Friday, June 3, marks 100 days of war in Ukraine. One of the many devastating effects has been de destruction of urban and rural environments. Ukraine’s cultural and architectural heritage is under threat. As of 30 May, UNESCO has verified damage to 139 sites affected by the ongoing hostilities. The list includes 62 religious sites, 12 museums, 26 historic buildings, 17 buildings dedicated to cultural activities, 15 museums, and seven libraries. According to UNESCO, the most affected buildings included in the list are in Kyiv. Still, damages are also found in the regions of Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhya, Zhytomyr, Donetsk, Lugansk, and Sumy. This represents a preliminary damage assessment for cultural properties done by cross-checking the reported incidents with multiple credible sources. The published data will be regularly updated.

If, on the one hand, bathrooms have a certain rigidity when we think about the layout and their spatial arrangement, it is in the floor and wall coverings that this logic is inverted. With the wide variety of models and patterns available on the market, ceramic tiles and porcelain tiles are often used to give quality and identity to space. At the same time, the ease of access to ceramic and porcelain tiles, as well as their ease of installation, end up conditioning our choices, making it difficult to think of other finishing possibilities for these areas.

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Participatory design is a democratic process that aims to offer equal input for all stakeholders, with a particular focus on the users, not usually involved directly in the traditional method of spatial creation. The idea is based on the argument that engaging the user in the process of designing spaces can have a positive impact on the reception of those spaces. It eases the process of appropriation, helps create representative and valuable spaces, and thus creates resiliency within the urban and rural environment.

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Browsing ArchDaily's 3D printing tag reveals the incredible progress this technology has made over recent years. While once considered a distant, futuristic concept or a tool limited to small-scale objects, 3D printing has matured to produce increasingly complex spaces and even fully printed buildings. More recently, researchers have been experimenting with concrete and other construction materials, though developing a highly efficient 3D printing technology viable for widespread adoption remains a challenge. The 3D-printed pavilion by Huizenprinters serves as a compelling case study.

In the midst of today's information age, several Latin American architecture firms are returning to analog formats, ranging from fanzines and illustrations to manuals and postcards.

Against the backdrop of the Taller Social Latinoamericano in Colombia, we spoke with the firms Ruta 4 Taller (Colombia), Coonvite (Colombia), La Cabina de la Curiosidad (Ecuador), and República Portátil (Chile)—all of whom have, coincidentally, explored these formats in their recent work.

Two years after receiving the complete archive of Paulo Mendes da Rocha, Portugal's Casa da Arquitectura inaugurated its Digital Building last weekend. Marking the institution's shift toward the inescapable virtual world, the project consists of digitizing the archive accumulated since the organization was founded in 2017.

Besides thermal, acoustic and luminous comfort, colors are factors that influence the sensation we feel when in an environment and become a strong device to influence the user's behavior.

Far beyond aesthetic preferences, the use of certain colors can bring different meanings that cover other fields such as psychology or symbology. Therefore, it is known that a color does not depend only on light and environment, but also on the perception we have of it. The German Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, who has deepened his study of the Theory of Colors, points out that the identification of tones is subjective, but the effects are universal. As an example, the warm colors (red, yellow and orange) are more dynamic and cause feelings of comfort and stimulus in people, while the cold colors (green, purple and blue) have a softer, soothing and static effect. Therefore, creating a color palette is a possibility to generate different sensations in the perception of space.

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Videos

The Second Studio (formerly The Midnight Charette) is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features different creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions.

A variety of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes are interviews, while others are tips for fellow designers, reviews of buildings and other projects, or casual explorations of everyday life and design. The Second Studio is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.

This week David and Marina are joined by Stuart Graff, President and CEO of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation to discuss the foundation’s mission; the role cultural institutions play in supporting creative professions; preserving and furthering Wright’s legacy through programs and collaborations; intellectual property; Stewart becoming CEO of the foundation; running a successful non-profit; Frank Lloyd Wright’s principles; and more.

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Lacking a clear definition, the term smart cities has become increasingly common with each passing year. Many theorists point out that this conceptual ambiguity is linked to its rapid adoption and expansion by large corporations and institutions, thus turning it into a buzzword. Despite the “innovative” rhetoric, the model chosen to implement a smart city can lead to segregation and privilege specific groups if it is not designed around local specificities and does not involve local leadership (MENDES, 2020). This essay adopts the understanding that innovation and intelligence are not necessarily tied to digital technologies or high-cost resources. Rather, they stem from a fresh perspective on urban problems and the development of non-traditional solutions in decision-making and execution.

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From NFTs and the Metaverse to the productive advantages of real-time rendering, this year offers a tremendous opportunity to discuss the latest trends in architectural visualization. To this end, we opened the debate to our readers around these questions: How much can we learn from other related industries like cinema, video games, and industrial design? How can architecture contribute to and advance the world of visualization?

After reading and compiling all the comments received—from construction professionals, students, and architecture enthusiasts alike—we agree that as technological advancements continue, the future of architectural visualization will likely be more democratic, liberal, and decentralized. Below, we share the most frequent viewpoints from our readers.

In May, the same month that the 13th São Paulo International Architecture Biennale begins, SescTV will make five selected episodes from two series—Arquiteturas and Coleções - Mestres da Arquitetura—available on-demand on the channel's website. These episodes prompt a reflection on architectural and historical heritage and depict the vision of architects and other professionals in the field, offering different perspectives on several iconic projects. All of this content, along with other programming spanning various artistic expressions, is part of the channel's collection and is available on-demand on the SescTV website.

When defining the aesthetic of a space, whether interior or exterior, architects and interior designers should first ask themselves what the needs of its future inhabitants are or will be. Dialogue with users is essential to establishing the style of these spaces, which shapes their physical environment through composition, color, form, and furniture.

To wholly document a survey on the state of French forests, the wood industry, and forestry R&D, François Leclercq and Paul Laigle, from the architecture and urban planning practice Leclercq Associés, are in collaboration with architecture editor Michèle Leloup and photographer Cyrille Weiner.

The Wood That Makes Our Cities explores the environmental, economic, industrial, and technical challenges involved in the use of wood for large structures and urban architecture and assesses the future of wood construction. The book retraces the practice’s twenty years of experience with wood construction through five of its projects, featuring contributions by historians, researchers, manufacturers, timber producers, and forestry specialists.

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Located in the neighborhood of São Cristóvão in Rio de Janeiro, the Prefeito Mendes de Moraes Residential Complex, better known as Pedregulho, was designed by architect Affonso Eduardo Reidy in 1947 to house public servants of the then-Federal District. The project marks a moment of international recognition for Reidy's architectural and urban design work, while also highlighting his significant partnership with Carmen Portinho.

Anderson Marín Vidal and Juan Sebastián García, from the research group on Sustainable and Applied Emerging Technologies (T.E.S.A.), present an analysis of the primary impacts expected from the designs for the Río Molino Waterfront (Malecón del Río Molino). Created by the architecture firm Celeste & Piedra, the project won first place in a competition organized by the Mayor's Office of Popayán and Findeter.

Videos

How do we actually give citizens the ability to discover and understand what is happening around their cities? This is one of the key questions raised by Eva Franch, artistic director alongside Beth Galí and José Luis de Vicente of Model - Barcelona Architectures Festival.

How do we bring these issues to the table, into public debate, and into the public sphere? One answer could lie in augmented realities—technologies that allow us to visualize parts of the real world overlaid with new information through a technological device. For this architecture event, in addition to the five temporary physical installations scattered throughout the city, five augmented reality installations were produced, reflecting the event's different themes: Between-Generations, Between-Cultures, Between-Species, Between-Classes, and Between-Materials.

The savings and credit cooperative Visón de los Andes, “VisAndes,” launched a competition for the design of its new headquarters in Salcedo, Ecuador. As one of the strongest cooperatives in its sector, it sought to incorporate sustainability principles alongside its own core values, inviting prominent architecture firms from across the country.

Architecture, with all its practitioners, academics, and theorists, have long been exploring utopic ideas with hopes of turning them into something concrete for the sake of a better world. But as the world heads towards an even greater polarization than it currently has, the architecture practice found itself having to adapt to the current systems of the planet, constrained by its ever-growing conditions. Slowly, practitioners realized that utopia can not truly be seen as the ideal solution, and needed to be readapted or morphed with other concepts for it to actually work. DETAIL's latest monograph BIG. Architecture and Construction Details / BIG. Architektur und Baudetails, a rapport between BIG’s imaginative, unbuilt utopias and functional, built architecture, explores 20 projects from the firm's workshop.

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The huge strides that have been made in technological and digital innovation in recent years mean we are becoming increasingly familiar with home automation and other systems that have the ability to improve our quality of life and the comfort and efficiency of our homes. In a way that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago outside of old sci-fi films, everything in a smart home–from the curtains, windows, alarm systems and heating to the household appliances, TVs and vacuum cleaners–can now be “robotised” and controlled remotely to manage our living spaces. 

Studio Other Spaces, founded by artist Olafur Eliasson and architect Sebastian Behmann, has unveiled its wine tasting pavilion for California wine producer The Donum Estate. The design weaves together various elements of the site in what the designers describe as a vertical panorama, and essentializes a vertical cut through the landscape and the conditions that make for a thriving vineyard, proposing a holistic experience addressing all senses. The roof’s colored glass tiles represent an abstract calendar depicting the yearly averages of parameters such as wind intensity, temperature and humidity.

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“Since I remember myself, I have wanted to be an architect… I could see the way that neighborhoods were organized. I could see the separation. I could see the frontier areas between the Palestinian community and the Jewish majority,” expresses Eyal Weizman in conversation with Louisiana Channel, in regards to understanding the ‘political significance’ of architecture and the potential of the occupation as a critical tool for understanding the world.

Eyal Weizman was interviewed by Marc-Christoph Wagner at Forensic Architecture’s studio in London, in April 2022. As the head of Forensic Architecture, he is renowned for his part within the multidisciplinary research group, using a combination of architectural technologies and techniques to investigate instances of state violence and violations of human rights across the globe. Growing up in Haifa, Israel he developed an understanding of the political connotations within architecture from an early stage.

The National Historical and Artistic Heritage Institute (Iphan) has launched the 35th edition of the Rodrigo Melo Franco de Andrade Award. The award recognizes outstanding national initiatives in the preservation and promotion of Brazilian Cultural Heritage. This year's theme is the Socioeconomic Sustainability of Cultural Heritage, and submissions are open until July 11.

Being square sucks! At least, that's what the trends of 2022 tell us. The report carried out by Pinterest points out the curved design as the future of decoration, whether in objects or even from architecture. For that reason, we looked for Brazilian residential projects that trace curved walls in their designs. The reasons are the most varied and the results offer a unique composition: as an architectural party, to contrast with the orthogonality of other walls or to create unique spaces.

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Western aesthetics is based on the mathematical analysis of an object's formal structure, using classical beauty laws such as balance, symmetry, and the golden mean. Eastern aesthetics differ in that, as it emphasizes intuitive experience, such as "white space" in traditional Chinese painting, through emotional communication with the "imagery" to produce a certain "Conception." The contrast between reality and emptiness allows the viewer's imagination and feelings to flourish, allowing them to realize "showing the breadth of heaven and earth even in a square inch place." 

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