The interest in co-living is on the rise, a direction emphasized by the merger between the largest co-living operator in the US, Common, and their European equivalent, Habyt. The two companies manage more than 4,000 apartments in the US and 7,000 apartments in Europe and Asia, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. The term co-living refers to a modern form of group housing where residents share communal spaces for socializing, cooking, and gathering, and have access to shared amenities such as cleaning services or dog walking.
The Philippines' history and cultural background are continually reflected in the architectural landscape throughout the country, with its structures and dwellings harboring a handful of influences from the nations that once purveyed the island.
When we talk about the topic of Filipino architecture and dwellings, more often than not, we may think of the first known Filipino home: Bahay Kubo. The Bahay Kubo is a small hut comprising nipa, bamboo, and other indigenous materials. It is often times that many citizens still choose to adopt this style of habitation, however, over time, the concept of the nipa hut has evolved into a more modern structure.
In the following interview with Paul Tange, the chairman and senior principal architect at Tange Associates in Tokyo, we discussed the relationship with his famous architect-father Kenzo Tange (1913-2005; the most influential architect in postwar Japan and the winner of the 1987 Pritzker Prize), the fate of the house Tange senior built for his first family, the decision of joining his father’s practice right after graduation from Harvard, sharing his father’s design principles, and the vision behind his first independent built work – a 50-story Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower in Tokyo, a vertical campus that can accommodate up to 10,000 students; the project won an international competition, in which 50 international architects participated.
According to the World Population Clock, the human population reached 8 billion on November 15th. According to the UN, this milestone represents a celebration of human longevity due to improvements in public health and medicine, but it also comes with warnings about inequality, limited access to food and resources, and environmental damage. Despite the impressive number, the annual World Population Prospect report shows that the global population is growing at the slowest rate since 1950, and it predicts a continued deceleration in the second half of this century.
As more than half of the worldpopulation lives in cities, an estimated 55.7%, according to UN-Habitat’s latest reports, the urban challenges are growing exponentially. The UN expects this number to increase to 68% by 2050, with close to 90% of this increase taking place in Asia and Africa. Accelerated urbanization can pose significant risks, such as increasing inequality, poverty, sectorized development, social exclusion, and pollution. In this context, a well-balanced urban agenda becomes crucially important in achieving inclusive, safe, and sustainable cities.
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) has revealed the design of 8 Shenton Way, a 305 meters-high tower. Once completed it would become not only Singapore's Tallest Building but one of Asia's most sustainable skyscrapers. The mixed-use tower takes cues from bamboo forests to create an indoor-outdoor vertical community with public spaces, offices, retail, a hotel, and residences. In partnership with DCA Architects, the project is scheduled for completion in 2028 and will become the newest landmark on the Singapore skyline, along with Marina Bay and CapitaSpring Tower.
Los Manantiales by Felix Candela. Image Courtesy of Alexander Eisenschmid
Architecture is often an ambitious profession, with many architects hoping to positively contribute to the social life of the communities, create emotional responses, and add moments of delight and solace to our daily experiences. However, market forces have a way of applying constant pressure on this field, often being the deciding factor in many design choices. Costs and economic value are generally a good indicator of how, when, and to what extent certain materials are being used: the standard rule is the cheaper, the better. But materials are only part of the equation. Site labor, management, and design costs are also considered, depicting a complex picture of the balance between the cost of materials and the cost of labor and its effect on the architectural product.
The Filipinos believe that man and woman first emerged from the nodes of a bamboo stalk. The Chinese view the caneas a symbol of their culture and values, reciting “there is no place to live without bamboo”. The plant is a symbol of prosperity in Japan and friendship in India. Along with myths and stories, strong structures made of bamboo flourished in pre-modernAsia. Built forms varied across the changing landscapes of Eastern countries, all sharing one aspect in common - a respect for natural ecosystems.
The history and culture of the Philippines are reflected in its architectural heritage, with numerous influences from other nations paving the way for the contemporary designs we see today, a mixité of cultural influences amongst Western-style buildings. Philippine architecture has grown along with the progress of the nation and its people, but memories of a glorious past are still embedded within the nation’s history.
As is obvious to anyone with even a passing interest in demographics, cities are becoming denser—much denser. Rural life continues its steady emptying-out as urban life accelerates its explosive filling-in. The tilt has been apparent at least since the middle of the last century when the French geographer Jean Gottmann invented the word “megalopolis” to describe the continuous urbanization from Boston to Washington, D.C., then containing one-fifth of the United States’ population. But nowhere has the shift from countryside to city been more dramatic than in present-day Asia.
Taiwan proposes that architecture can transform a place, and to represent this idea, the work of Sheng-Yuan Huang and his practice, Fieldoffice, were chosen for the Taiwan Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia in 2018, entitled Living with Sky, Water, and Mountain: Making Places in Yilan. Sheng-Yuan and Fieldoffice demonstrated that the notion of making places is more than building a physical space, but is equally about establishing a linkage between people, as well as people and their environment.
Alessandro Martinelli explores Sheng-Yuan and his colleagues at Fieldoffice as the avant-garde of a new architectural movement in his book, The City Beyond Architecture, which seeks to produce a new form of collective living through the lens of design and culture, touching on what the design culture of the majority of future urbanization could become. In the following, we will discuss Shen-Yuang's impact on Taiwanese architecture as he spearheaded the call to integrate and imagine public spaces that inhabited the capacity to structure a particular landscape to provide both social spaces and a sense of identity to its occupants.
We are twenty-one years into the twenty-first century. The world has never been more connected with the advent of new technologies, yet historical inequalities still run rampant. These inequalities manifest themselves in different ways. Global travel, for example – despite the ubiquity of aeroplanes nowadays – is still only widely accessible to citizens of “developed” countries due to prohibitive visa restrictions. In architectural education, many institutions still prioritise a Eurocentric curriculum, the architecture of non-Western populations largely ignored. Another perpetuation of prejudiced systems is Orientalism – and exploring this concept through an architectural lens is useful for interrogating contemporary design approaches and approaches of the future.
Architecture, by its very definition, involves the construction of structures. Structures that are meant to serve as spaces for work, living, religious devotion, amongst many other purposes. Architectural projects and interventions, however, need land – and it is this intrinsic relationship, between land and architecture, that has massive ramifications not only regarding reducing carbon emissions but more importantly in forming an equitable future rooted in climate justice.
Before fossil-fuel powered air-conditioning became widely available, people living in harsh climates had nothing but natural means to ventilate their spaces and control the interior temperature. To do so, they took into account several external factors such as their location, orientation with respect to the sun and wind, their area's climate conditions, and local materials. In this article, we explore how ancient civilizations in Western Asia and North Africa have used windcatchers to adapt to the region's harsh climate and provide passive cooling solutions that are still being used in contemporary architecture, proving that local approaches to climate adaptability are fundamental to the development of today's built environment.
Kigali, Rwanda - September 21, 2018: a wide view looking down on the city centre with Pension Plaza in the foreground and Kigali City Tower in the background against a backdrop of distant blue hills. Image via Shutterstock/ By Jennifer Sophie
The urban metropolises of our planet are home to an abundance of stories. They are home to stories of wealth, of innovation, and of architectural marvels. They are home, too, to stories of inequality, inequity and of urban divides – places where one’s income determines the quality of the spatial environment around them. Within these stories has developed an increasing advocation for making cities “smarter”, the goal being to use data and digital technology to build more efficient and convenient urban environments.
Over the past couple of years, many designers have voiced their commitment to ethical and ecological sourcing, resorting to frugal designs through local materials, traditional techniques, and equitable architecture. Having this approach in mind, many found inspiration in their cultural heritage, reimagining ancient designs in contemporary contexts.
When thinking of recycled design trends, we can't overlook one of the most well-known and popular materials that was shared by nations all around the globe over the span of 100 years; on balconies, outdoor patios, gardens, and indoor living spaces: rattan. It is estimated that almost seven hundred million people worldwide use rattan, with many countries presenting it as an integral part of their cultures. In this article, we look at how architects and designers integrated rattan in their designs and found numerous ways to make the best out of Southeast Asia's popular local material.
When we talk about vernacular architecture, we’re talking about an architectural style specific to a region – architecture that relies on the use of local knowledge and materials to construct buildings. It’s the Beehive Houses of Harran in Turkey, to the traditional Malay Houses found throughout southeast Asia. The vernacular architecture of various places continues to be a source of inspiration for contemporary architects, as they look to create sustainable architectural responses well-suited for their context.
The global landscape of today has been moulded by centuries and centuries of human migration. This movement of people, of individuals and communities travelling far away from their place of origin to eke out better lives for themselves, has seen the evolution of the architectural and urban character of cities – moulded by the diverse influences fuelled by migration. This has meant that around the world, enclaves have popped up in cities, migrants carving out spaces for themselves which have a different character to other areas of a city.
In the second half of the 20th century, Soviet architecture has spread a common aesthetic across highly diverse environments, being an integral part in promoting the totalitarian ideology that disregarded local cultures, envisioning a unified, homogenous society. Nevertheless, in practice, the architecture proved itself susceptible to adaptations and local influences, perhaps nowhere more than in Central Asia. The article looks at the architectural heritage of a geographical area largely excluded from the Western-centric narratives on Soviet Modernism, encouraging a re-reading of a layered and nuanced urban landscape, with images by Roberto Conte and Stefano Perego.
