Solid Wood: The Latest Architecture and News

Ten years ago, SPACE10 was born as a pioneering platform ushering in a novel approach to corporate innovation, consolidating itself for its ability to be open, democratic, driven by a playful purpose, and community-oriented. Composed of a small core team of around 23 people based in Copenhagen, their efforts have focused on combining the power of creativity, science, and technology to find solutions that address the accelerated climate crisis and social injustices.

Solid wood, which has been used since prehistoric times and is still highly valued today, is extracted directly from trees without undergoing any lamination, pressing, or gluing processes. While it remains a universally used material in architecture, its widespread use has led to an increased demand and less efficient resource management. Therefore, solutions are being sought to optimize its use in production processes and reduce its consumption without losing its capabilities and characteristic beauty. To address issues such as warping, aging, and high environmental costs associated with solid wood, materials like Technowood have been developed. Combining technology and super-strength composites with natural wood veneers, Technowood maintains the beauty and characteristics of solid wood, but with greater durability and a sustainable approach, making it a suitable alternative.

Since Yuri Gagarin's iconic pioneering flight in 1961, only 565 human beings have had the privilege of traveling into space. This extreme venture requires a high degree of devotion, extraordinary physical and intellectual preparation, and huge investments. Space exploration has the potential to benefit humanity in many ways, especially regarding the development of new technologies and the generation of scientific knowledge. Many of these technologies are already available to the public, such as GPS, water filters, or highly resistant fabrics. But while we often imagine astronauts floating in space and observing the Earth from a unique vantage point, many of them face the difficulty of sleeping and resting in space due to the lack of natural light. It is this issue that motivated a group of young Danish architects to develop a solution to improve the daily lives of astronauts in space, but also of many people on planet Earth who suffer from the same problem.

Add cabbage leaves, orange peels, onions, bananas and a few slices of pumpkin to get... cement. That's right, researchers from the University of Tokyo in Japan have developed a technique through which it is possible to produce cement from food waste. Besides being used in construction, the innovative initiative is edible as well. You can make boiled cement into a delicious meal by adjusting flavors, adding seasonings, and breaking it into pieces.

Imagine explaining to someone 25 years ago what the professions of social media manager, uber driver, or drone operator are all about in 2020. Technology combined with population demands, resource scarcity, urbanization and other factors have created a number of new jobs and radically changed others. Research claims that 65% of children entering elementary school today will end up working in jobs that don't yet exist.

“Since I remember myself, I have wanted to be an architect… I could see the way that neighborhoods were organized. I could see the separation. I could see the frontier areas between the Palestinian community and the Jewish majority,” expresses Eyal Weizman in conversation with Louisiana Channel, in regards to understanding the ‘political significance’ of architecture and the potential of the occupation as a critical tool for understanding the world.

Eyal Weizman was interviewed by Marc-Christoph Wagner at Forensic Architecture’s studio in London, in April 2022. As the head of Forensic Architecture, he is renowned for his part within the multidisciplinary research group, using a combination of architectural technologies and techniques to investigate instances of state violence and violations of human rights across the globe. Growing up in Haifa, Israel he developed an understanding of the political connotations within architecture from an early stage.

Technical precision combined with environmental concern and exploratory and investigative character make Carla Juaçaba one of the great representatives of Latin American architecture today. Carioca, born in 1976, Carla Juaçaba attended the University of Santa Úrsula and attributes much of her experimental and interdisciplinary style to this educational institution. It is not by chance that during her academic training her great inspiring masters were the architect Sergio Bernardes and the visual artist Lygia Pape, insinuating her interest in the multiple disciplinary branches that can compose architecture. In this sense, while still at graduation, Carla worked together with architect Gisela Magalhães, from Oscar Niemeyer’s generation, in scenography and expography projects.

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"A city of rooms" is a research work by architect Paula Olea Fonti that focuses on the study of shared housing, which is one of the most common ways for young students and professionals to live in the city. A popular and ordinary house, if you will. One that many architects would distinguish for its low architectural value.

The gaze is a tool that the architect uses constantly but does not fully value. It is an instrument that, in addition to allowing us to know and recognize our reality and the phenomena that arise from it, can work as a method of analysis. "Entrearcos (Between-arches): architecture of connection" is a research project developed by the architect Daniela Silva Landeros that studies, in the specific case of the Ciutat Vella neighbourhood of the city of Barcelona, the issue of arches in our cities. And Silva Landeros does so from alternative points of view that call into question the way we are used to looking.

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From its starting to point as a tree to its product form as a beam or piece of furniture, wood used in architecture and interior design goes through several stages and processes. A renewable resource and popular traditional building material, wood is also often cited as a promising construction material of the future, one that is suitable for the new demands of sustainability. But unlike concrete, whose molds can create even the most complex curves, wooden architecture most commonly uses straight beams and panels. In this article, we will cover some techniques that allow for the creation of curved pieces of wood at different scales, some of which are handmade and others of which seek to make the process more efficient and intelligent at a larger scale.

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With the aim of creating immersive environmental experiences in interior spaces, the design studio Aqua Creations has developed Manta Ray Light, a lighting installation built with responsive RGB LED technology that mixes the colors red, green, and blue to generate more than 16 million light tones. By presetting its color spectrum, offering a range of brightness settings on a scale of 0.1 to 100%, and even loading images and videos into its internal memory, the system allows its user to add color and movement to expressive spaces, or deliver a feeling of warmth and concentration to intimate and private rooms.

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