Foster + Partners has debuted their first-ever exhibition in Korea at the Seoul Museum of Art. Marking a significant moment for the studio and its relationship to South Korea, the exhibition “Future Positive” showcases the work of Norman Foster and Foster + Partners to Korean audiences for the first time. On display from April 25th until July 21st, 2024, visitors will have the opportunity to explore the comprehensive showcase of Foster’s architectural journey from 1967 to the present day.
This article was originally published on Common Edge.
It has been a bull market for downbeat urban reporting since the pandemic arrived in town. And it isn’t hard to see why. In 2020, central U.S. cities went from “comeback” success stories to ghost towns; transit lost nearly all ridership; tens of thousands of stores and restaurants shuttered; and many of the affluent decamped to the suburbs and distant Zoom towns.
As has become customary in recent years, on the first Monday of October, we celebrate both World Architecture Day and World Habitat Day, serving as a reminder to the global community of its collective responsibility for the well-being of the built environment. This edition, like its predecessors, sheds light on the realm of architecture and the challenges faced by our cities, introducing new themes, contemplating the state of our urban areas, and proposing constructive strategies.
Since urban economies have encountered significant difficulties this year, the UN's World Habitat Day focuses on "Resilient Urban Economies: cities as drivers of growth and recovery." Launching Urban October, this event seeks to bring together diverse urban stakeholders to deliberate on policies to help cities recover after the dual economic impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and conflicts worldwide. Aligned with this concept, World Architecture Day, created by the UIA in 1985, has chosen to concentrate on "Architecture for Resilient Communities," emphasizing the role and duty of architecture in fostering thriving community existence while initiating a global dialogue regarding the interconnectedness of urban and rural regions within every nation.
The International Day of Cooperatives is a celebration of the cooperative movement, which takes place annually on the first Saturday of July. In 1992, the United Nations General Assembly established it a national day, celebrating the cooperative movement worldwide with yearly themes. The cooperative movement is an association focused on achieving common goals and addressing collective communal needs. Cooperatives believe in community development at their core, prioritizing people and supporting local communities to improve their well-being. Moreover, the co-living models that have been adapted from it have become an enormous success over the past few decades, providing a form of cost-effective social housing. The cooperative structure redefines how people live, work, play, and collaborate. This year's theme is “Cooperatives: Partners for accelerated sustainable development.”
As cooperative principles continue to be injected into built environments today, the concept has created different models of co-op housing, leading to co-living. Over the past years, established European awards have celebrated co-living and architecture studios and developers worldwide have designed different models exploring co-living. The articles and projects selected in this article address what it means to live together, work together, and form healthy communities in this day and age.
The year 2022 was marked by several socio-cultural and economic crises across the globe, from the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the increasing cost of living worldwide, combined with a number of natural disasters such as the devastating floods in Pakistan and hurricane Ian in the US. In these difficult times, architects are stepping up and embracing their role in developing design-based solutions to humanitarian crises, ranging from temporary shelters and affordable housing schemes to centers for protecting at-risk groups such as homeless underage girls, children from low-income environments, or families in need of medical care.
This week's curated selection of Best Unbuilt Architecture highlights projects submitted by the ArchDaily community that engage with their local communities, offering safe spaces for disadvantaged and at-risk groups. From a sanctuary for homeless girls in Iraq to an affordable housing project in Prague’s first skyscraper, this selection features projects centered around people, their needs, and desires. Many of the projects employ local materials such as clay bricks to lower the construction costs. They also reuse existing buildings and hope to engage the local community in building and appropriating the proposed spaces.
The philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre coined the notion of "production of space" in 1974, breaking with the vision of space as a container or scenario of objects and social relations, to move towards space understood as a process. From this vision based on the Marxist tradition, space is a product and a producer of social relations and processes.
The city of Los Angeles has selected six finalists for the competition to design a new memorial dedicated to the victims of the 1871 Chinese Massacre. In one of the darkest chapters in the city’s history, on 21 October 24, roughly ten percent of the city’s Chinese population at the time, at least 18 residents, were murdered by a mob of rioters. The memorial seeks to raise public awareness of the 1871 racially motivated mass killing while simultaneously addressing contemporary concerns regarding race, intolerance, and violence. The memorial was first announced in April 2021, and it is set to be built near the site of the massacre and the Chinese American Museum.
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has named Carol Ross Barney, FAIA, as the recipient of the 2023 AIA Gold Medal, the institution’s highest annual honor. The award recognizes and applauds Carol Ross Barney’s focus on design excellence, social responsibility, and generosity. Through her transformative projects, she has endeavored to make the world a better place and, according to the jury, made “an indelible mark on the profession.”
This article was originally published on Metropolis Magazine as "Design Provocateur: Revisiting the Prescient Ideas of Victor Papanek".
“Today industrial design has put murder on a mass-production basis,” declared Victor Papanek, design provocateur and critic, from the podium of a design-activist happening in 1968. “By designing criminally unsafe automobiles that kill or maim,” he roared, “by creating a whole new species of permanent garbage to clutter up the landscape, and by choosing materials and processes that pollute the air we breathe, designers have become a dangerous breed.”
The "about" section of Vancouver-based studio Henriquez Partners Architects' website boldly states: "We believe that architecture should be a poetic expression of social justice." While empowering communities through socially conscious design is hardly a new concept, the term "public-interest architecture" tends to call to mind images of low-budget constructions. Rarely is it employed to describe the large, mixed-use projects that have come to characterize downtown Vancouver and Gregory Henriquez's firm.
However, experimenting with different models of social regeneration through architecture is the driving principle of the studio's work. Throughout the years, Henriquez has explored concepts such as affordable ownership and dignifying design for the city's disenfranchised communities. In partnership with local real-estate development and culture company Westbank, he has built a number of projects that seek to equalize living conditions for all in one of the world's most affluent and progressive societies. Here, in an exclusive interview with ArchDaily, Henriquez describes his firm's ethos, his stance on issues such as homelessness, affordable housing, and gentrification, and the lessons he's learned in over 30 years of heading Henriquez Partners Architects.
