Month: May 2023

Foster + Partners’ project for BENCH, one of the Philippines’ leading clothing and lifestyle brands, has started construction in Manila. The 24-storey headquarters building offers offices, design studios, event spaces, and the necessary amenities to create an enjoyable environment for the company’s employees. Located on the east-west axis in the Bonifacio Global City, the building opens up the ground floor to create a visual connection to the green space surrounding it.

“This is actually not architecture anymore, this is a park that takes place in an architectural fragment. And behaves the same way – there is no center, it’s open, and you can sit on the bench with a few people and feel comfortable; but it can also become quite dense. And in the sense of artistic research, it’s really an experimentation, a sounding out of what this space can be permanent. With the luxury that first of all there’s no functional constraint that you have to accommodate, but that you can completely engage with the place.”

On Thursday, May 18, the Government of Mexico, through the Secretariat of Culture, celebrated the inauguration of the Mexican Pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale 2023, with the proposal “Utopian Infrastructure: The Campesino Basketball Court“. The pavilion, which had an investment of 9,059,600 pesos, aims to invite dialogue and play to engage in conversations about the topics that concern the world of architecture in relation to various aspects of social, cultural, and political life.

Architecture reconciles the sense of belonging and dignity of space. In addition to designing residential or cultural facilities, addressing public space in communities that inhabit vulnerable areas is also urgent and necessary to provide a dignified infrastructure that provides quality of life for the population. Therefore, we have gathered seven interventions in marginalized territories that show the potential for transformation from the space itself.

There’s a lot of undeserved stigma surrounding social housing. Although many projects start off well enough with shiny ribbon-cutting photoshoots, the cameras move on and investment tends to dry up, and maintenance cut. A lack of suitable green spaces follows – due to low-maintenance, and eventually results in forgotten, isolated communities, eventually spiraling down the plughole of ghettoisation.

Pinwheel is a custom-designed prefabricated wood house located on the hills surrounding Lake Maggiore, Italy, and it was built and furnished in only six months.  A pavilion nestled in a glade of the oak tree forests typical of the lake region bordering Switzerland. A project shaped by the boundaries and topography of a small sloping plot, where the suitable buildable area corresponded to a natural terrace in the narrowest portion of the site.

The site is in a corner of a residential area developed along the lakeshore road. The site has a stepped terrain along the lakeside, and from the site, you can see the nearby gardens, the roofs of private houses, and the mountains in the distance. An environment that stretches in each direction, dotted with views of varying distances.

On June 13th, join the webinar Sika Pro Talks*: ESD Flooring Trends and Their Impacts. Industry experts will delve into the latest trends, design requirements, and construction techniques for electrostatic discharge (ESD) flooring.