Local governor Toyohito Ikeda of Takamatsu, in Japan, announced that the famous Kagawa Gymnasium will be demolished. Built between 1961 and 1964 by the Pritzker Prize winner Kenzo Tange, the structure is a landmark of the modernist post-war era in Japan. This news has sparked the creation of a petition in an effort to save this 47-year-old monument.
The National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (Inbal) announced the selected proposal that will represent Mexico at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale 2023. The selection was derived from 44 registered teams and 14 projects submitted. The selected proposal is called "Utopian Infrastructure: The peasant basketball court" and is made up of the following participants:
Captivated by cinematographic references and the narrative space, Ole Scheeren's work stands out by its disruptive solutions to the present social challenges and the cities we live in. With more than 30 years of career in the architecture field, Ole Scheeren has won several awards and one of its most iconic works includes the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing when was director and partner at OMA, before founding Büro Ole Scheeren.
In this interview, documented at the World Architecture Festival 2022, Scheeren discusses the importance of the narrative of a project and the quality architecture has by building the stages where people live: "the fictional anticipation of life".
“Our planet is choking in plastic,” states the United Nations. While the man-made material has many valuable uses, our addiction to single-use plastic products has led to severe economic, health and environmental issues. Roughly one million plastic bottles are purchased every minute, and five trillion plastic bags are used every year worldwide –used just once, then thrown away. Plastics and microplastics have found their way into every corner of our natural environment, from the peaks of the highest mountains to the depths of the deepest oceans. So much so, that they have become part of the Earth’s fossil record and created an entirely new marine microbial habitat known as the “plastisphere.”
The World Design Capital, a city project dedicated to promoting the design profession around the world, showcases a new capital every two years. The initiative recognizes cities for their constructive use of design to drive social, cultural, and environmental change and improve the overall quality of life. This week, San Diego and Tijuana have been named the World Design Capital of 2024, due to their human-centric design strategies and their cross-border collaboration. In previous editions, the World Design Organization had selected Valencia and Mexico City as design capitals of the world.
Stefano Boeri has been awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the sixth edition of the Madrid Design Festival. According to the organizers, this recognition pays homage to a “great figure in design”. It acknowledges the significance of his contributions to the disciplines of architecture and urban planning, as well as publishing and academia. The award ceremony, held at the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (ILE), was conferred by the architect Rafael Moneo, who personally handed the award to Stefano Boeri.
The proposal "EN OPERA. Future Scenarios of a Young Forestry Law" by INST/MAPA + Carlos Casacuberta has been selected to represent Uruguay at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, to be held from May 20th to November 26th, 2023.
When lockdowns first hit and retailers were forced to shut up shop, many took to the digital high street instead, with those investing hardest and quickest in their online personas invariably winning the battle for our bookmarks. As the world opened again, some kept both their physical and digital presence in a hybrid model, while others chose to remove themselves from bricks and mortar altogether.
As we become more accustomed to using both models together, it’s clear that physical retail spaces can offer sensorial experiences that the digital simply can not – yet. These four projects buck the online retail trend and encourage consumers – and therefore other retailers, too – to move back into the physical, by turning the act of shopping into an exciting, invigorating, or relaxing luxury pastime, rather than a chore.
Architects’ registration boards in UK and US have reached an agreement that enables architects to benefit from a more straightforward process to get licensed in both countries. The Mutual Recognition Agreement results from a negotiation between the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) in the United States and its United Kingdom counterpart, the Architects Registration Board (ARB). This week, the two organizations announced that the agreement has been signed by both parties. It will become active on April 25, 2023, allowing architects to apply for reciprocal licensure in the US and the UK.
This agreement is the result of over nearly four years of research and negotiation between NCARB and the ARB. In 2018 NCARB initiated a process of evaluating the requirements for registration in the United Kingdom, comparing it to the licensing process in the US. The analysis found a substantial overlap between the standards in both countries. These similarities form the base of the mutual agreement, which will provide a streamlined path for architects seeking reciprocal licensure in the two countries, along with the subsequent professional opportunities that could come with it.
Sir David Adjaye unveils new plans for the new Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation in Central Brooklyn. This center is the first-ever community development institution in the country, established in 1967. The scheme envisions a space that accelerates wealth creation and closes the racial wealth gap that has affected the United States.
Ceilings were once a symbol of grandeur and opulence, adorning grand buildings, churches and palaces with their intricate and elaborate designs. We still find ourselves looking up in awe at these mesmerizing historical buildings, with our eyes drawn to their magnificent vaulted ceilings, remarkable truss structures or distinctive works of art depicting mythology, historical events and landscapes. Contemporary design, on the other hand, has shifted towards a sleek, minimalistic aesthetic; one where plain white ceilings have become the norm in most modern buildings. As Rasmus Wærn and Gert Wingårdh suggest in their book What is Architecture? And 100 Other Questions, “Ceilings have devolved from being the focal point of a room to being a zone for mechanical equipment.” And yet they have extraordinary creative potential.
This week's curated selection of Best Unbuilt Architecture highlights cultural centers by the ArchDaily community. From a spiral- gallery symbolizing the Jinju culture in South Korea, a building devoted to Irish culture to a gallery to serve as a cultural incubator for Indonesia, this round-up of unbuilt projects showcases how architects, community, and institutions team up to promote culture, arts, history, and reflection.
Featuring the firms Id lab architecture, Oxo arc, Atelier of spatial matters, ddrlp, Brno Architectural studio AOSI, Nir Shmueli Studio, Macary-Bensh Architecture, MZ Architects, and Studio BANAA, the following list explores cultural centers at different scales and varying stages of their development. Whether competition-winning projects or ongoing planned execution, each project gathers neighborhoods, arts organizations, private facilities, government-sponsored or activist-run.
Architecture is a referential discipline. From ziggurats, machines for living, to contemporary biophilic high-rises designs, it is impossible to know whether ideas are genuinely novel or whether they have been conceptualized before. Artificial intelligence has ignited the conversation on intellectual property (IP) even more. As millions generate unique graphic work by typing keywords, controversies have arisen, specifically concerning protecting creative work and the Copyright of architects in their creations. Therefore, understanding the scope of what is protected helps determine whether licenses are sufficient, whether trademark registration's long road is worth it; or perhaps a graphic piece cannot be protected and belongs to the public domain.
Pretentious as it may sound, we can say with certainty that bamboo is one of the most promising materials for the future of the construction industry. Neil Thomas, principal engineer at atelier one, says that if we were to design an ideal building material, it would look a lot like bamboo. This is because it grows very fast, is present in many countries around the world, has a highly efficient cross-section, and has impressive load-bearing strength. But beyond its structural use in its raw form, bamboo is also a material that allows a high level of processing and can be laminated for flooring, fixtures and, as we will see in this article, for Structural Engineered Bamboo (SEB) structures, which are very similar to Engineered Wood. We spoke with Luke D. Schuette, founder and CEO of ReNüTeq Solutions, LLC, a company in St. Louis, Missouri, that has been working with this structural material technology.
Opus Architecture & Simon Mahringer have just been awarded first prize in an open competition for the new museum and science center in Oulu, Finland. The competition was held in 2022, and the winners were announced on January 12th, 2023, chosen from a total of 95 proposals. The building is situated in the coastal city of Oulu, right at the center of the Myllytulli area, where the current science center Tietomaa is located. The new proposal will house the current science center and the facilities of the Oulu Art Museum.
Snøhetta, the Norweigan-based architecture and landscape practice, has been chosen to re-imagine the French Asylum and Administrative Courts of Montreuil. The proposal puts together both institutions on one site, surrounded by luscious green areas and a biophilic landscape. Set to begin construction in 2024, and be completed by 2026, the project includes the design of the buildings, landscape, wayfinding, interior, and furniture.
Francisco Cadau received the highest award at the recent Buenos Aires 2022 International Architecture Biennial. A recognition of his genuine trajectory that, from technique and materiality, consistently manages to position his favorite location on the map: The city of Campana on the edge of the Parana River in Argentina. His works in this place, such as House of Sieves or Damero Building, are references when it comes to thinking about project models where "construction and technology constitute the ideas themselves".
The philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre coined the notion of "production of space" in 1974, breaking with the vision of space as a container or scenario of objects and social relations, to move towards space understood as a process. From this vision based on the Marxist tradition, space is a product and a producer of social relations and processes.
