Architect Jørn Utzon, globally recognized for projects like the Sydney Opera House, introduced an innovative design featuring its iconic shell-shaped roofs. Though he achieved great fame in Oceania, Utzon was born in Denmark, and it was in his childhood city that his final project was realized. Inaugurated in 2008, the Utzon Center, which hosted the 2024 Obel Award ceremony, not only honors the culmination of his distinguished career but also marks the beginning of his enduring legacy.
The first award winners of the 2024 World Architecture Festival have been announced, following Day One of live presentations at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, in which hundreds of shortlisted projects were presented by practices from around the world. Amongst today's category award winners in the Completed Buildings section of the world's largest international live-judged architectural event are 5468796 Architecture, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, and Wallflower Architecture + Design.
Can you imagine a learning experience where traditional architectural knowledge merges seamlessly with gaming, AI, simulation, and augmented reality (AR)? This is exactly what SCI-Arc's MA2 curriculum offers. This innovative blend not only equips students with essential skills in traditional design, theory, and practice, but also provides them with the tools to delve into cutting-edge technologies that are reshaping the design industry.
Czech-based architectural firm CHYBIK + KRISTOF has revealed its design for a new school in Mulbekh, North India, in collaboration with the Czech NGO Himalayan Patron and Spring Dales Public School. The project aims to provide quality education in the region while preserving local culture. This initiative is particularly significant as many children, especially girls, from remote ethnic minority communities, have faced limited access to education due to the area's harsh climate and challenging terrain.
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 Michael Tyre, President-Elect and Design Director of Amenta Emma Architects to discuss his childhood interests; education and early career; neurodiversity in design; the Smith College Young Classroom project; fixed variation vs segregation design model; the shift from ego-driven design to co-creation; reframing social discourse to create inclusive spaces; and more.
This article was originally published on Common Edge.
The vast majority of practitioners I've known over the years seek well-trained graduates who are ready on Day One to be productive employees. But that's not all an architectural education needs to deliver. Michael Monti—who for the past 20 years has served as executive director of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), which represents 5,000 architecture faculty teaching more than 30,000 students—stresses that architectural education needs to rest on strong foundation of shared values and ethics in order for graduates to make meaningful contributions to what he describes as a "civilized life," promoting the dignity, freedom, health, and well-being of the people who interact with architecture every day.
Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) has just unveiled its 2045 Campus Vision for the University of Birmingham, a plan designed to shape the future of the institution. This framework evaluates the university’s portfolio of over 300 buildings, identifying areas for retention, refurbishment, transformation, or replacement to support its goal of becoming a net-zero, future-ready university. Developed in collaboration with Ayers Saint Gross, the 2045 Campus Vision leverages data on building conditions, operational costs, environmental performance, and space utilization. In fact, this data-driven approach aims to help the university achieve its long-term objectives while maintaining its historical legacy.
How is it possible to open educational spaces to the outdoors, and what are the appropriate conditions for their development? What bioclimatic strategies can be implemented to contribute to environmental comfort and the cultural preservation of communities? By conceiving outdoor learning spaces and blurring the boundaries between indoors and outdoors, the educational infrastructures projected by the Semillas association in the Peruvian jungle invite reflection on the opportunities for gathering, meeting, and community participation among students, families, and local residents. Linked to the site's uses and customs, this conception of space represents a way of living where the implementation of bioclimatic strategies, along with the use of local materials and construction techniques, come together to create an architecture connected to its environment and history.
The 21st century has dramatically transformed school architecture, driven by new educational philosophies, technological progress, and social values emphasizing sustainability and inclusion. This change goes beyond mere aesthetics, deeply reshaping how physical spaces contribute to education. Traditional narrow hallways and rows of desks have been replaced by dynamic, flexible spaces that are well-integrated with their surroundings and the community. These modern designs prioritize versatility and multifunctionality.
CityMakers, The Global Community of Architects Who Learn from Exemplary Cities and Their Makers, is working with ArchDaily to publish a series of articles about Barcelona, Medellin, and Rotterdam. The authors are the architects, urban planners, and/or strategists of the projects that have transformed these three cities, which are visited in the "Schools of Cities" and studied in the "Documentary-Courses" made by CityMakers. On this occasion, Alejandro Restrepo Montoya, Director of Urban Planning and Architecture of Medellín, presents his article "Environmental Urbanism and Urban Geographies, Medellín 2024-2027"
Medellín's urban plan focuses on answering how urban planning can improve people's quality of life. By developing its proposal, the city is promoting the social benefits that these urban planning practices can generate. Medellín emphasizes the use of natural and environmental conditions, such as valleys, streams, rivers, mountains, and hills, to develop urban planning criteria that address social needs.
Founded by architects Felipe Mesa and Federico Mesa, the Plan:b arquitectos studio is located in the city of Medellín, Colombia, bringing together building design, participation in academic activities, and the construction of concepts capable of connecting architecture with the urgent realities of everyday life. Understanding the architectural project as a provisional pact, permeable configuration, and positive expression of eco-social constraints, they have constructed a large number of buildings of various scales and programs since 2000, ranging from public, educational, and sports spaces to housing, offices, hotels, and installations.
This article was originally published on Common Edge.
I am by no means an expert on public-private partnerships. But for about 10 years, as the University of California Berkeley’s campus planner and then campus architect, I watched these developments play out in higher education—sometimes from a front-row seat, sometimes as a participant. During that time, this strategy, promoted with great enthusiasm and optimism, was touted as the answer to whatever problem arose. And yet the definition of a public-private partnership was slippery. The concept itself seemed to be all things for all people, depending on what was needed, who was recommending it, and what equivalents (if any) existed outside the university. The bandwagon continues to play today, making it ever more important to nail down the pros and cons of this development strategy, not only for colleges and universities, but for all public decision-making.
This article was originally published on Common Edge.
The rise of generative AI has given every design educator sufficient reason to reconsider both what to teach and how to teach it. Training an architect is a long process, and mapping it onto an uncertain future is a daunting task. Researchers at OpenAI, DeepMind, Meta, and similar companies seem constantly surprised by the rapid development and sometimes unforeseen capabilities of their AI creations. If even the creators don’t know how fast the future will arrive, it would be hubristic for any of us to claim that AI will do X or AI won’t be able to do Y in the next decade, which is about how long it takes to really train an architect.
The discipline of architecture has undergone considerable change, primarily driven by advancements in the application of technology. Architects, long viewed as the futurists of the constructed world, are now utilizing progressive techniques and resources and expanding the use cases of technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). This transition extends beyond professional practices into architectural education, bringing opportunities to redefine the approach of architects toward their craft.
With spaces for children, “you have the opportunity to create architecture that in many ways is unformulated architecture. Children react to spaces completely spontaneously. It is almost an enhanced architecture”, says Dorte Mandrup. The implication is that design can contribute to forming critical thinking, encouraging autonomy, and responsibility, and helping forge future citizens. For the most part, the educational system and its spatial expression haven’t changed significantly in the last hundred years. Nonetheless, with access to information becoming ubiquitous, the focus is slowly moving from accumulating information to nurturing critical thinking, and new teaching methods open up a new area of architectural experimentation. The following explores the impact of space on learning, specifically in primary and secondary education, discussing how architecture could aid the educational process, becoming a teaching tool.
This article was originally published on Common Edge.
As this bloody year draws to a close, at a moment when the message “Peace on Earth” seems altogether mute, one might well ask: What power does architecture have? How can it address violence against innocent people, whose lives have been turned upside down? How does architecture respond to staggering cruelty? What can it say? Can it raise consciousness?
This article was originally published on Common Edge.
Lake Tonle Sap is a part of Cambodia’s inland water system that’s connected to the flooded forests that purify water and buffer communities from storms—an important benefit as climate change makes extreme weather more frequent. Every year from June to November, the Mekong Delta backs up into Lake Tonle Sap, creating water-depth fluctuations of up to 10 meters. The result is that land-based buildings are inundated during the rainy season, then refurbished and reoccupied again after the water recedes.
For the second consecutive year, Vienna is the world’s most liveable city according to The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) 2023 Global Liveability Index. Topping the ranking for the fourth time in five years, Vienna has excelled in stability, culture and entertainment, and reliable infrastructure. Copenhagen in Denmark maintained its second position while Melbourne and Sydney came in third and fourth position, rising to the top 5 where they previously had a consistent presence among the leading positions, before the pandemic.
Under the titles of Optimism and Instability, this year’s global index score has returned to pre-Covid-19 days, highlighting that the world has fully recovered from the pandemic. Ranking living conditions in 173 cities based on stability, health care, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure, the survey suggests that nowadays, “life in cities is a bit better than at any time in the past 15 years”, although Stability scores dropped on average in 2023, due to worldwide clashes, political disruptions, social protests, inflation, and wars.
