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With the rise of small houses and dense cities, we were forced to sacrifice a good amount of storage space. Ironically, we did not compromise our purchasing habits, so with a few square meters to work with, architects and designers had to come up with efficient storage solutions and make the best of the limited space they have. However, if you were lucky enough to be occupying a large, unobscured space with a generous budget, your storage design possibilities are endless. In this article, we look at how architects and designers found creative ways to store their belongings in spaces with different functions, scales, and spatial constraints, ranging from completely invisible units to sculptural centerpieces.

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In increasingly denser urban environments, there is a new-found interest in underused spaces as opportunities for further development. Representing up to 25% of cities' land area, rooftops are among the most exciting spatial resources. From sustainable infrastructure and urban farming to social spaces and cultural venues, the article looks into the potential of creating a multi-layered city through the activation of urban rooftops.

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Videos

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Glass is one of the most important discoveries of mankind. Originally used as a cutting tool, it has been around for about 75,000 years. The first records of glass making, however, date back to the Egyptian and Mesopotamian. Since then, the mastery of the manufacturing technique has been developing in different civilizations and nations until the Industrial Revolution popularized the material and allowed its production on a large scale. In architecture, glass was first used as a sealing element around 100 AD.

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In the 1960s, Jane Jacobs criticized modernist urban planning from the perspective of the integrated city. She believes that the purpose of urban renovation is to establish a better-integrated relationship between urban space and urban function by repairing the gap between them. Rather than "beautify" the urban environment.

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Democracy’s essence is the people's self-government and autonomy based on their own rights, and its characteristics are demonstrated through equality and participation. If democracy means a more equitable way of public life in architecture, then, this way of life is dependent on the homogenization of the building's spatial structure, with open, transparent, and functionally diverse public spaces. It is also possible to argue that the birth, maintenance, and demise of democracy all occurred in public space.

The democratic regime of Athens began in the sixth century B.C. The square became a meeting place, a symbol of architecture's democratic politics. Although people's access to assembly has become more widespread and convenient as technology has advanced, the existence of public space in the city remains critical, representing the spatial demands of citizens' public rights beyond the basic conditions of survival and serving an important spiritual function of expressing democracy. So, how architecture be democratic? How can we realize the public nature of architecture?

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