On October 24, 2024, the Rogelio Salmona Latin American Architecture Prize award ceremony took place, honoring works that have significantly created meaningful, open, and collective spaces for the public in the region. During the event, held at the Virgilio Barco Public Library auditorium in Bogotá, Colombia, the winners of this prestigious award were announced. This year marked the fourth cycle, titled "Open Spaces/Collective Spaces," with participation from 47 projects.

The jury, composed of international figures such as Sol Camacho (Brazil-Mexico), Nicolás Campodonico (Argentina), Carlos Campuzano (Colombia), and Mauricio Rocha (Mexico), first shortlisted 26 selected works, from which two were awarded the first prize in the Latin America and Colombia categories.

The Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) at the College of Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology has announced the shortlist of 53 Outstanding projects. The 5th cycle of awards celebrates built works completed in North, Central, and South America in 2022 and 2023, striving to bring visibility to those projects that best address the demands of our time and work towards building resilient communities.

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The ‘Rogelio Salmona Latin American Architecture Prize: open spaces / collective spaces’ seeks to recognize built works of architecture that create significant spaces for citizens, helping to foster more welcoming cities. Unlike previous editions, this year two categories were established: Latin America and Colombia.

From the 42 submissions, the jury—comprising Sol Camacho (Brazil/Mexico), Nicolás Campodónico (Argentina), Carlos Campuzano (Colombia), Carlos Jiménez (Spain/Colombia), and Mauricio Rocha (Mexico)—selected 26 Latin American works to be published, featured, and exhibited during this 2024 edition. The final awards ceremony will take place on October 24 of this year.

Founded by architects Felipe Mesa and Federico Mesa, the Plan:b arquitectos studio is located in the city of Medellín, Colombia, bringing together building design, participation in academic activities, and the construction of concepts capable of connecting architecture with the urgent realities of everyday life. Understanding the architectural project as a provisional pact, permeable configuration, and positive expression of eco-social constraints, they have constructed a large number of buildings of various scales and programs since 2000, ranging from public, educational, and sports spaces to housing, offices, hotels, and installations.

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With the high population density of cities and voracious appetite of the market for every square meter, it is not uncommon for urban vegetation to be forgotten. For this reason, forests, vegetable gardens, and vertical gardens have aroused much interest and figured into a variety of different innovative proposals. Using the vertical plane to maintain plants in an urban setting is a coherent and common-sense solution, especially when there is little possibility of bringing green to the level of the people on the streets.

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For much of the world, this past year was spent within the confines of our homes, undoubtedly blurring the lines between our public, professional, and private lives and transforming our living spaces into places of work and productivity. This transformation of spaces and how they are used is nothing new in the world of architecture as countless spaces take on various roles beyond what they were originally designed for--a fact reflected in their layout, design, and the materials used within them.

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Being a region characterized by its wide variety of landscapes, biodiversity and thermal floors, the design of interior patios in Colombian homes accompanies the living, resting, access, and circulation spaces, being, on many occasions, protagonists and a source of contact with the surrounding nature.

As engines of the economy and production, cities are home to the largest masses of people and it is estimated that by 2050, they will be home to 70% of the world's population. In this context, architects are incorporating the articulation of mixed uses in their buildings on a daily basis, seeking to encourage diversification and avoid mono-functionalisation.

In its 2022 edition, the Colombian Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism celebrates 60 years of highlighting projects that preserve and enhance the urban, environmental, social, historical, and cultural values of the contexts in which they are built. Organized by the Colombian Society of Architects since 1962, the event has announced the 97 selected projects competing for the Biennial Award across nine categories covering different fields of architecture: Interior and Ephemeral Architecture; Urban Design and Landscaping; Dissemination; Social Habitat; Heritage Intervention; Research, Theory, and Criticism; Urban and Regional Planning; Architectural Project; and Single-family, Two-family, and Three-family Housing.

“Reading for Life” is the name of the pavilion of the Mayor’s Office of Bogotá designed by Yemail Arquitectura for this latest edition of the Bogotá International Book Fair (FILBO). Welcoming over 30,000 visitors, the pavilion made a significant impact by presenting a narrative that allowed visitors to understand the Colombian capital from different perspectives. It took into account the city’s rural composition while proposing a future with a more organic connection, where the diversity of the neighborhood, water, air, land, and all the cities found in reading, community, and nature coexist in a single space.

The International Union of Architects (UIA), in partnership with UN-HABITAT, have announced the Regional Finalists of first stage of the UIA 2030 Award. The biennial award, which is in its inaugural edition, honors the work of architects contributing to the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and New Urban Agenda through built projects that demonstrate design quality and alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

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“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.

Educational architecture is crucial for creating spaces that, not only nurture and mold the minds of the future generations, but also provide spaces for the wider public to come and share knowledge and ideas. 

Maria Montessori began to develop her educational method at the beginning of the 20th century. In general terms, the method is a scientific pedagogy that promotes an education that positively contributes to the development of children's brains, respecting their individuality and stimulating their autonomy, self-esteem, and self-confidence. 

Although the method was created in the last century, science is currently beginning to test much of the information investigated by Maria Montessori. For this reason, it is  increasingly being applied to architecture for children’s educational spaces, improving the quality of children's learning and development and providing them with better tools for their future lives.