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Not every architectural project can incorporate a landscaping project, consider a garden or access to ample green space. Smaller spaces need more creative strategies to incorporate vegetation. Regardless of the context, plants offer benefits in all types of spaces, such as indoor temperature regulation, an option for sustainable production on a smaller scale than a greenhouse, in addition to their aesthetic qualities. In this article, we present 4 simple strategies and a selection of examples for incorporating plants in small-scale spaces, all of which can be found in Architonic's Planting section.

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Just before the global lockdowns began in response to the spread of the widely discussed COVID-19, we met with Saint Gobain experts at their new headquarters in Paris to discuss an extensive investigation conducted in 2019, with the aim of understanding the transformations that architecture and construction have experienced in recent years. After an interesting exchange of ideas, we chose the most relevant topics to be analyzed in depth by our team of editors, resulting in a series of articles that combined the trends identified with the unexpected events that occurred during 2020, connecting them directly to architectural design.

Now, entering an uncertain but promising 2021, we took the time to stop and reread these articles carefully. How many of these trends are still valid and how much have they evolved? What new trends are likely to develop in the coming years?

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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.

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On behalf of the entire ArchDaily team, we would like to thank you for your continued support and for making 2020 our best year so far! We are now reaching more architects around the world and inspiring them in the creation of better built environments. With more than 5500 different projects published during the year, our curators are excited to share this collection of the 100 most visited projects of 2020. This selection represents the best content created and shared by the ArchDaily community over the past 11 months.

Many factors influence people's well-being, but few have power as great as the quality of sleep. Adults spend, on average, a third of their day (and their life) sleeping. In the case of young children, this proportion is even higher. According to a study published by the WHO in 2019, babies (4 to 11 months) should sleep between 12 and 16 hours/day; and children up to 4 years old should sleep between 10 and 13 hours/day.

Quality sleep acts directly on the child's brain development, especially during his first and second childhood (from birth to 12 years old). During the rest period, the body releases the hormones necessary for growth and learning, and this is directly related to physical, motor, emotional, and cognitive development. It is also known that the environment where one sleeps interferes with the quality of that sleep, and some important aspects must be considered when designing sleeping spaces for children and babies.

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In early 2020, along with the implementation of worldwide social isolation measures, we published several articles in order to help our readers increase productivity and comfort in their home offices. After months of continued isolation, surveys show that more than 80% of professionals want to continue working from home even after quarantine ends. In addition, a good number of companies are similarly satisfied with current work practices, showing a high tendency to adopt this practice indefinitely, since the majority of companies observed that remote work was as or more productive than face-to-face work.

However, with respect to children and home studying during the pandemic, the result was not as positive. One of the main reasons for this difference is that it can be difficult to get students to concentrate and motivate themselves for a long time in front of screens. Lack of physical interaction with other children is also a contributing factor. Yet until the global situation improves, it is likely that the return to schools will continue to be postponed. With this situation in mind, we decided to share in this article a series of efficient strategies to transform study spaces at home into better spaces for learning.

Videos

At the 2014 Venice Biennale, celebrated architect and curator Rem Koolhaas chose an unusual curatorial theme. Rather than exploring the major issues that plague modern society or their manifestations in the profession of architecture, the event's theme, "Fundamentals," and its main exhibition, "Elements of Architecture," examined in detail the bare fundamentals of buildings, simple elements used by everyday architects for everyday designs. According to Koolhaas, “Architecture is a profession trained to put things together, not to dismantle them. Only by looking at the elements of architecture under a microscope can we recognize cultural preferences, technological advances, changes triggered by the intensification of global exchange, climatic adaptations, local norms and, somewhere in the mix, the architect's ideas that constitute the practice of architecture today.”

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A monochrome environment is a space in which most architectural elements are of a single color. Although it is common for architects to design black or white monochromatic spaces due to its neutrality, it is possible to use almost any color to design a space, taking advantage of their infinite tones, undertones, and shades.

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The environment we inhabit influences us directly. For kids, this environment must be especially safe and accessible, yet simultaneously stimulating, so that they can move and develop freely without jeopardizing their physical safety. We have already written about how to create playgrounds in interior spaces. Today, we put together a series of examples that use the warmth and versatility of wood to create interactive, creative, and fun interiors for children.

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The government-mandated lockdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic—and, in some cases, the fear of going outside—have recently underscored the value of domestic space, transforming it into the stage for the most evident and characteristic human actions and reactions within a capitalist and patriarchal system.