Between rising water levels and global migration to cities, architects and designers need to critically reimagine the relationship between coastal landscapes and public space. Cities are facing entirely new risks and environmental conditions. Resiliency, infrastructure, and ecology are increasingly common terms, reflecting the growing demand to address the spatial and formal challenges faced by cities worldwide. Rethinking boundaries and edges, designers have unique opportunities to help shape public understanding of these conditions through waterfront parks.

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Glass specialists Sovet’s furniture pieces blend together an expansive palette of colours, materials and textures, combining ceramics, woods and metals with a trademark smooth glass finish.

Between November 26 and December 4, the Trienal Sur del Mundo: 'Human Cities' took place in the city of Concepción, Chile, under the general curatorship of Sergio Baeriswyl. The event was an invitation to take an in-depth look at architecture and urban design at the scale of intermediate cities, and to rethink how our habitats are built in the face of today's changing scenarios.

During the past couple of years, luxury and fashion brands began venturing into architecture. Some built museums, foundations, and cultural organizations while others shaped residential structures that translated their identity into space. Following this same concept, KARL LAGERFELD, along with Spanish Developer Sierra Blanca Estates and the Design and Branding Firm The One Atelier, have developed the fashion house’s first “luxury architectural project”, the Karl Lagerfeld Villas in Marbella, Spain. Designed by The One Atelier, of which Andrea Boschetti is Head of Design, the project has low carbon impact, aligned with the brand’s commitment to the Fashion Pact - a global sustainability initiative that seeks to transform the fashion industry through objectives in climate, biodiversity, and ocean protection.

Asking what is “luxury architecture” and questioning why fashion brands are expanding into architecture, ArchDaily met with Andrea Boschetti to further understand the architect and urban planner’s take on the subject.

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Concrete and sustainability are two words that are often considered incompatible. Used as early as the Roman era, concrete has shaped much of our built environment, being the most widely used manufactured material in the planet thanks to its resistance, versatility, cost-effectiveness, and accessibility, among other inherent benefits. Its popular use in buildings and infrastructure forms the foundations of cities, connects communities, and will continue to play a vital role in providing solutions to the challenges of the future – especially as cities must respond to a growing global population. But with cement as its key ingredient, it also comes with several environmental costs, being responsible for at least 8% of the world’s carbon emissions in a climate-change context. However, it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way. With the rise of innovative technologies and products, there are many ways to make concrete greener.

Following years of federal review, the National Capital Planning Commission has finally approved Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Sculpture Garden renovation proposal. Sugimoto’s redesign, which was proposed in Spring of 2019, transforms the Hirshhorn Museum into an accessible and inviting structure welcoming more than 30 million annual visitors. The design features flexible venues to welcome large-scale sculptures and time-based performances, and includes work on long-overdue repairs in the infrastructure.

David Adjaye was announced as the lead designer of the Barbados Heritage District, dedicated to documenting and recounting the impact of slavery on Barbados as well as cultures and nations in the Western hemisphere. The project will comprise a memorial, a museum and a research institute, the latter in charge of presenting Barbados’s pivotal role within the slave trade history as the place of departure for millions of enslaved Africans towards the Americas. The Heritage District, whose announcement closely follows Barbados’ transition to a parliamentary republic, marks a cornerstone in the development of the country’s identity more than five decades after declaring its independence from Britain.

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There are several reasons why Quintana Roo —a state located in the southeastern region of Mexico— has an important cultural wealth. One of them is because of world-class tourism which has led it to have one of the eight international airports in Mexico in addition to being praised by the World Tourism Organization.

Architecture has never been limited to building and construction; some notable architects have contributed numerous fantastic works to the domains of fashion, furniture, jewelry, and other design. The names of young Chinese architects active in the construction industry appear in numerous fields. Crossover, extension, and exploration, young Chinese architects seek to work beyond the boundary of architecture.

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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 Eric Johnson, Founder and Principal of EJA Lighting Design, to discuss the role and value of the lighting designer, common lighting flaws, working with architects, lighting different types and styles of architecture, lighting technologies, key qualities of a good lighting designer, and more.

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Following the digital panel “How to be anti-racist in professional practice,” the collective Arquitetas inVisíveis released a short guide outlining fundamental points for building an equitable and anti-racist profession. The guide includes a selection of texts that help navigate the social landscape and offer ways to address racism, not only within architecture and urbanism but in life as a whole.

While steep slopes present a challenge, they also offer an opportunity to explore vertical relationships between spaces. Whether adapting to or subverting the natural landscape, these designs gain a powerful expressiveness and a strong sense of place. Negotiating the slope is a constraint for many program types, but in residential design, it often takes center stage, driving the core architectural strategy. Below is a selection of 25 Brazilian residences that exemplify the diverse approaches to addressing sloped terrains.

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18 shops and stores, 16 shopping malls, 18 hotels, and 18 restaurants have been selected as continental winners of the 2021 Prix Versailles awards across six regions: Africa and Western Asia; Central America, South America, and the Caribbean; North America; Central and Northeast Asia; South Asia and the Pacific; and Europe. The selected projects will now compete for the world titles, which will be announced on December 15, 2021.

As in previous years, the selection criteria focused on innovation, creativity, the reflection of local, natural, and cultural heritage, and ecological efficiency, as well as the values of social interaction and participation. Discover all the continental winners below.

This episode of Arquicast discusses how the sustainability agenda directly influences architectural projects, particularly interior design. Over the last few decades, transformations in production methods and lifestyles have taken a negative toll on our relationship with planet Earth. Sustainability intersects with multiple layers of these issues, and the same holds true for architecture, design, and the construction industry.

From cross-border movement to intra-urban displacement, the migrant population shapes and transforms the landscapes and dynamics of sociability established in the territories they inhabit. The city, a space where different perspectives meet and clash, intensifies this dynamic by receiving migratory flows and welcoming the various actors in this process in distinct ways. Latin American migrant women—a diverse group in terms of race, gender identity, sexual orientation, and class—challenge conservative logic as they move across national borders and urban territories. Within this reality, migrants organized in collectives assert their demands and claim their participation in the city through expressions of their cultures of origin. 

Cora Coletivo, a transdisciplinary Brazilian group, developed a project in the city of Dongguan, China, for the Urban Greenhouse Challenge II (UGC2) competition. The proposal for an iconic timber-structured vertical farm houses culture, leisure, and the entire food production and distribution chain. In addition, the site features landscape design in its open spaces and an Agroforestry System (SAF) for food production.

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No País dos Arquitectos is a podcast created by Sara Nunes, who is also behind the architectural film production company Building Pictures, which aims to profile the professionals, projects, and stories behind leading contemporary Portuguese architecture. With just over 10 million inhabitants, Portugal is a fascinating country when it comes to this professional field, and its architectural output punches far above its demographic or territorial scale.

In this episode, Sara talks with architect Paulo Martins Barata, from the firm PROMONTORIO, about the design of Casa da Volta, located in Grândola, Portugal. Listen to the interview and read the transcript of the conversation below:

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Buildings around the world are getting taller. Since the year 2000, global skyscraper construction has increased by 402%. Cities like Dubai are home to nearly 1000 high-rise buildings, and New York’s vibrant luxury real estate market has shown no signs of slowing down, with more high-rise additions slated to be added to its already towering skyline. There’s good in this – high-rises create much-needed space in already dense cities and can reduce urban sprawl in city centres, allowing for better preservation of natural areas.

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The Education and Training Commission (CEF) of CAU/RJ is conducting the survey Impacts of Remote Learning on the Training of Architects and Urban Planners. The goal is to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on undergraduate education and professional training during the pandemic and its future ramifications, considering the implementation of remote classes and restrictions on curricular and extracurricular activities in architecture and urban planning schools across the state of Rio de Janeiro.

Jane's Walk is part of the Jane's Walk initiative, an annual festival that aims to honor activist and urbanist Jane Jacobs by organizing city walks around the world to reclaim streets as public spaces for coexistence and community gathering. This text on Jane Jacobs Walks, written by Susana Jiménez, is part of a series of guides made available by the project "La Aventura de Aprender" (The Adventure of Learning), conceived and coordinated by Antonio Lafuente and Patricia Horrillo.

Jiménez, a musician, philosopher, and PhD in art history, has been promoting and coordinating this experience in Madrid since 2010. Every first weekend of May, groups of neighbors and people interested in urban planning and neighborhood networks organize open assemblies to host this activity. It consists of walking through the streets of different proposed neighborhoods and discussing what is happening in them, whether regarding urban planning, housing, local events, or reclaiming collective memory.

More than 20 spaces and buildings of high architectural, cultural, and heritage value will open their doors, allowing the public to rediscover the architecture and urbanism of Buenos Aires. In its ninth edition, this in-person festival will take place on December 4 and 5, offering unique tours with innovative and accessible activities for all.

Videos

Winston Churchill once said: "We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us." This quote almost seems written specifically for the architecture design firm Kwong von Glinow. Alison von Glinow and Lap Chi Kwong are married and partners in practice. For the last couple years, they’ve been designing and building their own live/work building in a northern neighborhood of Chicago called Edgewater. A model of the house lived in their dining room for months as they conceived of the house, making daily changes until it was constructed and they could move in. They shaped the design, now it shapes them. In this video, Kwong von Glinow takes us through this building — called the Ardmore House — and they explain how they designed it, what it’s like to live in, and how it has shaped their work since.

By definition, architecture and urban planning operate within a certain degree of indeterminacy, using present context to find viable answers for an unknown future. As a result, design is a constant search for a balance between prescribing and taking a step back to make room for alternate yet unforeseeable scenarios. Uncertainty is an inherent condition in present-day society, and recent rapid social, economic, and even environmental changes prompt a closer look at how architecture can incorporate indeterminacy. The following reviews some precedents and contemporary examples that programmatically operate with indeterminacy, highlighting several strategies for designing for uncertainty and change.

Bjarke Ingels Group and A-Lab have unveiled their design of Oslo Science City, a new innovation district in Norway's capital that aims to create a physical framework for Norway’s innovation environment of estimated 150,000 scientists, students, entrepreneurs, and contribute to the country’s transition to renewable energy. The district aims to be a net zero emission area that operates on renewable energy and circular economic principles, as well as zero emission solutions during development and operation.

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