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Traditional Architecture: The Latest Architecture and News

L.E.FT Architects Deconstructs Traditional Mosque for Jeddah Islamic Arts Biennale, in Collaboration with Iheb Guermazi and Beya Othmani

L.E.FT Architects, an architecture firm focused on examining the cultural and political intersections in the built environment, exhibited Jerba: Prototype 366, in the first edition of the Islamic Arts Biennale, taking place in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Presenting a historical and contemporary exploration of Islamic heritage, the biennale, curated by Sumayya Vally, was located in the Western Hajj Terminal, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in 1981.

L.E.FT Architects Deconstructs Traditional Mosque for Jeddah Islamic Arts Biennale, in Collaboration with Iheb Guermazi and Beya Othmani - Image 1 of 4L.E.FT Architects Deconstructs Traditional Mosque for Jeddah Islamic Arts Biennale, in Collaboration with Iheb Guermazi and Beya Othmani - Image 2 of 4L.E.FT Architects Deconstructs Traditional Mosque for Jeddah Islamic Arts Biennale, in Collaboration with Iheb Guermazi and Beya Othmani - Image 5 of 4L.E.FT Architects Deconstructs Traditional Mosque for Jeddah Islamic Arts Biennale, in Collaboration with Iheb Guermazi and Beya Othmani - Image 6 of 4L.E.FT Architects Deconstructs Traditional Mosque for Jeddah Islamic Arts Biennale, in Collaboration with Iheb Guermazi and Beya Othmani - More Images+ 9

Lo-TEK: Reclaiming Indigenous Techniques to Work with Nature

"Indigenous technologies are not lost or forgotten, only hidden by the shadow of progress in the most remote places on Earth". In her book Lo-TEK: design by radical indigenism, Julia Watson proposes to revalue the techniques of construction, production, cultivation and extraction carried out by diverse remote populations who, generation after generation, have managed to keep alive ancestral cultural practices integrated with nature, with a low environmental cost and simple execution. While modern societies tried to conquer nature in the name of progress, these indigenous cultures worked in collaboration with nature, understanding ecosystems and species cycles to articulate their architecture into an integrated and symbiotically interconnected whole.

Teahouses: Reinterpretation of Traditional Spaces

Chashitsu, which is the Japanese term for a teahouse or tea room is a construction specifically designed for holding the Tea Ceremony, a traditional Japanese ritual in which the host prepares and serves tea for guests. Teahouses are usually small, intimate wooden buildings, where every detail is intended to help withdraw the individual from the material disturbances of the world.

Traditional Solutions, Modern Projects: Wooden Screens for Sun Protection and Ventilation

Throughout history, sunshades--light-weight screens typically made of interwoven wooden reeds--have been the go-to method of sun protection and temperature control for dwellings across civilizations, especially those located in tropical and Mediterranean climates. While offering protection from the sun's heat and rays, sunshades also allow air to permeate, making them an effective and economical cooling system for interior spaces. 

Patagonian Houses: A Visual Registry of Traditional Houses in the Far South of Argentina

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Argentina's Patagonia region is a vast swath of land that spans the provinces of Chubut, Neuquén, Río Negro, Santa Cruz, Tierra del Fuego, and even parts of La Pampa, Mendoza, and Buenos Aires. Although it is the largest region within the country, it is also the least populated and, therefore, markedly rural and isolated. This isolation forms the basis for Thibaud Poirier 's “Houses of Patagonia”, where he offers a visual registry of the houses found throughout the region in an attempt to capture the similarities that define the region's architectural style.

Short Film Explores the Standardization of Traditional Japanese Housing in Osaka

Created by Japanese architectural historian Norihito Nakatani, the film "A City of Columns" explores the distinctive dwelling culture of nagaya, a housing typology that flourished in the Japanese early modern period. The video depicts one of the few remaining nagaya neighbourhoods in Osaka, revealing the standardization embedded in all aspects of this form of housing and documenting how architectural elements transition between different spatial configurations.

Short Film Explores the Standardization of Traditional Japanese Housing in Osaka - Films & ArchitectureShort Film Explores the Standardization of Traditional Japanese Housing in Osaka - Films & ArchitectureShort Film Explores the Standardization of Traditional Japanese Housing in Osaka - Films & ArchitectureShort Film Explores the Standardization of Traditional Japanese Housing in Osaka - Films & ArchitectureShort Film Explores the Standardization of Traditional Japanese Housing in Osaka - More Images+ 1

HANGSUK· TRICHANG LABRANG Boutique hotel / Architects KONGKONG

HANGSUK· TRICHANG LABRANG Boutique hotel  / Architects KONGKONG - Featured Image
Main gate © Le feng

HANGSUK· TRICHANG LABRANG Boutique hotel  / Architects KONGKONG - RenovationHANGSUK· TRICHANG LABRANG Boutique hotel  / Architects KONGKONG - RenovationHANGSUK· TRICHANG LABRANG Boutique hotel  / Architects KONGKONG - RenovationHANGSUK· TRICHANG LABRANG Boutique hotel  / Architects KONGKONG - RenovationHANGSUK· TRICHANG LABRANG Boutique hotel  / Architects KONGKONG - More Images+ 22

拉萨市, China
  • Area Area of this architecture project Area:  2300
  • Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2018

Ornament, Crime & Prejudice: Where Loos' Manifesto Fails to Understand People

This article was originally published on CommonEdge as "African Architecture: Ornament, Crime & Prejudice."

Revolutionary Nature: the Architecture of Hiroshi Sambuichi

Revolutionary Nature: the Architecture of Hiroshi Sambuichi - Image 3 of 4
Naoshima Hall. Image © Sambuichi Architects

Our world revolves. Not just literally, as it does around the sun, but in nature’s every aspect. Seasons cycle into each other (though more erratically each year), waves trace and retrace the beaches with the shifting tide, flowers open, close, and turn to follow the path of the sun. Even we are governed by these circular natural systems. Maintenance of our circadian rhythms, a human connection to light, is so essential to our health that it is a required element in many contemporary building codes. 

Galicia Publishes a Guide to Colors and Materials Of Its Traditional Architecture

Last October 23, in the small Galician city of Ares (Spain), the "Guide of colors and materials" was publicly presented, with which the administration of the Galician community - in collaboration with the Galicia College of Architects (COAG) - aims to establish aesthetic criteria and recommendations in the search for a better image and urban quality of Galician populations. 

This document is composed of fourteen volumes and its publication was made possible by a laborious process in which, for a year, architects, historians, and graduates of Fine Arts, had analyzed more than 3,800 buildings in rural, urban and peri-urban areas, as well as in industrial properties in the four Galician provinces.