International Union of Architects: The Latest Architecture and News

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

Unions are a trend among college-educated young people, the New York Times reports. They seek solidarity—collective leverage—to bring about desired changes that are being resisted. While Amazon and Starbucks get the headlines, younger architects are also organizing. Doing so is urged on by The Architecture Lobby, a group that leans Democratic Socialist. The Manhattan-based firm SHoP was a recent, ultimately unsuccessful target of a group of its employees and a sponsoring trade union.

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Chinese architect and town planner Wu Liangyong was recently featured in a new interview from the International Union of Architects (UIA) about his life and teaching. As the former Vice-President of the UIA and the Architectural Society of China (ASC), Liangyong won the Jean Tschumi Prize back in 1996. Today, he reflects on his academic career spanning 70 years at the Tsinghua University School of Architecture.

With over 300 architectural designs to his name, Tadao Ando is treated as a national treasure in his home country of Japan. Renowned for his work with concrete and light, his œuvre has received international recognition, including the UIA Gold Medal in 2005 and the Pritzker Prize in 1995. In an interview with the UIA / International Union of Architects, Ando explores design philosophy and creative process.

As part of Tripoli’s economic revival plan, the International Union of Architects (UIA), in collaboration with the Lebanese Federation of Engineers and Architects (on behalf of the Tripoli Special Economic Zone / TSEZ), the Union of Mediterranean Architects (UMAR), and the Lebanese Government, have launched an international architecture competition to create a Knowledge and Innovation Center in the northern city of Lebanon.

The proposed site is situated on an empty lot within Oscar Niemeyer’s abandoned Rachid Karami International Fair, a modernist exhibition complex that has yet to see the light of restoration. The objective of the competition is to create a technology and business hub which will foster and promote start-up businesses and entrepreneurs, attracting students, young graduates, local and international companies to Tripoli and the neighboring region.

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The time has come for architects, across the globe, to register for their .archi domain names. This year has seen the launch of a entirely new range of domains which explicitly indicate the field of business a particular domain name points to; .archi, the new extension reserved exclusively for architectural bodies, is one such. Not only will it differentiate architects from other fields but, perhaps more importantly, will also help internet users find architects when browsing the web. The development of this domain extension, which has been supported by the International Union of Architects (UIA), will mean that only academically qualified architects and their affiliates will be able to use .archi.

Paul Andreu, designer of the Shanghai Pudong International Airport and the Taiyuan Archaeological Centre, alongside Corinne Vezzoni, have both pledged their support of the new domain name in an advertising campaign by the regulating body Starting Dot.

Click here to register a .archi domain name or find out more after the break...

From August 3rd, the International Union of Architects (UIA) will once again host their World Congress, a triennial event that focuses on one critical topic in our architectural culture. Whereas the Tokyo 2011 Congress was focused on the future, this year's congress in Durban will concentrate not on a different time but a different place: the "otherwhere", or as they put it, the "anywhere-but-here". The Congress will explore ideas about how connectivity might shape our experience and alter the course of our social progress.

Read on for more about the themes of the 25th World Conference and the Keynote Speakers...

The UIA (International Union of Architects) is inviting architecture students to enter its "Healthcare Otherwhere" competition, part of their World Congress in Durban, South Africa this summer. Against a backdrop of poor health outcomes caused by poverty, the competition challenges students to propose how architecture might be involved in promoting good health by designing a building in the Warwick Junction area of Durban. Registration has been extended to April 17th. You can register here.