Today, on the first Monday of October, we celebrate World Architecture Day. This year, the International Union of Architects (UIA) has set the theme "Design for Strength," a powerful call to action that resonates deeply with the UN's focus on urban crisis response. In a world facing unprecedented environmental and social disruptions, this theme challenges us to move beyond temporary fixes. It asks: How can our buildings and cities not only withstand shocks but also foster equity, continuity, and resilience?
While the concept of strength in architecture can easily evoke images of reinforced concrete and steel, a more profound interpretation is emerging, one that defines strength not as mere rigidity, but as a holistic capacity to endure and adapt. This includes many facets, from ecological resilience and stewardship to long-lasting concepts of social resilience or the long-lasting conservation of existing urban structures, all contributing to a built environment more able to respond to the multitude of crises faced by cities worldwide.
Researchers point out that "proto-greenhouses" arose to fulfill the desire of the Roman Emperor Tiberius (42 BC to 37 AD) to eat cucumbers every day of the year. Since it was impossible to grow the vegetable on the island of Capri in winter, his gardeners developed beds mounted on wheels that they would move into the sun when possible, while on winter days they would place them under translucent covers made of Selenite (a type of gypsum with a glassy appearance). But the production of large-scale greenhouses only became possible after the Industrial Revolution with the availability of mass-produced glass sheets. Since then, they have been used to grow food and flowers, forming a microclimate suitable for plant species even in places with severe climates. But in some cases, these artificial growing conditions can also form interesting living spaces. The recent Lacaton & Vassal awards rekindled this interest. How is it possible to create greenhouses that can be good for both humans and plants?
According to the UN, more than 7000 extreme weather events have been recorded since 2000. Just this year, wildfires raged across Australia and the west coast of the U.S.; Siberia charted record high temperatures, reaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit before Dallas or Houston; and globally, this September was the world’s hottest September on record. As the effects of the climate crisis manifest in these increasingly dire ways, it is the prerogative of the building industry – currently responsible for 39% of global greenhouse gas emissions – to do its part by committing to genuine and sweeping change in its approach to sustainability.
One of the most challenging aspects of this change will be to meet mounting cooling demands in an eco-friendly way. Cooling is innately more difficult than heating: any form of energy can become heat, and our bodies and machines naturally generate heat even in the absence of active heating systems. Cooling does not benefit equally from spontaneous generation, making it often more difficult, more costly, or less efficient to implement. Global warming and its very tangible heating effects only exacerbate this reality, intensifying an already accelerating demand for artificial cooling systems. As it stands, many of these systems require large amounts of electricity and rely heavily on fossil fuels to function. The buildings sector must find ways to meet mounting demand for cooling that simultaneously elides these unsustainable effects.
https://www.archdaily.com/949585/cooling-interiors-will-be-the-architectural-challenge-of-the-futureLilly Cao
Last week, the Global Designing Cities Initiative (GDCI) released Designing Streets for Kids to set a new global baseline for designing urban streets. Designing Streets for Kids builds upon the approach of putting people first, with a focus on the specific needs of babies, children, and their caregivers as pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users in urban streets around the world.
Islands are an essential part of any larger kitchen layout, increasing counter space, storage space, and eating space as well as offering a visual focal point for the kitchen area. Serving a variety of functions, they can be designed in a variety of different ways, with some incorporating stools or chairs, sinks, drawers, or even dishwashers and microwaves. To determine which elements to include and how to arrange them, designers must determine the main purpose or focus of the island. Will it primarily serve as a breakfast bar, a space to entertain guests, an extension of the kitchen, or as something else? And with this function in mind, how should it enhance the kitchen workflow vis-à-vis the rest of the area? These considerations, combined with basic accessibility requirements, necessitate that the design of the island be carefully thought out. Below, we enumerate some of the essential factors of kitchen island design.
Momoyo Kaijima and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto of Atelier Bow-Wow and Elizabeth Diller are this year’s Architecture laureates of the Wolf Prize, an annual award highlighting scientists and artists for “their achievements in the interest of mankind”. One of Israel’s most prestigious international awards, the prize’s art categories include painting and sculpting, music and architecture, accompanied by the scientific categories of medicine, agriculture, mathematics, chemistry and physics. The jury commended the three architects’ notable work at the confluence of research, pedagogy and practice, influential for advancing the practice of architecture.
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Ecologic Pavilion In Alsace / Studio 1984. Image Cortesia de Studio 1984
The concept of upcycling refers to taking an item that would be considered waste and improving it in order to make it useful again, adding value and new functionality to it. This is a common word in several industries, such as fashion and furniture. In civil construction, this concept can also be incorporated, making the waste generated by the industry itself recirculate or even bringing what would be discarded from other industries to be processed and incorporated into constructions. This is the case of transforming agricultural waste into building materials, bringing a new use to discards, reducing the use of raw materials and creating products with excellent characteristics.
The 2021 edition of La Biennale di Venezia also includes 112 participants in competition from 46 countries, with 60 national participants in the Giardini, at the Arsenale, and in the historic city center of Venice, Italy. Moreover, the international exhibition welcomes three countries, being part of the most important architectural biennale of the world for the first time: Grenada, Iraq, and Uzbekistan.
Many of us have already lived, are living, or will live in a shared student house - a good mix of cheap housing and intense socializing with friends and school mates. For a reasonable price, it is possible to have a single private room and share common spaces. In fact, not only university students are living this way nowadays. The concept of co-living is becoming more and more an attractive and effective solution.
Remnants of the Socialist era, the large-scale architecture and urban spaces of the Eastern European Bloc still constitute a challenging legacy, at odds with contemporary urban environments and the values shaping cities today. This ideologically charged architecture is being reclaimed either through the reconciliation of the public opinion with this part of history, adaptive re-use, renovation, or through its re-contextualization as architectural heritage. By (re)introducing the human scale within these monumental architecture projects and public spaces, these entities are being restored to the urban and cultural life of cities.
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