RUÍNA Arquitetura aims for greater socio-environmental awareness and the appreciation of materials while advocating for reuse as an alternative within the construction industry. In their practice, they explore new avenues for reclaimed materials, diminishing demolition waste and supplying construction materials with a reduced environmental footprint. In 2024, they were selected as part of ArchDaily’s 2024 Best New Practice for their unique attention to context, aiming to minimize its impact on the built environment through the effective reuse of materials and construction waste. Their participation in the 2023 Sharjah Architecture Triennale exemplifies how local ideas can achieve global recognition.
Recycled Ceramic Washbasin. Image Courtesy of VitrA
Producing sustainable materials and products demands constant analysis of how we conserve resources and manage waste effectively. This unfolds within a scenario where the environmental impacts of global warming and the climate crisis are becoming increasingly evident. In that context, sustaining the dialogue on waste disposal is fundamental to positively impacting our environment and maximizing circular economy opportunities.
Embracing this perspective and demonstrating a commitment to sustainability through waste reduction and resource conservation, VitrA has created an entire washbasin with 100%* recycled waste materials, including discarded ceramics from its production process. This innovative product has been designed to have a minimal environmental impact and reduce the global warming potential of its production by 30% per product, transforming materials once considered waste into valuable resources.
https://www.archdaily.com/1016103/repurposing-discarded-waste-materials-into-a-100-percent-star-recycled-washbasinEnrique Tovar
Acquiring diverse expressive possibilities within interior design, the use of wood in regions with a wide range of climates and temperatures such as Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, or Ecuador enables the creation of attractive and captivating spaces that capture the attention of their users by contrasting, blending, or integrating with their surrounding environment. Being a natural element and presenting a negative carbon footprint at the end of its life cycle, wood offers multiple finishes, textures, and tones that can be associated with being outdoors and providing, on some occasions, spaciousness, warmth, and relaxation at the same time.
This year's Milan Design Week brought together designers, architects, producers, and key figures from the design world. The events were divided between the Salone del Mobile at Rho Fiera, a trade fair with over 1950 exhibitors, and Fourisalone, featuring various events across Milan. With numerous installations throughout the city and a wide range of events, conferences, and debates, Milan Design Week stands as one of the most significant design-focused events worldwide. For architects, this represents an opportunity to not only exchange ideas but also to actively contribute through collaborations and explorations across disciplines.
This year, many internationally recognized architects have entered collaborations with furniture and light design companies, exploring the intersection of design and architecture. Despite the change in scale, many of these products reflect the recognizable architectural language of their designers, offering an insight into the principles that guide their practice. In addition to aesthetic explorations, many of the products selected are tackling important themes of interest, from the need to develop more sustainable materials with a reduced carbon footprint, to the potential impact of new technologies such as artificial intelligence.
From April 25 to May 1, 2024, Logroño hosts the tenth edition of Concéntrico, a celebration of urban innovation and transformation. This year, the festival explores the future of cities, incorporating new formats, engaging diverse audiences, and tackling urban challenges through the lens of time as a catalyst for change in design. Featuring 20 interventions and activities involving over 100 professionals from 17 countries, the program encompasses processes such as renaturalizing public spaces, reimagining urban structures, and integrating recycled materials from previous editions.
Additionally, collaborations with educational centers ensure a lasting impact beyond the festival, fostering new collective practices in public spaces. Special projects such as "The street in 10 years" or initiatives involving students and pupils from local schools and educational centers further enrich the festival's engagement with communities across Spain.
Apartamento 43 / cli·ma arquitectura. Image Cortesía de cli·ma arquitectura
Faced with the various ways of inhabiting that characterize contemporary societies and their adaptability to future uses in architecture, lofts represent an opportunity to design spaces ranging from storage areas to living, study, leisure, or even resting spaces, both for their residents and potential visitors. Depending on their scales, sizes, and proportions, these elevated spaces allow for the optimization of interior environments in apartments that, in some cases, lack sufficient square footage to perform these types of functions at ground level and have a certain height to accommodate them.
As construction materials costs increase, builders and developers are seeking alternatives to traditional home construction methods to address housing shortages. In response, an expanding construction technology field is the 3D printing sector. This technology promises quicker, cheaper construction and the potential to extrude local and recycled materials. However, due to the slow-changing nature of the construction industry, a radical shift involving large-scale 3D-printing machines on-site and a complete overhaul of the construction process seems unlikely shortly.
Prefabricated 3D printing modular housing offers a compelling solution, providing the benefits of 3D printing advancements while leveraging standard construction machinery and labor. In off-site 3D-printed construction, there is no need to transport massive 3D-printing machines on-site. Instead, components are printed in a controlled environment and then assembled on-site. These types of 3D-printed residential modular kits of parts are already being manufactured and are attracting significant investment.
The idea of a community or public playground is about creating an accessible recreational space for all. However, in many cases, initiating a playground project might fail due to insufficient funds or regulations/restrictions. The first challenge is largely to set the project in motion and, most importantly, get the community’s positive reception and, if possible, its involvement, thus ensuring the project's success and sustainability.
When a brief to design a new office space asks for something fresh, energetic, and modern – a space where employees enjoy being and, crucially, enjoy working in, which helps them to focus on individual tasks but also to relax, collaborate, and create – there are few better places to begin than a color wheel. As the world of work and the varied environments it takes place in become less formal and restricted in their design, architects, designers, and, more importantly, their clients are handing the boring, monotone office its redundancy papers and looking outside the establishment at more expressive colorful options.
While blue’s ability to improve concentration, stimulate thinking, and provide mental clarity helps to increase productivity, the human body needs regular periods of rest and relaxation, too. For this, warm colors like yellows provide relaxation through warmth and comfort – perfect for break-out areas. Meanwhile, reds and oranges promote creativity and expression, meaning they can be useful for areas designated for social collaboration, whilst green encourages a calmer, more balanced approach, for a different kind of meeting.
For a long time, the construction industry has followed a linear process - extract raw materials, build structures, demolish them, and then dispose of the garbage in landfills. This approach has serious negative effects on the environment and society and is inherently unsustainable. Reconsidering traditional methods and workflows requires support from all stakeholders and a sense of urgency proclaimed by authorities. In the United States, city organizations have begun to implement new policies to keep construction waste out of landfills and support circular practices. Several cities like Seattle and Pittsburgh, have started implementing deconstruction ordinances that require older buildings to be carefully deconstructed rather than demolished. How might their key provisions influence circular practices in the country?
The principles of the circular economy have been most influential and applicable to the construction industry. Emphasizing the efficient use of resources, models around reuse and recycling of components and materials are increasingly being pioneered by global architecture practices. The concept of "design for disassembly" has emerged as an innovative approach especially in the case of building facades. Striking a balance between the demands for new infrastructure and the transition towards sustainability requires a review of traditional facade design throughout its lifecycle.
The facade of a building often serves as a reflection of both the urban fabric it is set in, as well as what lies behind it. Beyond aesthetics, facades hold important functional, cultural, and sustainable significance, especially in relation to the interior design. Although natural light, views, and spatial organization are influenced by the facade, architects have been prioritizing the relationship between the building's envelope and the quality of the interior, keeping in mind current cultural, economical, and environmental changes influencing the way people design their living space. So responding to these ever-changing needs and habits, along with the focus on overall wellbeing, architects offset the facade and ceiling - and in some particular cases, floors - to create interiors within interiors; secondary envelopes that protect the interior space from the outside environment.
For decades, our society and the development of our built environment have been strongly associated with intensive extractive processes. While these methods were fundamental to the growth of urban areas, they also laid the groundwork for significant challenges that contemporary generations face today. Nowadays, construction debris accumulates on the peripheries of our cities, and plastic waste floats in the oceans.
In this context, and similarly to the idea expressed by Alvar Aalto, who stated that "modern architecture does not imply the use of new materials, but rather employing existing materials more humanely," it is crucial to reconsider how we manage our resources and waste. This shift in direction provides us with new opportunities to address the challenges that the ongoing climate crisis has brought. In response, various actions are now being taken, using materials such as food waste, recycled wood, and plastic debris, among others, exploring innovations in a context where raw materials are becoming increasingly scarce.
https://www.archdaily.com/1013787/casting-furniture-with-upcycled-plastics-and-urban-debris-los-colados-projectEnrique Tovar
Throughout the city's history, buildings have changed their use and function, which is inevitable, as each era presents unique issues and requirements. Factors such as housing types, population density in specific areas, and the emergence of new businesses and services reshape the cityscape, often outpacing the adaptability of existing structures. Therefore, revitalizing or rehabilitating buildings is logical but also necessary to meet the demands of a changing landscape.
Any historiography of architecture is inherently implicated and incomplete by definition: implicated because it demonstrates the interpretation and curation of examples by the one who writes it, and incomplete because, in this selection, divergent examples often fall outside the "official" timeline. However, the ability to trace forms, their application, and repetition over historical periods separated by centuries is always a good indication of genealogy. This lineage situates examples and broadens repertoire.
A historiography of architecture can bridge past-century elements and movements considered 'outdated' with contemporary forms and applications, establishing a nexus of relationships that offer conceptual and design insights. By categorizing specific styles, notable features are emphasized, often resonating with present-day scenarios as suggested by bibliographical sources, which holds even for seemingly distant connections, as exemplified by the Rococo.
The use and demand for natural materials in architecture and interior design have facilitated the revival of updated traditional construction systems for the contemporary context. What was once considered rustic is now being explored in more modern settings; therefore, the application of the material is also subject to new forms of fixation, coloring, and orientation (horizontal or vertical). While wood is the dominant material in traditional systems and environmentally sustainable materials, another material that has been used for centuries, equally sustainable and biodegradable, and has received less attention is straw.
After two weeks of open voting in the 15th edition of the Building of the Year Awards, our readers have meticulously narrowed down a pool of over 4,000 projects to a select group of 75 finalists spanning 15 categories. This year's awards enthusiastically honor the pinnacle of design, innovation, and sustainability on a global scale, showcasing an exceptional range of projects within the shortlist. As a crowdsourced award, we take pride in affirming that your selections authentically mirror the current state of architecture, and the caliber of this year's finalists further underscores the excellence and diversity prevalent in the field.
Is it possible to assert the existence of a timeless material in architecture from an aesthetic standpoint? Undoubtedly, wood and concrete emerge as strong contenders, not only due to their representation of the solidity, volume, and mass of buildings but also because they provide a broad range of aesthetic possibilities in projects. Concrete, in particular, exhibits greater malleability in comparison to wood. While wood already offers flexible solutions, such as through CLT systems, concrete is derived from a blend of liquid, powder, and an aggregate—a paste that can be poured into a mold, spread over a surface and shaped into various forms.
