Articles by Megan Schires

Past, Present, Future is an interview project by Itinerant Office, asking acclaimed architects to share their perspectives on the constantly evolving world of architecture. Each interview is split into three video segments: Past, Present, and Future, in which interviewees discuss their thoughts and experiences of architecture through each of those lenses. The first episode of the project featured 11 architects from Italy and the Netherlands and Episode II is comprised of interviews with 13 architects from Spain, Portugal, France, and Belgium.

Past, Present, Future is an interview project by Itinerant Office, asking acclaimed architects to share their perspectives on the constantly evolving world of architecture. Each interview is split into three video segments: Past, Present, and Future, in which interviewees discuss their thoughts and experiences of architecture through each of those lenses. The first episode of the project featured 11 architects from Italy and the Netherlands and Episode II is comprised of interviews with 13 architects from Spain, Portugal, France, and Belgium.

Amidst efforts to revitalize and improve urban centers, the peripheral areas of cities are often ignored or forgotten. The intense focus on the downtown core means, in terms of land use, that only a relatively small area receives the majority of designers’ attention. “Dvorulitsa” (literally “Yardstreet” in Russian) is an urban development strategy proposed by Russian architecture firm Meganom, aiming to shift that focus. Taking the idea of the “superpark” from the 2013 study, “Archaeology of the Periphery,” the yardstreet project presents an alternative method of viewing the periphery of a post-soviet city.

A two-stage international design competition recently concluded for the new headquarters of The Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS), the country’s leading organization for advancing science, technology, and innovation. KÂAT Architects and Yalin Architectural Design were shortlisted as finalists in the second stage of the competition for their collaborative entry, a concept which anchors the future within the past. Drawing inspiration from the local traditions, climate, and urban fabric, the group places their design firmly in the context of its location in Kuwait City.

Name: Monolicious

A Green Spaceship appears to have landed in Villaverde, Madrid, in design firm 3GATTI’s proposal for the new municipal library. The design for the landmark building employs the public’s curiosity to draw visitors in and create an iconic presence in the city. The library is split between two floors, both architecturally and conceptually. The ground level is transparent and open, meant to house the noisy, public aspects of the program; the upper floor is the architectural showpiece, floating above the ground and containing the more private, quiet study spaces.

Reacting to the influx of gargantuan, iconic museum buildings produced by China’s recent “museum boom,” MORE Architecture aimed to create an intricate, experiential space with their design for Ginkgo Gallery. The gallery, construction on which has now begun, was conceived as a humble merging of art and nature, part of a network of private museums in the Yangtze River Delta. Ginkgo Gallery also houses an auditorium and workshop space in an effort to make art a part of public life and educate children in contemporary art.

Name: City of Light

October 2018 saw the country of Georgia’s first architecture biennial since its independence, held in the capital city, Tbilisi. Since 1991, architecture in Georgia has been seen primarily as either a political tool or an opportunity for speculative development. Architects today are challenging this discourse and looking to architecture to address Georgia’s concerns in a meaningful way. The Tbilisi Architecture Biennial consisted of diverse exhibitions, installations and events centered in the Gldani microdistrict under the theme “Buildings Are Not Enough.”

In the city of Milan, architecture firm LAD identified a busy roundabout with the potential to host a new public square typology. Sovraparco, literally “over park,” is a design by the Italian firm to better utilize an existing area in the city, Piazzale Loreto, by infusing it with greenery and public space. The project intentionally does not impose on the surrounding buildings to revamp the area, but instead inserts itself into the central space and aims to rethink what belongs to the public sector.