The sixth edition of the Madrid International Festival of Architecture and the City will take place from September 25 to 27, featuring a special edition organized to comply with necessary safety measures and ensure the well-being of all participants. The event will allow citizens to explore more than 80 spaces normally closed to the public free of charge, as well as participate in fifteen outdoor guided tours in small groups, with mandatory pre-registration. The festival will also feature other cross-disciplinary and complementary activities.

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LIFE CERSUDS (which stands for Ceramic Sustainable Urban Drainage System) is a proposal developed within the framework of the LIFE program—the European Union's funding instrument for the environment and climate action. It is a sustainable urban drainage system (SUDS) that utilizes low commercial value ceramic material as a filtering paving system to improve cities' adaptive capacity to the climate crisis.

This initiative was implemented as a demonstrator project in the town of Benicàssim, Spain, by architects Eduardo de Miguel and Enrique Fernández-Vivancos of the Valencia Ceramic Chair. They present the project in detail below.

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In mid-August, images of a new urban-architectural proposal for downtown Santiago began circulating in the media and on social networks: the preliminary design led by architect Gonzalo Mardones for the MAC Contemporary Art Museum in Parque Forestal.

Despite the potential benefits it aims to deliver, does it capitalize on the opportunity presented by intervening in this area? Does it meet citizens' expectations? Does it foster discussion about its management? Are there other viable alternatives?

Gonzalo Mardones writes to us regarding this.

Vaulted structures make it possible to build homes affordably and with minimal infrastructure—relying solely on the catenary arch as a design foundation, a formwork-free construction system, and the human body as a morphological reference. Beyond material cost savings—should financial benefits not offer enough incentive—vaulted structures are characterized by their humanized quality and their potential to create organic spaces imbued with identity.

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As part of the cultural program of LIGA, Space for Architecture in Mexico City, the Brazilian quartet Terra e Tuma—comprising Danilo Terra, Fernanda Sakano, Pedro Tuma, and Juliana Terra—presents a project that reflects their architectural practice: a process of copying and repetition. As announced on LIGA's official website, the opening scheduled for Wednesday, March 18, was canceled due to recent developments surrounding COVID-19 in Mexico City. Nevertheless, digital publications like this one aim to share the project to foster dialogue and reflection on the world of architecture.

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The winners of the “Parque de la Ciudad” Comodoro Rivadavia National Preliminary Project Competition have been announced. Organized by the College of Architects of Chubut and sponsored by the Argentine Federation of Architects' Entities, the competition invited participants to develop urban and architectural ideas to renew the public space of the city of Comodoro Rivadavia, Chubut (Argentina), through the design of a new Urban Park and a Popular Music Training and Production Center.

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Seeking to gather ideas and reflections from professionals, students, and collaborators amidst the local and global health emergency, the Colegio de Arquitectos de la Provincia de Santa Fe has called upon architects to collectively contribute ideas to address the current issues associated with the spread of COVID-19. As such, the open call serves as an impetus to create a space for design development fueled by disciplinary thinking, aiming to offer responses to the ongoing health crisis while reclaiming and rethinking the role of architects in society.

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This October 2020, the Memory and Tolerance Museum by Arditti + RDT Architects in the heart of Mexico City marks the tenth anniversary of its founding—a space designed to raise awareness and showcase the terrible consequences of hatred and indifference. Over these ten years, the museum has welcomed 5,000,000 visitors, hosted more than 4,000 free workshops and courses benefiting 470,000 people, generated 1,500,000 scholarships for vulnerable students, and spearheaded countless initiatives that have successfully fostered a culture of peace and tolerance. It has become a national and international benchmark in matters of historical memory and Human Rights—a voice that gives visibility to diverse causes, a bridge for conflict resolution, and an ally to various sectors, including schools, civil associations, institutions, and socially responsible corporations. Above all, it serves the individuals who wish to transform their environment through knowledge, introspection, reflection, and social action.

To showcase the valuable work emerging from Peruvian universities, we held the second edition of our open call for students, inviting them to submit their graduation projects completed in 2019.

The student collective Post_Arq from the Leopoldo Rother Architecture Museum at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia has shared this interview with Leonardo Álvarez Yepes. This is part of a series featuring seven Colombian architects, including leading figures such as Sebastían Serna, Santiago Pradilla, Lorenzo Castro, and Fernando de la Carrera, among others, whose interviews will be released on their channel.

Architectural firms have been deeply questioning the future projections reshaped by lockdown and the new dynamics of how the city and territory are experienced. On this occasion, ruta4 taller from Pereira, Colombia, presents their perspective on how the profession is practiced in the country and their shift toward a more participatory practice for the benefit of local communities. The Pereira-based architecture studio has built exemplary collaborative projects, such as the taller de Urbanautas and the Casa Ensamble Chacarrá, demonstrating through experience that empathetic architecture is a highly viable approach.

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In buildings dedicated to workplace activities, proper spatial design plays a fundamental role. Considering variables such as lighting, acoustic insulation, the relationship between workstations, or ceiling heights often optimizes business performance while simultaneously ensuring user comfort. Specific requirements depend on the building's purpose: while certain activities demand greater concentration, others require interaction among team members, fostering collaborative processes. Architecture must be able to provide solutions to these requirements, even considering how these activities might evolve over time.

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Defining spaces in apartments is a challenge often imposed by their limited footprints. To address this, many projects utilize metal framing and custom furniture to delineate areas, connecting the architectural program through visual permeability while allowing natural light to flow throughout the home.

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When it comes to housing typologies, the term duplex –lends itself to multiple interpretations, often leading to ambiguous applications and uses. The definition of the concept depends primarily on the country or region in which it is used, generally allowing for two main interpretations. First, a duplex can refer to a two-story housing unit with levels connected by an internal staircase. This definition usually applies to apartments and residences in countries like Spain or Canada, which are typically found in urban centers. Alternatively, a duplex can describe a specific type of project where two homes are joined side-by-side, each having its own individual entrance but sharing a central wall. Generally, the design of these houses is defined by an intentional axial symmetry, functioning as twin homes with the same features and floor plan layout. This type of duplex housing is particularly common in Argentina, Bolivia, the United Kingdom, Australia, and parts of the United States.

The artwork is located at the Pedro de Valdivia Norte entrance of the Santiago Metropolitan Park. It was created by the creative studio Lira Arte Público—specialists in public space interventions led by curator and urban designer Esteban Barrera—in close collaboration with the Santiago Metropolitan Park team, who designed and implemented physical distancing signage, along with this artistic intervention consisting of a floor mural of over 1,000 m² created by Chilean artist Cekis.

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Seeking to design an immersive indoor environmental experience, design studio Aqua Creations created Manta Ray lighting. In this light installation, responsive RGB LED technology mixes red, green, and blue to produce over 16 million different hues. Programmed with a customizable color spectrum, the system is dimmable from 0.1% to 100% brightness and can even load images and videos directly onto its internal memory. This allows users to infuse expressive spaces with dynamic color and movement, or conversely, cultivate a warm, focused atmosphere for private, intimate settings.

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How does BIM incorporate materials like concrete?

BIM, the acronym for Building Information Modeling, utilizes information-rich 3D models to create the built environment and extract the data necessary for the documentation and construction of architectural projects. This is achieved by modeling various components—such as doors, windows, columns, and walls—which together make up an architectural project. Materials, however, are not 3D components in BIM; instead, they are part of the composition of these components. In this article, we will look at how materials behave in BIM, using the products offered by Melón Hormigones as an example.

Any 3D component created in Revit can have a Material parameter. Whether configured in the project or within the specific family, this material contains a series of default, customizable, and modifiable settings to provide technical and graphic data, as well as physical properties, to the 3D component.

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The fourth edition of the Hello Wood Argentina festival has concluded. Held during March in the Municipality of Ceibas, Entre Ríos Province, this creative, professional, and social program seeks to teach participants to think with their hands and learn through experience.

We invite you to participate in the 2020 Building of the Year award. In its twelfth edition, we ask you to recognize the projects making the greatest impact on the built environment. By nominating and voting, you are part of an independent and unbiased network that has consistently helped us celebrate architecture of all scales, purposes, and conditions, from countries large and small. There are only a few days left to nominate your favorite project, filtering 1,000 projects down to just 15.

Remember, registered users can nominate their favorite project once a day. Nominations close on Monday, March 23, 2020, at 11:59 PM (GMT-3). Thank you once again for helping us continue to democratize architecture.

In the following article, José Javier Alayón González, PhD, Architect, and full-time assistant professor in the Department of Architecture at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, shares his perspective on exhibition venues and how they adapt to changing circumstances.

With their proposal “1878-1880”, Spanish architecture firm GVG, a multidisciplinary team led by Daniel Galar Irurre, Josecho Vélaz Ballesteros, and Javier Gil Ayesa, has won the design competition for the renovation of the historic Madrid-Delicias Station, home of the Madrid Railway Museum since 1983.

The Santiago Metropolitan Park is currently conducting a survey on user mobility. If you visited Parquemet before the quarantine, you can help by responding here: https://www.parquemet.cl/ayudanos-a-mejorar-parquemet/.

Shortly after the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19)—which began in Wuhan in December 2019—a pandemic, highlighting the disease's high rate of transmission and exposing global deficiencies in containment methods, most Latin American countries began implementing public health emergency measures to minimize spread and strengthen the response capacity of their healthcare systems.

Deserted cities, shuttered businesses, canceled flights. Empty squares, streets with no one around... what seemed impossible has happened. If it is hard for us to adjust to this new routine, for children, the shock was even greater. Overnight, they were deprived of school, spending time with friends, outings around the city, parks, and squares. They were confined indoors.