The result of a collaboration between OMA / Jason Long and Y.A. studio, the joint development of 730 Stanyan in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco broke ground. Upon completion, the 8-story building will accommodate 160 units of deeply affordable homes and amenities for low-income people, including formerly unhoused families, and homes and amenities for people with low incomes in San Francisco, including families, formerly unhoused families, and Transitional Age Youth (TAY). The project is scheduled to be completed in the Fall of 2025.
Low-carbon Material Solution - ECOPlanet. Image Courtesy of Holcim
Cities are defined as densely populated geographic areas characterized by urban development. They serve as economic, political, and cultural centers, offering various services, infrastructure, and opportunities. However, urban densification has been associated with negative aspects such as health issues, pollution, and social problems. Countries like India and China, with their massive populations exceeding billions, face a significant demand for services and housing.
Recent research, including studies by institutions like the Berkeley Cool Climate Network, has brought about a paradigm shift in our perception of urban densification. This shift aims to reduce cities' carbon footprint and support collaborative efforts to achieve Sustainable Development goals. Densification is proposed as a crucial strategy for promoting social prosperity, and well-being, and combating climate change. However, a relevant question arises: How can we effectively achieve densification while addressing global warming? Companies like Holcim have responded to this challenge by developing sustainable building solutions and engaging in meaningful discussions with architects, such as Shajay Bhooshan, Associate Director at Zaha Hadid Architects. These collaborations provide valuable insights into the concept of urban densification as a catalyst for climate action.
https://www.archdaily.com/1003021/rethinking-urban-development-densifying-cities-for-accelerated-climate-actionEnrique Tovar
While visiting this year’s Serpentine Pavilion, the ArchDaily team has a chance to sit down with French-Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh, the designer behind the temporary structure built in the Kensington Gardens in London. The conversation touched upon Ghotmeh’s motivations and concepts that prompted this pavilion titled À table, conceived as an invitation to sit down together at a table, to enjoy sharing food and engaging in open dialogues. Delving into her Lebanese roots, the architect also expands on her methodology and the desire to create space for conversation and decision-making while encouraging conviviality among people of different backgrounds and experiences. The ArchDaily team also talked to Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director at the Serpentine Galleries, about the pavilion as a platform for architecture and the arts.
India recently overtook its sub-continental neighbor, China, to become the most populous country in the world with a demography of over 1.4286 billion people. As data from the United Nations also estimates an annual population growth rate of 0.7%, the country’s built environment is set to interact with a new discourse of demography and present its own perspective on how to build for billions. It is set to engage with new challenges of infrastructure, transportation, and adequate housing, which on the surface will force cities to constantly expand as a response to these dynamic needs. However, a critical look at the population distribution within the country reveals that the majority of Indians still live in rural areas as it caters to 65% of the population despite increasing rural-urban migration. This suggests a nudge in a different direction. One where the design and development of the rural areas take precedence over the cities. One that explores architecture in rural areas, its relationship with the cities, and its future as a primary framework to house the exploding population.
Carlson-Reges House (1992-1996). Image Courtesy of Michael Rotondi
Michael Rotondi’s buildings—museums, civic centers, education facilities, monasteries, restaurants, and residences—evoke kinetic mechanisms that fold, hinge, twist, and split open. They express the architect’s feelings, thinking, and mood at the time they had been designed, and, on some occasions, during their assembly and construction. Rotondi was born in 1949 in Los Angeles.
He established his RoTo Architects, a research-based firm in his native city, in 1991 after co-heading Morphosis for 16 years with Thom Mayne. Parallel to his practicing career, the architect has been teaching and lecturing at SCI-Arc, Southern California Institute of Architecture, which he co-founded in 1972, led its graduate program from 1978-1987, and was the school’s second director for a decade from 1987 to 1997.
In recent years, the spotlight on sustainable, eco-friendly, and low-carbon materials has intensified across the architecture industry. Amid this interest, a renaissance of hemp architecture is gradually gaining momentum on a global scale. Hemp-based materials have emerged as a favorable alternative to traditional industrialized materials, presenting a multitude of benefits that could revolutionize the construction industry. Despite its vast promise, several hurdles obstruct the widespread adoption of hemp, inhibiting its transformative potential in the construction industry.
Following an international competition, Dorte Mandrup has been selected to design the new Inuit Heritage Centre in the territory of Nunavut in northern Canada. Designed together with Architect of Record Guy Architects, LEES+Associates, Adjeleian Allen Rubeli, EXP, Pageau Morel, Altus Group, and indigenous consultants Kirt Ejesiak and Alexander Flaherty, the new centre aims to become a sign of cultural conciliation and a symbol of the continuation of Inuit practices, traditions and values. By offering a place where Inuit can reconnect with their collective past through objects, stories, and activities, the centre will promote greater awareness of Inuit culture. The project is expected to be completed by 2027.
The XIV Florence Biennale of Art and Design announced that Santiago Calatrava will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award, a "tribute to one of the most influential architects of our times and a recognition of your audacious experimentation, extraordinary talent, and ingenious ability to combine architecture and art in projects imagined and designed in harmony with nature and oriented towards the ideals of beauty.”
Paris Opera by Charles Garnier. Photo by Francesco Zivoli, via Unsplash
Architectural styles have fallen out of favor throughout history. Generally, the peak of one movement means the decline of another. Over time, the situation may reverse, as in the case of postmodernism, which has divided opinions since its emergence, but experienced a revival in the first decades of the 2000s (or maybe not). Temporal distance contributes to the revision of certain styles' relevance and evaluation of their qualities - or problems.
Courtesy of Foster + Partners | Bank of International Settlements (BIS) Headquarters Extension
Office spaces in design and architecture play a crucial role in shaping the way we work and interact in professional environments. They are thoughtfully designed to promote healthy output, encourage teamwork, and give workers a welcoming and motivating environment. After the Covid-10 pandemic, work lifestyles underwent a significant transformation. As a result, companies have been adapting and redesigning new ways of working, implementing flexible schedules and hybrid work policies.
This evolution in work lifestyles has father influenced office design, now more focused on prioritizing health, safety, personal space, and collaboration. Office spaces in design and architecture have been adapting to the changing work landscape for decades. As they evolve to meet the changing needs of the workforce, various design iterations are explored, promoting different values.
This week’s curated selection of Best Unbuilt Architecture showcases projects submitted by the ArchDaily community highlighting different office spaces. Ranging from a more formal bank headquarters in Switzerland to a mixed-use business center in Ukraine, these designs heavily influence the way in which people work in the spaces.
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 of FAME Architecture & Design are joined by Denise Scott Brown, architect, planner and urban designer, and a theorist, writer and educator to discuss her background and upbringing in South Africa; her beginnings in architecture; traveling the world; how teaching impacted her life and career; the National Gallery and other of her projects being remodeled; and much more!
What does the future of cities and transportation look like? It looks like the future will run on two wheels and a handle bar. Many explain the rise of cyclists as a shift towards a healthier and more economical lifestyle. But while that may be true, why would individuals feel inclined to ride bicycles if the roads don't support it, or if there weren't adequate spaces to park?
Architecture plays an important role in promoting the use of bicycles. Cities equipped with safe bicycle lanes, parking lots, and public bike facilities encourage citizens to refrain from using their cars, and opt for a much more sustainable means of transportation. Many have already began reshaping their urban infrastructure in a way that caters to bicycles, whether it is through bicycle bridges, widened cycling lanes, or permanent parking lots.
Saint Laurent Men’s Summer 24 at Mies van der Rohe’s Neue Nationalgalerie. Image Courtesy of Saint Laurent
Architecture and fashion share an interesting interplay in the formation of cultural expressions and identities. Both disciplines can become vehicles for creativity at different levels. Architecture is often described as the “third skin” of humans, while clothes represent the second skin, highlighting somewhat similar functionality of protecting the body while also allowing for self-expression and individuality.
The relationship between architecture and fashion can also be seen in the shared design principles, such as form, proportion, human scale, and materiality. More than a simple background for runway shows, architecture can contribute to setting the atmosphere, becoming a source of inspiration, and orienting the movement through space. Collaborations between architects and fashion houses, such as the renowned partnership between OMA/AMO and Prada, further blur the boundaries between the two disciplines, demonstrating the myriad of interconnections between the two creative fields.
There are three primary settings in which lower-density urbanism can be useful, and where conditions favored by YIMBYs are weak or nonexistent: as a replacement for what is currently slated to be built out as sprawl, as a recovery process for existing sprawl, and in small towns that are growing. Giving up on these settings forces all development intended to combat the housing crisis into urban settings, ideally near transit, where land is much more expensive to acquire and to develop. It also allows the sprawl machine to roll on unimpeded.The best vehicle for implementing principles illustrated here at the scale of a neighborhood, hamlet, or village is not a major production builder, as these principles violate almost all of their conventional industrial practices. Instead, look to the record of stronger New Urbanist developers who are no strangers to doing things considered unconventional by the Industrial Development Complex in the interest of better places with stronger lifetime returns.
Heating and cooling buildings have always been two of the most important challenges in ensuring indoor user comfort. At a biological level, our bodies generate heat through metabolism, a physicochemical process. And although the human body has temperature regulation mechanisms, such as sweating and vasodilation, sometimes we need additional help to achieve thermal comfort. Therefore, since ancient times, traditional strategies have been sought to help achieve this, and many have been adapted to their historical and material contexts.
https://www.archdaily.com/1001837/empowering-thermal-comfort-through-smartphone-technology-in-hvac-systemsEnrique Tovar
Jingru (Cyan) Cheng . Image Courtesy of Wheelwright Prize
Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) has announced Jingru (Cyan) Cheng as the recipient of the 2023 Wheelwright Prize, a study grant created to support globally-minded research and investigative approaches to contemporary architecture. The winning research project, titled “Tracing Sand: Phantom Territories, Bodies Adrift,” delves into the multifaceted impacts of sand mining and reclamation, understood from cultural, economic, and ecological perspectives. The unassuming material has become an indispensable element for our built environment and human communities, serving as a vital component in the production of glass, concrete, asphalt roads, and artificial land. Yet the process of dredging underwater systems and sand mining leads to the disruption of habitats in a process that simultaneously shapes one habitat while devastating another.
