Biennales, exhibitions, and architecture focused festivals provide a platform for opening debates, conducting research, and driving innovation, but they can also contribute to the incremental changes that shape the image and the character of a city. Through temporary installations and experiments, this type of events have the opportunity to open lines on inquiry into the quality of urban spaces, inviting visitors and residents to slow down, break away from their daily routine and interrogate their local environments. The effects might not be immediate, but by cumulating these impressions and moments of contemplation, architecture and design festivals can have a long-lasting impact on the cities that welcome them.
Temporary Architecture: The Latest Architecture and News
Temporary, but with Long-Lasting Effects: 6 Ways in Which Architecture Festivals Can Revitalize a City
Workers Begin Dismantling Qatar’s Stadium 974, the First Temporary World Cup Stadium
Reports show that authorities have begun dismantling Stadium 974 after it hosted seven matches during FIFA World Cup, with six group games and one Round of 16 knockout matches. It was also the only stadium built for the World Cup without air conditioning, so it only hosted evening matches. According to the BBC, construction workers moved on the site on 9 December to “take the stadium out of tournament mode.” The structure was designed to be the first FIFA-compliant stadium that can be fully dismantled and re-purposed after the tournament ends. While Qatar called this a “beacon of sustainability,” experts warn that the real sustainability of the scheme depends on several factors, including when and where the stadium will be reused.
The School of Architecture Develops Design-Build Learning Program at Arcosanti in Arizona, USA
The School of Architecture, founded by Frank Lloyd Wright as the Taliesin Fellowship in 1932, is undergoing significant transformations. Two years after separating from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, TSOA landed at Arcosanti, an experimental desert community in Arizona owned and operated by The Cosanti Foundation. In line with the school’s values, the program at Arcosanti seeks to provide students with a contemporary design education based on immersive, experimental, and experiential learning. The curriculum offers 2 and 3+ year NAAB-accredited Master of Architecture degrees and a 1.5-year Master of Science in Design-Build.
Built to Not Last: The Japanese Trend of Replacing Homes Every 30 Years
In most countries around the world, value is placed on older buildings. There’s something about the history, originality, and charm of an older home that causes their value to sometimes be higher than newly constructed projects. But in Japan, the opposite is almost always the preference. Newly-built homes are the crux of a housing market where homes are almost never sold and the obsession with razing and rebuilding is as much a cultural thing as it is a safety concern, bringing 30-year-old homes to a valueless market.
MVRDV Highlights Once Again the Potential of Rooftops with Temporary Intervention in Rotterdam
MVRDV revealed its design for a temporary intervention that takes tourists and city dwellers on a walk across several rooftops in Rotterdam, highlighting an untapped potential for expanding the public realm. Created in collaboration with Rotterdam Rooftop Days, the project will feature an aerial bridge from the roof of The Bijenkorf department store to the top of the World Trade Centre plinth and will be available to the public from May 26 to June 24 2022, during Rotterdam Architecture Month.
The Highlights of Concéntrico 07: Sustainability, Spatial Experiences and New Readings of Public Spaces
The 7th edition of the International Architecture and Design Festival Concéntrico proposed new readings of public space through a series of temporary installations that re-imagined various places throughout the Spanish city of Logroño. Emerging architecture practices and artists from around the world shared their perspectives on the public realm and the spaces of social interaction by exploring various themes and experimenting with new ways of understanding urban spaces.
The 2021 Exhibit Columbus Explores the Conditions of Middle Places
This year’s Exhibit Columbus explores the conditions of middle places as interconnections between ecosystems and the built environment through 13 temporary installations that highlight various aspects that make up the identity of the Mississippi watershed. Now at its third edition, the event builds on the Modernist cultural legacy of the Indiana city through a series of artistic and architectural explorations that activate public spaces and engage the community of Columbus.
Temporary Architecture: Innovation, Testing-Ground and Entertainment
Beyond "experience tourism" and light entertainment, temporary architecture is a fertile ground for testing ideas, examining places, popularizing new concepts and technologies. Taking a wide array of forms, from disaster relief projects and utilitarian structures to design experiments, architectural statements and playful installations, transient structures showcase alternative visions for the built environment, opening up new possibilities and questioning established norms. As temporary architecture now seems at odds with sustainability imperatives, the following discusses the value of temporary architecture as a vehicle of experimentation, advancing design and engaging communities.
Curl la Tourelle Head Builds First Socially Distanced Tent for a London Primary School
Curl la Tourelle Head Architecture has built the first socially distanced tent, a pop-up school proposal in London. Located at Manorfield Primary School in Tower Hamlets, the project aims to maximize social distancing measures among students and teachers, during this post COVID-19 period.
Carlo Ratti’s First Intensive Care Pod Installed at a Temporary Hospital in Turin, Italy
The first unit from Carlo Ratti’s CURA project was built at a temporary hospital in Turin, north of Italy, one of the world’s hardest-hit regions by the pandemic. Launched four weeks ago, the initiative to convert shipping containers into plug-in Intensive-Care Pods for COVID-19 patients was assembled at record speed.
The World's Answer to the Lack of Medical Facilities: Temporary and Convertible Hospitals
Just 2 months ago, the city of Wuhan, China announced the construction of Wuhan Huoshenshan Hospital, adding 1,000 beds, 30 ICUs, and new isolation wards to the city's medical arsenal to combat the Coronavirus epidemic. The building was completed in under 10 days by a team of 7,000 construction workers, a far cry from the reality many countries are facing as they scramble to quell the outbreak and wrestle with the shortcomings of their own healthcare systems. With over 14,000 dead and more than 300,000 infected worldwide, not to mention a shortage of medical supplies and facilities, health systems across the globe are feeling the strain of preparing for a crisis.
Temporary Plazas: 13 Public Spaces that Activate the City
Normally the efforts of the construction industry are aimed to design permanent and durable spaces. However, on some occasions creating temporary spaces can be of great help, not only when providing fast assembly infrastructure after the effects of a natural disaster, but also when activating residual or abandoned spaces in our cities. To exemplify the potential of these interventions, we present thirteen successful temporary public spaces.
Cities are Avoiding Hosting the Olympics. They Shouldn’t.
The apple of every athlete's eye, the Olympic Games direct the gaze of the world onto one host city every two years, showcasing the best that sport has to offer across both summer and winter events. In a haze of feel-good anticipation, the general buzz around the city before during the four week stretch is palpable, with tourists, media and athletes alike generating contributing to the fervour. With almost an almost exclusively positive public response (the majority of Olympic bids are met with 70% approval or higher), the Games become an opportunity for a nation to showcases their culture and all it has to offer. At first glance, it's an opportunity you'd be a fool to miss.
Yet as the dust settles, these ‘lucky’ host cities are often left with structures that lack the relevance and function of their initial, fleeting lives. Empty aquatics centers, derelict running tracks and rarely-used stadiums have become as much a trademark of the Games as the Rings, with the structural maintenance and social implications burdening former hosts for years to come. In recent years, fewer cities have been taking part in the bidding process, suggesting that the impact of the Games is beginning to catch up with the excitement. As many as 12 cities contended for the honor of hosting the 2004 games; only two were put forward for 2024/28.
APSS Crossing Temporary 2018 | Call for Participants
APSS is a summer school of architecture located in Boka Bay, Montenegro, For six years now it has been acting as a platform for architecture, urbanism, informal education with studies and research that has lead to more projects such as Montenegro Pavilion at Venice Biennale in 2104 and 2016 that has originated from APSS work. After our Re-Use series in APSS, we have continued our journey with the topic of TEMPORARY in architecture, this year extended to CROSSING TEMPORARY.