Articles by Diego Hernández

Copying happens all the time in architecture. From students copying the lessons of established examples, repeating model houses, overtly referencing elements from the past, to literally making blueprints, the act of copying is an important tool for architects. Rarely is copying seen as a truly negative or forbidden activity like it might be in other creative disciplines. This video breaks down the how and why architects copy. It covers some postmodern precedents like the Sainsbury Wing, Vanna Venturi House, Villa Dall’Ava by Rem Koolhaas, as well as the more recent examples like the Eyebeam competition and the David Childs lawsuit. All of these examples serve to highlight the wide range of copies in architecture, from the creative and clever to the lazy and malicious.

Next Tuesday, July 13, 2021, at 6:30 pm CET (12:30 pm EST) ArchDaily will host a live stream of a panel discussion organized by Milan-based studio untitled architecture as part of Triennale di Milano’s summer public program. TOPOTEK 1, Openfabric and Project for Public Spaces, three leading firms in the world of public spaces, will address the issues of the post-pandemic cities and share their views on how to approach them.

Twelve big-picture architectural initiatives addressing some of the world’s most pressing challenges have won the first of this year’s World Architecture Festival (WAF) Awards. The 2021 WAFX Awards celebrate project proposals from across the world tackling today’s global issues, ranging from pandemic control and the climate emergency, to social equity, cultural identity, aging populations, and food supply.

ArchDaily, Strelka Institute, and Strelka KB announce the second edition of their jointly curated award and are accepting applications from the territories of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. Submit your project by July 30.

Sometimes architecture’s most influential designs remain unbuilt. Their mark on the world is larger than the physical footprint of the building despite it never breaking ground. This is the case for the Errazuriz House designed in 1930 by Le Corbusier for a Chilean diplomat to Argentina. The house was intended for the mountains of Zapallar Chile overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Its primary design feature, the uneven butterfly roof, was intended to reference the peaks and ridges of its surrounding terrain. This is the first instance of a butterfly roof, which would become a staple of post-war houses in California, built by the thousands. This video explores the Errazuriz house, its history, its design, and takes us on a virtual walkthrough of its digital reconstruction.

The COVID-19 Pandemic is a disruptive moment for our world, and it’s poised to spur transformative shifts in design, from how we experience our homes and offices to the plans of our cities. The webcast series Design Disruption explores these shifts—and address issues like climate change, inequality, and the housing crisis— through chats with visionaries like architects, designers, planners and thinkers; putting forward creative solutions and reimagining the future of the built environment.

In partnership with Make Architects and Sir John Soane’s Museum, World Architecture Festival (WAF) has announced the call for entries for the fifth edition of The Architecture Drawing Prize. Launched in 2017, the Prize was established to celebrate and showcase the art and skill of architectural drawing.

This video introduces and defines common architecture terms from A to Z. It is no secret that architecture is full of jargon. This can be the subject of jokes and memes but it can also lead to confusion and frustration. The reliance on jargon is somewhat forgivable — the task of translating complex spatial, geometric, and compositional principles into verbal language is difficult. However, it means that one must invest in learning the language to fully grasp written and verbal communication about buildings. This video helps by providing definitions for 26 common architectural terms in alphabetical order. Terms include aesthetic, buttress, circulation, diagrammatic, enfilade, fenestration, geodesic, hierarchy, iconic, jamb, kitsch, legibility, morphology, node, ornament, program, quoin, rustication, stereotomy, tectonics, urbanism, yurt, and zeitgeist. Armed with this fundamental vocabulary, you’ll be able to keep up with any architectural conversation.  

As a design feature, cantilevers can exist for any number of reasons, as rational results of form-making, impressive feats of engineering, or just unnecessary spectacles. Either way, they often result in buildings that appear both heavy and light at the same time and they present safely precarious situations for their inhabitants. The video describes what cantilevers are as well as some of the structural principles which govern their design like tension, compression, moment, and shear. It also goes over some great examples by architects like MVRDV, Rem Koolhaas, Ensemble Studio, and Richard Rogers. Finally, it concludes with appreciation for structural engineers and lists a few of the ones responsible for some of the most daring of delicate dangles.

The first house ever built in the United States made entirely out of only concrete and glass is no longer standing. It was demolished in 1999, but that doesn’t mean we can’t visit it virtually to witness what it would have been like to be inside. This video and link below focuses on a single house — the Lincoln House — designed by Mary Otis Stevens to resurrect and explore. It uses the program Enscape to walk through the building and resurrect the experience of what it would have been like to be inside. The video offers a timeline to contextualize the role of the house in the career of the architect and the evolution of Brutalism in Architecture, an analysis of the building, and initial reactions to walking through the building for the first time. What magic and other lessons are lurking in the design, hidden until we could experience it?