarantee this, nowadays there are ecological fireplaces, which can be built-in or portable: a great choice for those who live in apartments or do not like the smoke generated by the fire.
Although the construction industry has spent years making strides in new fields such as biomaterials, nanotechnology, and 3D printing, it simultaneously remains one of the slowest to adopt new technology. Many of these innovations never progress past the experimental stage. How can this situation be reversed?
Organized by the Central Society of Architects (SCA) and sponsored by the Argentine Federation of Architectural Entities (FADEA), the Government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (GCBA) commissioned a preliminary design for a “Memorial Space for Covid-19 Victims” to be located in the southeastern area of the City of Buenos Aires, specifically in Florentino Ameghino Park in the Parque Patricios neighborhood.
"Light and movement allow us to achieve anything that is recognized as beautiful." This quote by Álvaro Siza Vieira, the universally acclaimed Portuguese architect, captures his philosophy. His work guides the relationship between built space and its surroundings, creating true works of art that prioritize nature. In furniture design, the approach can be similar. The intervention can indulge in the status of art, redefining meaning and joining new dialogues as if framed in a museum setting.
Driven by this provocation, Dell Anno presents an approach for its 2022 campaign that further strengthens its DNA of connecting architecture, art, and fashion. Titled Singular Dell Anno, the campaign draws a parallel with the sublime work of the Portuguese architect, paying tribute to his legacy of simplicity and architectural sophistication, which earned him global recognition and made him a major architectural influence today.
"Less is more!", "ornament is a crime", are some of the modern phrases that shaped the western architectural language in the last century and still continue to be a strong influence when thinking about spaces. Minimalism, even if it is hardly carried out within its original essence, still tends to value emptiness, aesthetic cleanliness and the purism of space.
When thinking of marble, we often associate the material with ancient Greek sculptures, Classical architecture, or the Italian Renaissance. Monumental landmarks such as the St. Peter’s Basilica or the Taj Mahal, have positioned marble as an elite and timeless material that stands the test of time. And in today's conversations about the future of construction materials, amid sustainability, feasibility, and affordability, the natural stone remains high-caliber. In this interior focus, we’re taking a look at marble between the past, present, and future.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Department of Assets, Information and Services (AIS) has announced that by 2025, all city-owned buildings and facilities in the city will be fully operated with clean, renewable energy. At the moment, Chicago is one of the largest cities in the United States to reduce the city’s carbon footprint at such a scale, and has already began the process of transitioning its transportation busses and cars to all-electric vehicles by 2035. The agreement demonstrates the city's plans to "drive high-impact climate action, build the clean energy workforce of the future, and equitably distribute meaningful benefits to foster the local clean energy economy for all.”
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Over the years, interior design has evolved according to the needs that arise, but above all according to the experiences it seeks to evoke in the user. In the last two years we have witnessed a radical change and a special interest in this subject because the pandemic forced us to pay specific attention to the configuration of the places we inhabit. This brought about much more holistic designs that seek to address the wellbeing of the user, combining colours, sensory experiences, technology and natural elements that promote health.
From supermarkets to superfoods, contemporary cultures of food production to consumption are based on the illusion that the crowning designation of “super” status represents a reliable global economic boom of food commodities in-play rather than a signal of an expanding cyclical agricultural crisis. Across diverse spaces that facilitate the extraction, transformation and distribution of food in this cycle—farms, warehouses, factories, grocery stores, restaurants—it is the domestic dining table, typically confined to food consumption, that is framed as a site for reinvention in the installation “Everything’s on the Table”.
LA-based practice Bunch Design was founded by Bo Sundius & Hisako Ichiki with a focus on light, materials and structure. At the core of their work is a desire to build in more mindful ways, making spaces that enrich everyday life. Recently, the duo have launched BunchADU to create custom and pre-designed Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) that can address pressing issues of housing.
