Located in Mexico City, the municipality of Iztapalapa has some of the most densely populated areas within the metropole. Serving a population of 1,800,000 people, many of them with lower incomes, the municipality struggles to provide sufficient public spaces and amenities. In an effort to correct this, the administration set out to take underutilized and abandoned plots of land and transform them for public use. Utopia Estrella is one of these initiatives. Located near Mexico City’s largest water treatment plant, the project combines a socially engaging architectural program with a pedagogical approach to the role of water infrastructures in the larger ecosystem. Designed by Cano Vera Arquitectura, the project has been recognized as the Gold Prize Winner of the Holcim Awards 2023 for Latin America. In a video interview for ArchDaily, Juan Carlos Cano of Cano Vera Arquitectura discusses the impact of this project, its goals, and the unique conditions that led to its development.
Interviews: The Latest Architecture and News
The Intersection of Infrastructure and Community: In Conversation with Holcim Award Winner Juan Carlos Cano
How Are Innovations Changing Expanded Polystyrene (EPS)?
As we near its 100th anniversary, expanded polystyrene (EPS) has become widely used in various industries and applications, especially in construction. Since 1970, EPS has been used in building construction due to its thermal insulation properties, lightweight closed-cell structure, durable strength, and long-term integrity. However, while these qualities make it highly useful and easy to recycle, they have also sparked debate due to recurring discussions about its degradation processes and environmental impact from various perspectives.
While the debate rages on, many improvements and alternative approaches have emerged around this material, highlighting that achieving sustainable construction involves using the right material for the right job from the outset. Thus, over time, innovations have brought new options for the recycling and use of EPS beyond traditional building applications such as infill blocks or partition panels. This demonstrates that rather than stigmatizing it as a problematic or “simple” material, it is essential to consider its qualities through design, technology, and developing methods for responsible and sustainable management.
Plug-In Architecture for Social Engagement: In Conversation with Holcim Award Winner DeRoché Strohmayer
At the initiative of the Surf Ghana Collective, architects Glenn DeRoché and Jurgen Strohmayer, the co-founders of DeRoché Strohmayer, set out to transform a small waterfront plot in Busua, a surfing hotspot on Ghana’s western coast. The result is a dynamic community hub, complete with amenities for local surfers, but also providing spaces for the entire community to gather in and off-season. The project has been recognized as the winner of the Gold Prize of Holcim Awards 2023 for the Middle East and Africa commended for the profound local impact and the resourceful approach to construction techniques. In a video interview for ArchDaily, architects Glenn DeRoché and Jurgen Strohmayer discuss the development of this initiative and the innovations that shaped it.
La Quebradora Water Park in Mexico: Designing Public Spaces to Improve Water Management
Within the framework of implementing green infrastructure projects for water management in the Basin of Mexico, utilizing existing public spaces, La Quebradora Water Park emerges as the first proposal for hydro-urban acupuncture. The project, developed by the team from the Institute of Social Research at UNAM, coordinated by Manuel Perló Cohen and Loreta Castro Reguera Mancera, aims to transform the site's infiltration into a landmark of good water management, public space creation, and strengthening of the social fabric through four levels: infrastructure, park, city, and viewpoint. Addressing part of the water and social issues facing the area, the proposal transforms urban infrastructure into a public and recreational space for the community in a densely populated area with scarce public spaces.
Urban Landscape as an "Art of Survival”: An interview with Kongjian Yu, the Advocate of the Sponge Cities Concept
Alarming cases of climate disasters are a constant presence in world news. Last month's floods in southern Brazil gained special attention from heat waves and forest fires to droughts and cyclones. This tragedy, which left over half a million people homeless, was understood to be the result of a combination of factors, including human actions that have devastated ecosystems to create environmentally irresponsible cities.
In this context, the work of Beijing-based architect Kongjian Yu, founder of the landscape architecture firm Turenscape, has gained international visibility and recognition, which included receiving the 2023 Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize (“Oberlander Prize”). His "sponge cities" concept, designed to address and prevent urban flooding in the face of accelerated climate change, was adopted as national policy in China in 2013. This approach prioritizes large-scale nature-based infrastructures such as wetlands, greenways, and parks.
Building a Sustainable Future: Sports Facilities Made from Bamboo
As awareness of sustainable development grows, bamboo is emerging as an attractive alternative to traditional construction materials. This innovative material is making significant inroads in the construction of sports facilities, showcasing how sustainable practices can shape a greener future.
Bamboo stands out as an eco-friendly substitute for wood, concrete, and steel. Its application in sports facility construction markedly reduces environmental impact and enhances sustainability. The use of locally sourced bamboo in certain regions further decreases carbon emissions associated with transportation. The advantages of bamboo extend beyond its environmental benefits. This material is not only strong and durable but also lightweight and flexible, making it ideal for modern construction demands.
Restoring a Symbol of Collective Memory: Holcim Award Winner Xu Tiantian Discusses the Impact of Adaptive Reuse
In the mountain valleys of China’s Fujian Province, thousands of large, rammed earth fortresses lay abandoned. Once used for both defense and collective housing, the tulou typology is an integral part of the region’s cultural heritage, with 46 of them being recognized by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites. Despite this, the rural communities surrounding them have struggled to find new roles and purposes for these buildings. Going beyond the need for conservation, architect Xu Tiantian of DnA_Design and Architecture set out to develop and adapt this heritage to reintroduce it into community life. The Fujian Tulou | Adaptive Reuse project recently won the Gold Prize of Holcim Awards 2023 for Asia-Pacific, recognized for creating “an exemplary model for building conservation initiatives.” In a video interview for ArchDaily, Xu Tiantian discusses the principles that underpin this initiative and the potential outcomes of adaptive reuse in rural communities.
Architecture Inspired by Permaculture: How to Integrate Its Design Principles Across Diverse Contexts
The concept of permaculture refers to a design system capable of creating sustainable human environments based on an ethic and a series of ecological, environmental, and resilience design principles. In contact with plants, animals, buildings, and infrastructures such as water, energy, and/or communications, permaculture analyzes the possible relationships between these elements based on their position in the landscape. Its 12 design principles can be applied in multiple architecture projects of varying scales and programs, contributing, for example, to the dissemination of new ways to reduce energy consumption in homes, save water through rainwater harvesting or the recycling of greywater for sanitary systems, gardens, and more, and participate in food production, among other matters.
Extreme Architecture: Challenges and Solutions in Inhospitable Environments
"In various regions of the planet, nature imposes adverse conditions on the human body. In these places, designing a building is almost like creating a garment: an artifact that protects and offers comfort. This challenge requires technological performance that must be combined with aesthetics. Making human beings feel good involves more than just meeting notions of comfort and safety; it's also a question of working with spaces in their symbolic and perceptual dimensions." This is the beginning of the description for the design of the Brazilian Antarctic Station in Antarctica, by Estúdio 41, located on the Keller Peninsula, where the surrounding sea freezes for around six to seven months of the year, where everything and everyone arrives by plane or ship and the nearest hardware store is days away. If designing a building in normal circumstances already presents numerous complexities, it's not hard to imagine the additional challenges when developing something in an extreme environment, such as locations with very high or low temperatures, or in places susceptible to corrosion, radiation, and more. In this article, we will explore the difficulties, the main solutions and the materials used in these contexts.
Finnish Museum of History and Future Selects Sigge Architects' Design as Competition Winner
Finnish office Sigge Architects has been announced as the winner of the international competition for the design of the Museum of History and the Future in Finland's oldest city, Turku. The proposal, selected out of over 400 entries, creates a permeable structure along the waterfront, acting as a catalyst for the regeneration of the area. The museum aims to showcase the most innovative scientific research through a wide variety of exhibitions, audio-visual installations, and educational spaces. Construction is expected to start in 2027 and be completed by 2029, with a public opening scheduled for 2030.
Stefano Boeri Architetti Wins Competition for Green Neighborhood Development in Bratislava, Slovakia
Stefano Boeri Architetti has been declared the winner of the international competition for the redevelopment of a former industrial site in downtown Bratislava. The project includes the transformation of one of the largest abandoned areas in the Slovak capital, with the aim of creating an active new central hub for the city, complete with parks and public spaces, residential units, and a variety of amenities. Stefano Boeri Architetti’s master plan proposal, titled “Urban Oasis,” has been appreciated by the jury for integrating familiar typologies, creating a “European matrix” of medium-density developments organized around accessible public spaces.
Sustainable Heating: Explore 4 Projects Featuring Trombe Walls that Enhance Thermal Efficiency
A Trombe wall is a passive solar building feature that enhances thermal efficiency. Positioned on the sun-facing side of a structure, it consists of a wall made from materials like brick, stone, or concrete, and a glass panel or polycarbonate sheet placed a few centimeters in front of it. Solar radiation penetrates the glass during daylight hours and heats the masonry wall. This wall then slowly releases the stored heat into the building during the cooler nighttime hours, maintaining a more consistent indoor temperature without the need for active heating systems.
World’s First On-Demand Building System: BetaPort
Today, interconnected and fast-paced lifestyles, future mobility trends and constant material innovation puts pressure on a slow-moving building industry. How can architecture keep up with this trend? Following dynamic and nomadic lifestyles, architects must explore new structural systems that should be able to reach multiple locations, as well as be adaptable and reusable in the future. By applying revolutionary technology for circular, scalable components and carbon-negative buildings, UrbanBeta –a spatial innovation studio designing strategies, building concepts, predictive tools and platforms for creating transformative spaces– has developed BetaPort, a robotic construction system powered by artificial intelligence and automation.
Based on the principles of a circular economy, Urban Beta and BetaPort create a sustainable construction plan, ready to grow and change over time. The studio conceives sustainable on-demand architecture systems for flexible buildings based on a kit of parts.
Architecture for Glamping: Embracing Nature with Comfort
Camping, as defined in dictionaries, involves temporarily staying outdoors, setting up makeshift accommodations, and settling in natural surroundings. In architecture, tents symbolize these aspects, representing a typology that has endured across centuries and cultures, often linked with notions of impermanence and vulnerability.
In light of this common understanding, the term 'glamping' emerged in the early 2000s, blending 'camping' with 'glamour,' suggesting a fusion of camping with luxurious amenities. However, despite its recent popularization, the concept is far from original. Camping has not always been seen as the antithesis of luxury.
Land as Raw Material: Latin American Homes Built With Locally Sourced Soil
Organizing, shaping, stacking. Transforming raw materials from the soil into architecture. This is a challenge that many Latin American architects embrace, demonstrating that scarcity can be daunting but also a rich opportunity to unleash creativity.
The use of materials extracted from the local soil serves a dual purpose. In regions with limited industrialization, using locally sourced materials makes economic sense because industrial materials such as concrete and steel are expensive and often require long-distance transportation, adding to their cost. Environmentally, choosing locally sourced materials from the start of a project reduces transportation needs and carbon emissions, supporting sustainability efforts.
MVRDV Reveals Construction Progress of the Terraced LAD Headquarters in Shanghai
In 2021, MVRDV unveiled the design of a terraced office building created for the agriculture company Lankuaikei. Set within a rapidly developing area of Shanghai, the 11-storey structure is covered by a curved technological roof that follows the stepping structure. The project is conceived as a showcase of the company's vision of food production, with an extensive sustainability agenda encompassing various strategies. These include extensive use of greenery, integration of renewable energy, and the use of low-carbon materials. The construction process is now captured by StudioSZ Photo / Justin Szeremeta, revealing an intermediary state where the bare-bone structure begins to reveal the shape and scale of the building. Structural construction details are also visible at this stage,
Community Growth Through Architecture: Maximizing Limited Resources for Positive Impact
Limited resources are becoming an increasingly common challenge in architecture. Today, regardless of the region, projects are affected by the availability of resources, which are now compounded by environmental considerations. This situation, far from being restrictive, prompts us to explore new possibilities in how we conceive the built environment. In this context, it is crucial to understand that resources are not only limited to the economy but also include technological, material, and spatial aspects. Thus, we can enhance our creativity and efficiency by broadening our considerations when approaching architectural design and its challenges, doing more with less.
At the community level, the challenge becomes even more significant when we consider that our projects must not only be designed to overcome these "constraints," but also to positively impact their communities. Therefore, contemporary projects must present different strategies to overcome limited resources and materials depending on the context, always aiming to achieve a positive impact and become powerful and ingenious proposals while democratizing access to architecture.
“We Can Transform the Profession by Rethinking How We Might Serve Society”: A Conversation With Ronald Rael
Understanding a discipline from multiple perspectives and intersections is essential for acquiring a deep understanding of it. In architecture, the diversity of approaches to its study enriches our perception by allowing us to appreciate its complexity from different angles. For students and professionals alike, exploring aspects such as history, sources of materials and products, construction processes, implementation of new technologies, and contemporary social challenges is crucial. These aspects intertwine and expand the conventional notion of "architecture," transcending the mere creation of buildings or the definition of spaces.
Ronald Rael, an architect and the Eva Li Memorial Chair in Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, exemplifies this vision through his practice, which spans from research to connecting indigenous and traditional material practices with contemporary technologies and issues. As an activist and designer, Rael's research interests explore additive fabrication, border-wall studies, and earth construction. Co-founder of Rael San Fratello, Emerging Objects, and Forust, his practice shows an approach to architecture that is highly relevant in contemporary times.