Tag: theory | ArchDaily

A Beating and Bleeding Heart: Bodies, Streets, and the Politics of Care in Bogotá

Sydney Coldren — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 07:30:00 +0000

It's wet season, but this morning's downpour does little to deter the rhythm along La Carrera Séptima. Cyclists and pedestrians weave past ambulatory vendors with carts of avocados, ginger sweets, and phone cases. Toy cars, lightbulbs, and hand-beaded jewelry glisten with raindrops, arranged neatly on tarps that demarcate vendors' territories. Police officers approach a recycler gathering bottles; a tourist bargains for a jacket; two women find each other in the middle of the road, embracing as their coats grow heavy with rain.

Rethinking Architecture at the Scale of Planetary Systems

Diogo Borges Ferreira — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 04:00:00 +0000

Architecture has traditionally been described as a discipline concerned with space, form, and material presence. Yet this understanding becomes increasingly limited when confronted with the conditions that shape contemporary construction. Buildings no longer emerge from a stable relationship between site, program, and material. Instead, they are produced within a dense web of technological systems that operate across territorial, ecological, and temporal scales. Energy networks, data infrastructures, extraction processes, and global logistics shape architecture as decisively as climate or urban context.

Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2025 Examines the Technosphere and Human Impact on Earth

Romullo Baratto — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Thirty trillion tons. This is the estimated mass of all human-made matter on Earth, and the starting point for the 7th edition of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale. Curated by Ann-Sofi Rönnskog and John Palmesino, founders of Territorial Agency, the event asks a deceptively simple question: How heavy is a city? To answer it requires more than data. It demands a shift in perception: from the scale of the city to the planetary technosphere.

Safe by Design: How Architects and Forensics Rethink Security across Scales

Ankitha Gattupalli — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 07:30:00 +0000

"The public square and civic infrastructure are the front lines against this kind of attack", proclaimed then-President of the American Institute of Architects, Thomas Vonier. The decades since 9/11 and mass violence have pressured cities, in the United States and globally, to reconsider what "safety" means. Is it about barriers, bollards, surveillance? Or is it about trust, visibility, evidence, resilience? Several projects confront these questions at various scales to demonstrate how architecture and forensic thinking can collectively protect communities and civic life.

Exploring the History of the Ideal Renaissance Cities

Kaley Overstreet — Tue, 11 Jan 2022 04:00:00 +0000

The concept of an “ideal city” is something that is often talked about today, as we look towards the future and think about what aspects of urban life we feel are most important for residents to thrive in a healthy community. However, ideal cities were conceived during the Italian Renaissance, as planners and architects prioritized rationale in their designs focusing on human values, urban capacities, and the recursive waves of cultural and artistic revolutions that influenced large-scale planning schemes.

"As Long as There Are Human Beings and their Challenges, There Will Be Architecture": In Conversation with Ole Bouman

Christele Harrouk — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 07:30:00 +0000

Believing firmly that "architecture is [...] too important to leave solely to architects", Ole Bouman embarked on diverse activities throughout his three decades of work, reflecting on “architecture, not so much as the art or technique of making buildings, but architecture as the intelligent way to organize our lives on earth, and infuse it with purpose”.

"Architecture not Exclusively for Architects": Ole Bouman on Finding Measure

Christele Harrouk — Wed, 07 Apr 2021 07:30:00 +0000

“We can all be designers” states Ole Bouman, one of the most influential figures in the world of Architecture. Implicated in the contemporary architectural discourse, the founding director of Design Society, in Shenzhen, China has introduced, since the 1990s, many design concepts, founded culture brands, and took on institutional roles all over the world.

Carmen Espegel: "The History of Modern Movement Must Be Reread, It Still Contains Hidden Information"

Belén Maiztegui — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 05:00:00 +0000

Spanish architect, Carmen Espegel's work is embodied in three complementary areas: academic, research, and professional activity. Espegel was part of espegel-fisac arquitectos studio for twenty years as a founding partner and currently leads espegel arquitectos. Her research approach has focused mainly on housing, women in architecture, and architectural criticism.

'Body Absent', a Temporary Memorial to Raise Awareness About Human Rights

Fabian Dejtiar — Tue, 22 Dec 2020 05:00:00 +0000

Human Rights Day is celebrated every year on the 10th of December. After visiting numerous sites that commemorate the scenes of regrettable crimes against humanity and violence, one common observation can be made: the place of memory is not only a building. In fact, it is more about the encounter, the appropriation, and the gesture.

Children's Scale: A Brief History of Kid's Furniture

Audrey Migliani — Fri, 27 Nov 2020 01:30:00 +0000

Children's furniture is all furniture –fixed or mobile– that is designed according to the ergonomic guidelines and anatomical dimensions of children specifically. Following this definition, we can identify two types of furniture: (1) those that facilitate a relationship between the caregiver and the child, and (2) those that allow the child to use them independently.

What Can Design do in Chile's Social Crisis? Nothing.

Nicolás Valencia — Thu, 28 Nov 2019 07:45:00 +0000

This article was originally published in ArchDaily en Español last October 30, twelve days after the social crisis in Chile escalated. Some ideas of the analysis may feel outdated since some structural reforms were recently announced, but the author decided to keep the original spirit of the piece.

A 4 cent fair increase for the Metro in Santiago sparked mass fare-dodging protests in Chile starting on October 6. Alongside spontaneous street demonstrations, the protests spilled into widespread violence across Santiago during the following days until October 18. That day, the Metro network collapsed, the riots multiplied across the city, and looting and fires were out of control. That night, President Sebastian Piñera declared a state of emergency.

SPACE10 Explores the Future of Digital Design in Architecture

Eric Baldwin — Mon, 18 Nov 2019 08:00:00 +0000

New digital advancements and technologies are redefining how we design. Looking at how these tools are becoming more ubiquitous and pervasive, IKEA's research and design lab SPACE10 published The Digital in Architecture report to explore the impact of digital technology and its larger movements. Authored by architecture theorist Mollie Claypool, the report illustrates these changes through data research, concepts, and visualisation by Pentagram.

Call for Submissions: Dennis Sharp CICA Awards for Architectural Criticism 2020

Rene Submissions — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 12:01:00 +0000

The International Committee of Architectural Critics CICA is pleased to announce an invitation to publishers, editors, curators and authors to submit their publications for consideration for the 10th CICA Awards 2020 by 30th November 2019. Award winners will be announced during the UIA XXVII World Congress of Architecture to be held in Rio de Janeiro from July 19th to 23rd, 2020.

The Awards fall into four categories:

“Bruno Zevi CICA Book Award”
For published books on architectural criticism, theory and history
“Pierre Vago CICA Journalism Award”
For an article

Layered Landscapes Lofoten: Understanding of Complexity, Otherness and Change

Rene Submissions — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 14:33:00 +0000

Layered Landscapes Lofoten — Understanding of Complexity, Otherness and Change adresses today’s most urgent issues about living together in landscapes and territories under severe pressure and transformation. The landscape holds essential information about our common history, ecology and social behavior — both rational and cognitive experience, and even hidden enigmas. The authors suggest how an open and unbiased approach to the landscape enables us to understand and operationalize knowledge and theory into valid proposals and projects for the future — not primarily through the traditional and habitual idea of the architectural object, but rather in contact with a global, collective

Open Call - Critical Discourses Essay Contest - Home|any|more|?

Rene Submissions — Sat, 02 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

For more than 20 years, The Arhitext Design Foundation has been developing editorial and cultural projects that raise awareness of the national and international state of architecture, urbanism, design and visual arts. The most important projects of the Foundation are the Arhitext Magazine and the Bucharest Triennale, dedicated to the Central and Eastern European region. In October 2019, the Foundation, in partnership with the Romanian Order of Architects and the "Ion Mincu" University of Architecture and Urbanism will organize the third edition of the Bucharest Triennale East Centric Architecture. The main topic of this edition, HOME|any|more|?, proposes an interrogative approach

Why Nature Should be a Co-Author in Architectural Projects

Julia Daudén — Sat, 15 Dec 2018 12:00:00 +0000

Dealing with the context of a project’s site is an essential part of architecture, be it by denying or incorporating preexisting elements and the environment’s conditions in the design. However, understanding what lies around as an active agent of the decisions and space organization goes beyond simply considering the good views, natural ventilation, solar orientation, etc; it is about seeing these conditions as co-authors.

On the Dislocation of the Body in Architecture: Le Corbusier's Modulor

Mónica Arellano — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 06:00:00 +0000

In 1948, the architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, better known as Le Corbusier, released one of his most famous publications titled Modular, followed by Modular 2 (1953). In these texts, Le Corbusier expressed his support of the research that Vitrubio, DaVinci, and Leon Battista Alberti started centuries before: to find the mathematical relationship between human dimensions and nature.

Re-Constructivist Architecture

Rene Submissions — Tue, 06 Dec 2016 05:00:00 +0000

Ierimonti Gallery New York is pleased to present Re-Constructivist Architecture, curated by Jacopo Costanzo and Giovanni Cozzani with Giulia Leone and promoted by the Scientific Technical Committee of Casa dell'Architettura in collaboration with Consulta Giovani Roma. The exhibition will feature the work of thirteen international emerging architecture firms, aiming to portray a generation of architects born in the ‘80s: a countertrend that tries to recover a debate lost years ago and obstructed by a cumbersome star system.