Articles by AD Editorial Team

Over at The Guardian, mathematician Alex Bellos has an article series in which he asks readers to send their solutions to a weekly puzzle. That sounds innocent enough, but this week’s installment might have caused architects to double-take: inspired by a reader who remembers it from his days as an architecture student, solving Monday’s puzzle suggests that a reader is “smarter than an architect.”

In the thousands of posts we publish yearly, we have the privilege of seeing a large number of impressive architecture drawings. They are submitted by established practices, architecture students, artists and, occasionally, our readers. From precise, old-school hand drawings to architectural representation that pushes the boundary of collage, photography and digital sketching, drawings hold a particular intrigue in the hearts of architecture lovers. 

Following a two year-long bidding process, British-based international practice BDP (Building Design Partnership) have been chosen to restore and safeguard the future of the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the United Kingdom’s parliament. Outbidding Foster + Partners, Allies and Morrison, and HOK the project is expected to run into billions of pounds and could see the two chambers—the House of Commons and the House of Lords, plus all ancillary support staff—move out of the iconic building for to a decade.

How to build a Tiki Bar in your backyard with instructions and images.

In this episode of GSAPP Conversations, Fabrizio Barozzi—who co-founded the Barcelona-based practice Barozzi/Veiga with Alberto Veiga in 2004—discusses the practice’s process and obsessions, including how they position themselves in the architectural landscape and why they are sceptical of defining their own architectural “language”. For Barozzi, research and an engagement with history are integral to the way his practice works operates.

These vast concrete dishes, which can be found along the northern and easterly British coastline, are sound mirrors. Originally designed to capture the sounds of incoming enemy aircraft as they approached the United Kingdom from across the English Channel and the North Sea (although one was also built at Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq in Malta), these military listening devices acted as a rudimentary early warning system in the decades before Radar was developed and deployed.

In a 12-day workshop, Building Trust International and Terraepaglia joined the Ciuffelli Agricultural Technical Institute in Todi, Italy, with the aim of exploring a series of construction techniques with raw soil. In addition to producing earth bricks and rammed earth structures -in collaboration with experts such as Eliana Baglioni and Pouya Khazaeli-, a curved wall was erected with a wooden structure and a cane framework, on which a massive layer of earth and straw was spread.

The premise for this design was to create an iconic space, with a concept adaptable to any property and versatile when exposing the product. It should also be a design that could be quickly built and at a moderate cost.

The immense scales and geometric intricacies of Hong Kong have long held the fascination of the public consciousness, and has been further reinforced in recent years by mind-bending photography series such as Michael Wolf’s seminal photo series, “Architecture of Density.”

Although trained as a Control and Computer Engineer, Ali Alamedy has since turned his hand to manufacturing scaled, miniature dioramas. After being forced to leave his home in Iraq, he and his family are now based in Turkey – and it is here that he has honed a skill in constructing these tiny, intricate worlds from a broad range of ordinary materials. All scaled at 1:12, these complex and often hyper-realistic models are inspired by the environments around him, complemented by his experiences and, of course, his imagination. In this study of Alamedy’s work, ArchDaily asks: how do you do it?