With a vast built heritage, Lisbon's contemporary architectural production is rich in rehabilitation projects. Lacking space for new buildings - unless one is willing to pay for the land's high market price - Lisbon's current architecture prescinds tabula rasa and faces the challenge of working with what already exists - often limiting itself to design only interior spaces.
Grafton Architects. Image Courtesy of Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, University of Arkansas
Selected from 69 submissions from 10 countries, six international firms were shortlisted for the design competition of the future Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation at the University of Arkansas.
Stone Tower Research Project. Image Courtesy of Groupwork
Groupwork, in collaboration with Jackson Coles, Eight Associates, Webb Yates, The Stonemasonry Company and Polycor, is investigating the possibilities to build large commercial buildings in stone, through the Stone Tower Research project and The New Stone Age exhibition.
Studio Ma has broken ground on a new mixed-use tower complex for Arizona State University in Phoenix. The downtown residence hall and entrepreneurial center aims to foster innovation and collaboration for students and the campus community. The 16-floor residential tower includes academic and interdisciplinary facilities with living space for up to 530 students. The design was made to connect with the city and regional businesses.
Craftmanship is back. Following a century of mass production and industrial development, crafts are starting to be revalued and reinterpreted. A new sensitivity towards raw materials, the recovery of local techniques and the defense of small-scale trade are a few of the claims that this comeback represents. Materials such as earth and ceramics, textiles and wood are being reinterpreted by designers, artists, and architects around the world, in search of both their own style and the representation of collective nostalgia.