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History: The Latest Architecture and News

The History of the Copacabana Sidewalk: From Its Origin in Portugal to Burle Marx's Intervention

The Copacabana calçada (Copacabana sidewalk) is one of the greatest symbols in the stunning landscape of Rio de Janeiro. What not everyone knows is that its history (and design) precedes the intervention of Roberto Burle Marx in the 1970s. The origin of the design, as well as its stones, is Portuguese.

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From the Streets to the Internet: The History of Commerce and Its Relationship With the Territory

Commerce is a human activity practiced by societies since the beginning of evolution. Exchanges were made between products negotiated by entire communities at first. They began to be based on a common currency and practiced individually over time, from family to family. In one way or another, this activity is a characteristic of civilization and even influences our territorial organization. Historically practiced in outdoor spaces, commercial activity defined many spatial configurations.

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Bucky Fuller’s Most Complex Invention May Have Been Himself

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

Today we know R. Buckminster Fuller primarily through his oeuvre of iconic objects and ideas created over the arc of a nearly 90-year life. Born in the last decade of the 19th century, Fuller lived long enough to hang out with Steve Jobs. He’s variously described as a “systems thinker,” perhaps the first “futurist,” a visionary, engineer, geometer, and architect (he won the AIA Gold Medal in 1970). But “inventor” is probably the most accurate description. Historian and writer Alec Nevala-Lee’s 2022 biography, aptly titled Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller (Dey St. Books), tells a nuanced story of the man known for geodesic domes; space frames; “Spaceship Earth”; the Dymaxion map, house, and car; and concepts such as tensegrity, synergy, and “ephemeralization” (“doing everything with nothing at all,” as he described it).

The Legacy of Jane Drew: A Trailblazer for Women in Architecture

In 1950, the famous Le Corbusier was asked to design the new state capital of Chandigarh for Punjab following its separation and recent independence. The opportunity to create a new utopia was unparalleled- and is now seen as one of the greatest urban experiments in the history of planning and architecture. The city employed grid street patterns, European-style thoroughfares, and raw concrete buildings- the zenith of Corbusier’s ideals throughout his career. But what is lesser known about the ideation and realization of Chandigarh, was the woman who brought her experience of designing social housing across Africa to the project. For three years, working alongside Corbusier, and helping him design some of the best-known buildings in Chandigarh, was Jane Drew.

A Brief History of The International Style

When people describe the modernist movement as a whole, they broadly reference the steel and glass skyscrapers which dot many of our cities’ skylines, or more specifically, the International Style that once emerged from Europe after World War I. The International Style represented technological and industrial progress and a renaissance of social constructs that would forever influence the way that we think about the use of space across all scales. Often designed as politically charged buildings seeking to make a statement towards totalitarian governments, many architects who influenced the style moved to the United States after World War II, paving the way for some of the most iconic buildings and skyscrapers to be built in the 20th century.

How to Use the Metaverse to Preserve Historic Buildings

Imagine that you have scheduled a visit to an important building for the history of architecture, a reference work for all enthusiasts. Probably you would equip yourself with a camera or a good cell phone, take a pencil, notebook and even a measuring tape to record all its aspects.

However, this is not the only way to “visit” a building of historical importance nowadays or, at least, that is what some researchers are trying to show. The metaverse is being explored for its role in architecture and culture preservation, embracing different generations.

Reading Architecture in the Works of Venturi and SANAA

Architecture is never an accident. It is a carefully planned out scheme of patterns and styles that respond to natural surroundings, celebrate materiality, and/or are referential of stylistic movements throughout history- all a means of understanding why things are the way that they are. There are different ways to understand how to analyze architecture, through the use of diagrams, patterns, relationships, and proportions to name a few. To both architects and laypeople alike, there’s a subconscious desire for a decision-making structure in design. As a result, architecture has become an exercise in self-positioning- a microcosmic reflection of the world around us as seen in the designs we build.

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From Bathtubs to Showers: How People Have Bathed Throughout History

Recent surveys have revealed the average frequency of daily baths in some countries. While in Latin America, led by Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, people take 8 to 12 baths a week, in the vast majority of countries affected, the average is around 6 to 8. Bathing, throughout human history, involves health, religious, spiritual and even social aspects.

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Playgrounds: Conquering Public Spaces

Playgrounds are spaces with equipment dedicated to children's leisure, where they can develop motor and social skills. However, these spaces are new to our cultures and cities and emerge from the recognition of childhood as a fundamental stage of human development.

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A Brief History of Maps and Their Role in Urban Development

Cartography, or map making, has played a critical role in representing spatial concepts for thousands of years. While the earliest forms of maps displayed geographic information carved into clay tablets and etched onto cave walls, the maps we use today have significantly evolved to creatively show a range of different information. These visualizations draw conclusions about population sizes, historical events, cultural shifts, and weather patterns to help us understand more about our world and how we impact it.

The History of Useful Flat Roofs

For some time now, roofs have become leisure spaces, whether in large luxurious buildings or houses on the outskirts. This condition, however, is not limited to our times. Different cultures at different times used flat roofs in their architecture, in different ways.

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The Versatility of Reinforced Concrete in Five Architectural Uses

Fundamental for the development of large metropolises as we know them today, cement is a material used historically, whose technological advances have revolutionized construction technique and technology of civil construction, enabling the verticalization of construction and the densification of urban centers. Cement, both added to water and sand to make mortar and combined with steel and aggregate to form concrete, performs different functions in a work, from structure to finish.

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PAU’s Vishaan Chakrabarti on How Progressives Ruin Cities in Uncertain Things Podcast

Adaam James Levin-Areddy and Vanessa M. Quirk, the hosts and producers of the Uncertain Things podcast, interview people from diverse backgrounds and a wide range of expertise to ask the question: “now what? What is happening and how did we get here?”. In this episode, they talk with urbanist, architect, and professor Vishaan Chakrabarti, founder of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism, to seek to understand how the cities got so expensive. Together they delve into the affordability crisis, the detrimental effect of progress, and what we need to do to have better cities.

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The Origins and Evolution of Gothic Architecture

The word “Gothic” often envokes a description of mysterious homes, or a modern-day group of people who have an affinity for dark aesthetics, but what the gothic architectural style historically brought to the built environment could not have been more opposite. Gothic designs were actually created to bring more sunlight into spaces, mainly churches, and led to the design and construction of some of the world’s most iconic buildings.

A Brief History of the Vienna Secession Design Movement

All architecture movements throughout history spur from shifts in society that demand a new style that better reflects the way that technology has advanced the practice and how people express their political, religious, and moral beliefs and practices. While some shifts occur over a period of several years, others are experienced as a sudden revolt. The Vienna Secession was undoubtedly the latter. At the end of the 19th century, a group of artists and architects aimed to explore what art should be as it pertained to filtering global influences in a way that could introduce new modernism.