Architecture: The Latest Architecture and News

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The Harvard Graduate School of Design (Harvard GSD) will no longer refer to a private residence at 9 Ash Street in Cambridge as the “Philip Johnson Thesis House.” Moving forward, the home, designed by and inhabited by Johnson while enrolled at the Harvard GSD in the 1940s, will now be known solely by its physical street address.

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The Best Architecture Masters (BAM) platform presented the third edition of its ranking of the best postgraduate architecture programs in the world.

Based on a list of different postgraduate study programs from the best architecture schools selected in the QS Ranking by Subjects – Architecture / Built Environment, these were evaluated by 11 educational-performance indicators and 41 sub-indicators in relation to the teaching approach, the opportunities they offer, and the programs themselves.

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As a part of the XV Taller Social Latinoamericano architectural conference that took place in Puno, Peru, we visited the Iruito Tupi zone in Huancané province alongside Francisco Mariscal, Director of the Puno Cultural Center. For the conference, Mariscal gave a presentation on the history of putucos, pre-Columbian houses made with a mixture of earth and grass.

History has the habit of repeating itself; using the same script, just with different names, figures, and places. Some 10,000 years ago, the Altiplano and the Titicaca lake basin, wedged between modern day Peru and Bolivia, became home to hunters and gatherers who subsisted on the herds of llamas and vicuñas as well as the bounty of birds and fish.

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The parking house, entitled Parking House + Konditaget Lüders, has just won the international design award Danish Design Award 2020 in the category of “Liveable Cities”. Designed by JAJA Architects, the intervention refurbished the roof of a parking house into living urban space with sports and play equipment.

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Throughout human history, the movement of populations–in search of food, shelter, or better economic opportunities–has been the norm rather than the exception. Today, however, the world is witnessing unprecedented levels of displacement. The United Nations reports that 68.5 million people are currently displaced from their homes; this includes nearly 25.4 million refugees, over half of whom are under the age of eighteen. With conflicts raging on in countries like Syria and Myanmar, and climate change set to lead to increased sea levels and crop failures, the crisis is increasingly being recognised as one of the foundational challenges of the twenty-first century.

While emergency housing has dominated the discourse surrounding displacement in the architecture industry, it is critical for architects and planners to study and respond to the socio-cultural ramifications of population movements. How do we build cities that are adaptive to the holistic needs of fluid populations? How do we ensure that our communities absorb refugees and migrants into their local social fabric?

This World Refugee Day, let’s take a look at 5 shining examples of social infrastructure from around the world–schools, hospitals, and community spaces–that are specifically directed at serving displaced populations.

Dear architects,

When we started this project 15 years ago, we knew that the expansion of cities would become the biggest challenge for humanity, and that architects, with better access to knowledge, had the ability to radically improve the quality of life of billions of people. That is why we envisioned ArchDaily as a global source of inspiration, knowledge, and tools to help architects face this challenge. Our carefully curated, unbiased, categorized database of projects, materials and knowledge, paired with a stream of globally diverse content, now serves more than 650,000 people every day.

As our industry is on the verge of a rapid digital transformation, it is our responsibility to understand how technology will integrate inspiration, product sourcing, project delivery, construction and even the management of the life cycle of buildings, enabling architects to do more and better, in an efficient and sustainable way, to face the big challenges ahead. 

That is why we are happy to share the news that we are joining Architonic, the largest database of curated products, to expand both our value propositions for the architecture and interior design world.

In a predominately urban world that constantly has to deal with complex problems such as waste generation, water scarcity, natural disasters, air pollution, and even the spread of disease, it is impossible to ignore the impact of human activity on the environment. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time and it is urgent that we find ways to slow down the process, at the very least. Toward this end, our production, consumption, and construction habits will have to change, or climate change and environmental degradation will continue to diminish the quality and duration of our lives and that of future generations.

Although they seem intangible and distant, these various energy inefficiencies and waste issues are much closer than we can imagine, present in the buildings we use on a daily basis. As architects, this problem is further amplified as we deal daily with design decisions and material specifications. In other words, our decisions really do have a global impact. How can we use design to create a healthier future for our world?