Articles by Andreea Cutieru

The Chicago Architecture Biennial has revealed the calendar for this year’s program of events, lectures, workshops and performances exploring how architecture shapes communities and cities. Titled The Available City, this edition aims to highlight the potential of vacant urban areas as community spaces, with the event debuting on September 17 at 12 sites across Chicago featuring 16 interventions that activate unused plots. The projects are complemented by a series of outdoor programming, as well as digital events that kick off on August 17.

By now an architectural classic, Safdie’s Habitat ’67 represents a highly influential vision for a community-oriented, nature-infused urban housing model, and at the same time, a critical example of the possibilities of prefabrication. Fifty years after the design of Habitat ’67, Safdie is still exploring this vision of urban living, further developing the concept with projects such as Altair Residences, Corner Tower and Habitat Qinhuangdao. Rooted in the architect’s motto – “for everyone a garden”, the new projects capitalise on outdoor terraces, natural light and ventilation, as well as communal spaces.

This week’s curated selection of Best Unbuilt Architecture highlights public spaces and buildings submitted by the ArchDaily Community. From bridges to squares, from parks to markets and train stations, this article explores the various kinds of public infrastructure that support the urban fabric, showcasing distinct approaches worldwide.

EFFEKT has won the competition to transform an urban block occupied by a decommissioned editorial office and printing press of the regional German newspaper Kieler Nachrichten. As digitalization has rendered many of the existing newspaper production facilities obsolete, the KielHöfe project aims to redefine the publication’s urban presence by incorporating various programs meant to drive the revitalization of Kiel’s city centre and shape a new cultural destination.

Construction is underway at Vestre’s new facility designed by BIG, set to become the world’s most sustainable furniture factory through carbon-neutral fabrication processes and the use of renewable energy. Called the Plus and placed within the Norwegian forest, the project will be an example of efficient manufacturing, using Industry 4.0 solutions, while also developing Magnor as a tourist destination through its attractive design.

Foster + Partners has recently completed the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, a new research facility within the Hebrew University of Jerusalem campus. The design features an array of flexible laboratories arranged in two parallel wings around an open central courtyard, which recreates the surrounding landscape through its citrus trees and water stream. The distinctive facade screen represents the neurological brain structure, as drawn by Spanish neuroscientist Santiago Ramon y Cajal at the beginning of the 20th century.

Aedas has revealed its design for Shirble — The Prime, a new mixed-use development that would revitalize the Ba Gua Ling industrial zone, a central area of Shenzhen. The design features a retail podium from which one office tower and three residential ones of various heights rise, connected by a sky-park at 150 metres above the ground. The high-density development aims to respond to the city’s demand for housing while bringing multiple aspects of urban life into one building.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN’s body for assessing the science related to climate change, has recently published a comprehensive report documenting the extent of global warming. The paper provides new time estimates for crossing the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold, urging immediate and large-scale action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Following the publication of the report, UK Architects Declare has issued a statement inviting decision makers to a dialogue on how to collectively address the climate crisis while at the same time calling for the design professionals to re-evaluate their practice to support meaningful change.

Jasper Architects has recently won a competition to design an immersive hotel experience within the desert landscape of Kuwait. Featuring a curved structure echoing the surrounding dunes, the project is intended to recreate an oasis where visitors can fully observe the natural environment. Through its colors, textures, use of wood, and rammed earth, the concept emulates the surrounding. Reiterating the local topography, a circular roof rises and touches the ground, creating an array of alternating interior and exterior spaces.

In his 1983 now-classic essay Towards a Critical Regionalism, Six Points of an Architecture of Resistance, Kenneth Frampton discussed an alternative approach to architecture, one defined by climate, topography and tectonics, as a form of resistance to the placeness of Modern Architecture and the gratuitous ornamentation of Postmodernism. An architectural attitude, Critical Regionalism proposed an architecture that would embrace global influences while firmly rooted in its context. The following explores the value and contribution of Frampton’s ideas for contemporary architecture.