Architecture, as a profession, is highly cyclical in nature. It ebbs and flows with the tides of economic conditions, and is especially hard hit during times of downturn. We’ve all heard stories or experienced it ourselves, or layoffs during the Great Financial Crisis in 2008, or even more recently the significant cutbacks architecture firms went through during the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic. Projects went on hold and new business opportunities declined almost overnight. Now, two years later, firms are keeping a close watch on global supply chain issues and rising inflation rates, especially with increased pressure to meet the needs of a growing urban population. Will architecture be recession-proof as we enter a bear market?
The first edition of the UIA 2030 Award celebrated projects that contribute to the delivery of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Located in Germany, Hong Kong, Argentina, Bangladesh, and China, the winning interventions were announced during the eleventh session of the World Urban Forum in Katowice, Poland. Organized by the International Union of Architects (UIA), together with the UN-HABITAT, the award program gathered 125 submissions in 40 countries.
ArchDaily had the chance to talk to the winners behind the acclaimed architecture, to discuss furthermore the interventions and certain specificities of each and every project. In addition, the winning teams shared their upcoming and ongoing architectural endeavors as well as their point of view on the importance of architects engaging with the Sustainable Development Goals.
Powerhouse Company has revealed a new design for THIS., a new mixed-use development in Amsterdam’s North District. Overlooking the waterfront of the IJ river, the complex offers the necessary amenities for both working and living in an area close to the city center. The ensemble includes a new office building, two waterfront private sector residential buildings, and two social housing blocks containing a total of 2017 homes. A Hidden Garden, designed by Delva Landscape Architecture and Urbanism, connects the residential and office buildings, creating a space for leisure and social activities.
America’s housing crisis is a longstanding problem. But recent reports of private hedge funds buying up detached houses and townhouses is likely to make an already difficult situation even worse. When hedge funds purchase such properties, those homes are not likely to come back on the real estate market. They are gone for now—and probably for the long term.
https://www.archdaily.com/983096/how-private-equity-is-making-the-housing-crisis-even-worseR. John Anderson
When cities grow, fuelled by an expanding population, housing becomes an essential component of the urban character of a metropolis. Across the world, housing experiments have been propagated by governments and states, with mixed results, and undoubtedly mixed opinions. The Soviet-era housing estates of Central and Eastern Europe are particularly interesting in that regard. These mass housing projects have been dismissed as eyesores and viewed as unimaginative monolithic structures. The legacy of these developments, however, is a lot more complicated than that.
The end of the 19th century in the Americas is marked by a wave of historical disputes and political transformations that have as a backdrop the search for a national identity. The period records a series of conflicts and disputes for the independence of what we now know as sovereign countries and republics. In this context, the Pan-American or Spanish-American movements emerged, which, despite having different political influences, aimed at the unification of all the territories of the American continent.
Visual permeability, ventilation and a strong identity appeal, the hollow elements have increasingly found their place in contemporary architecture. Whether in large buildings or small residences, they appear in different shapes, materials and compositions, helping to determine the degree of interaction between interior and exterior space. This artifice in a residential construction is an important tool to ensure privacy and intimacy, without losing the possibility of connections to the outside and natural ventilation.
Since the beginning of the war, over 7.1 million people have been internally displaced within Ukraine. In response to this growing humanitarian crisis, Kyiv-based practice Balbek Bureau has developed a modular temporary housing system that aims to provide a dignified dwelling to internally displaced Ukrainians. RE:Ukraine is designed to adapt to different types of terrain and settlement density while being deployed in a short time frame. While the project was intended for areas of Ukraine that are not under fire, the framework can also accommodate refugees abroad.
John Chapman House. Image Courtesy of Plus Architecture
Student housing takes on many forms around the world, but most commonly, it’s envisioned as close quarters in a bleakly designed dormitory. While prospective students choose universities based on academic rigor, athletic programs, extracurricular activities, and future career opportunities, they’re now wanting to know what living on and off-campus will be like- and it has forced designers to rethink the traditional designs of dormitories into something more innovative that better reflects what students want (and expect) in their university homes.
In urban design, suburbs can be a contentious topic. That is in part because the term lends itself to nebulous and ever-changing definitions. In its simplest form, the suburbs are residential communities within commuting distance, located a fair bit away from the heart of metropolitan areas. The American context sees suburbs viewed with some hostility, with racist ‘redlining’ practices a dark legacy to particular suburbs in the country. In a more superficial sense, American suburbs have often been criticised for their uniformity in appearance – portrayed as soulless dwellings absent of a sense of community.
Recently, the Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times about the causes of unaffordable housing in New York City. He blamed the crisis on a few things, including a powerful financial “monoculture” in the city, NIMBYs, and the city itself blocking new construction. That last element, however—that the city blocks new construction—is an increasingly popular myth that needs examination.
California, as with most American states, has a housing crisis. Unlike the rest of the country, it is actually working to ameliorate the situation, with private and public initiatives that critics can’t help but label inadequate. The Bay Area made accessory dwelling units legal by changing zoning laws, but that has hardly made a dent. Some cities are now pushing for additional upzoning to give developers more room to bring new buildings to market at lower rents. There are all sorts of studies, university sponsored or underwritten by the industry, that recommend more-or-less radical fixes for a seemingly unfixable problem. Environmentalists are naturally cast as villains because they don’t condone greenfield developments. And Californians are tough on their elected officials, as the current governor learned last year.
https://www.archdaily.com/975506/new-construction-is-not-always-the-answerMark Alan Hewitt
West Campus Neighborhood, Austin, Texas. The University of Texas campus is in the foreground. Image Courtesy of Jack Myer/The Daily Texan.
Juan Miró, co-founder of Miró Rivera Architects reflects in an opinion piece on the student housing situation in the United States. The architect explores different dormitory conditions across the country and questions whether these leading public universities "enthusiastically endorse the idea of putting thousands of its students in windowless rooms in the name of density and efficiency".
Valuing formal simplicity and delicate attention to details and finishing, Studio MK27 was founded in the late 1970s by Marcio Kogan and currently has more than 30 members based in São Paulo and other collaborators around the world. Its work, as described on its website, seeks to fulfill the task of rethinking and continuing Brazilian modernism.
Buildings contribute nearly 40% of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, so the push is on to “get to zero” on many fronts. What happens when ambitious goals like zero energy meet a conventional building industry that’s structured on repetition and cost, in a market that struggles to keep up with massive demand? This is often—too often—our challenge.
The first wooden housing modules of Juf Nienke, a new circular prefabricated timber housing project by SeARCH, RAU, and DS landscape architects, has been installed in Amsterdam. The project will feature 61 rental homes made entirely of wood, and will sit at the entrance of Centrumeiland, a newly raised piece of land on Lake IJmeer that features 1500 housing units. It is set to be one of the most sustainable apartment buildings in the Netherlands, incorporating an innovative cross-laminated timber construction and utilizing recycled materials.
ADUs or accessory dwelling unit, a word mostly used by architects, is "a smaller, independent residential unit located on the same lot as a stand-alone single-family home" according to the American Planning Association. They can be converted spaces of existing houses, additions, or new stand-alone structures. In this piece, author Walter explores the recent policies in California that seek to reduce the shortage of housing.
Only 18 months ago, everyone around the globe had their life upended by the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost immediately, architects and designers began to speculate on how they could design for a better world that would be flexible, functional, and healthy. While the pandemic is far from over, with many scientific advancements and public health policies still needed to truly allow us to live out our “new normal”, perhaps its time to reflect on our predictions and examine what aspects of the pandemic were short-term reactions, and which aspects of life might be permanently reflected in how we think about the built environment.
_Domat.jpg?1656485110 "Home modification for low-income Families. Image Courtesy of Domat Architects")
.jpg?1656485127 "Co-creation of Urban Spaces by the Nobogonga River. Image Courtesy of Co.Creation.Architects, Jhenaidah Citywide People's Network, Platform of Community Action and Architecture (POCAA), Community Architects Network (CAN)")
