Archinect - News

An installation at the Chicago Architecture Biennial challenges private property through a decentralized commons

2021-12-15T15:21:00-05:00

In an effort to tackle the physical inequity caused by an epidemic of vacant lots in the South Side of Chicago, a new design-research project creates a series of new decentralized “urban commons” spread out across different spaces in the city’s Bronzeville neighborhood.

The Center Won't Hold, 2021. Image © Neeraj Bhatia.

The project is part of this year’s Chicago Architecture Biennial, which culminates on Saturday, and is the brainchild of THE OPEN WORKSHOP, who conceived of it as an alternative to the commune system that can be tailored to meet individual community needs surrounding core areas of food, making, ecology, and care.

With support from the University of New Mexico and the Canadian Council for the Arts, the team worked to install a prototype in the Overton Grounds site that will serve first as a meeting space for various community members. Titled The Center Won’t Hold in an apparent allusion to the oft-quoted William Butler Yeates poem, the intervention offers a malleable s...

An all-Canadian speaker lineup deserves an all-Canadian snack buffet

2019-04-26T12:42:00-04:00

In case you need another reason to check out tonight's exciting book launch at Archinect Outpost... we've secured a selection of Canadian favo(u)rites like Ketchup chips, Dill Pickle chips, Wunderbars, Mr. Bigs, and more. We'll also be serving ice cold Canadian beer.

Tonight's event, starting at 7pm at Archinect Outpost, in downtown LA's Arts District, will be celebrating the release of The Open Workshop's new book, New Investigations In Collective Form: The Open Workshop, featuring an all-Canadian lineup of speakers including Neeraj Bhatia (Toronto), Jimenez Lai (Toronto), Noémie Despland Lichtert (Montreal), and Keith Krumwiede (Honourary Canadian ;).

The book can be preordered here for pickup at the event, or shipping immediately after the event. Please go here to RSVP for the event.

New Investigations in Collective Form presents a group of design experiments by the design-research office The Open Workshop, that test how architecture can empower the diverse voices that make ...

The Open Workshop's new exhibition at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts asks how we can live together

2018-04-16T15:11:00-04:00

New Investigations in Collective Form, an exhibition at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, presents a series of design experiments by The Open Workshop, a Bay Area design research office founded by architect and urban designer Neeraj Bhatia.

The Open Workshop: New Investigations in Collective Form, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 2018. (Exhibition Poster)Courtesy Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Image by: The Open Workshop.

Inspired by Fumihiko Maki’s seminal text Investigations in Collective Form, the exhibition tests how architecture can empower the diverse voices that make up the public realm and examines how collectivity can be formed today. The exhibition will feature models and drawings showcasing the office’s past projects and the concepts and theoretical explorations that guided them.

The Open Workshop, Field of Representation, 2018. Installation view,The Open Workshop: New Investigations in Collective Form, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 2018. Courtesy Yerba Buena Cen...

Nothing constant but change in The Open Workshop's "Malleable Monuments"

2017-03-16T17:33:00-04:00

With a stated goal of "reconciling and choreographing how the human and environmental subject and their individual, transforming, ephemeral, and often contradictory characteristics continuously recompose a permanent work," The Open Workshop's Malleable Monuments exhibition is a tour of three years worth of work by the Toronto/San Francisco-based collective.

Photo by Abraham Chan

With projects including consulting on the redesign of Bruce Mau's office and accolades like the Architectural League of New York Young Architects Prize and the Emerging Leaders Award from Design Intelligence, The Open Workshop is building a solid reputation while delving into the ephemeral. With taxonomic drawings divided into four categories (Frameworks, Living Archives, Articulated Surfaces, and Rewiring States), the exhibition also investigates its constantly evolving territory through two large installations.

Photo by Abraham Chan

The exhibition,...

Six emerging practices win the “(im)permanence” 2016 Architectural League Prize

2016-05-05T14:44:00-04:00

The Architectural League of New York highlights emerging design talent in their annual Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers program. First launched in 1981, the Prize carries a legacy in the contemporary architecture scene in that many now-well-known architects have received the award at the start of their careers. This year's “(im)permanence” theme explores how “time affects architecture [and alters] our expectations of permanent structures in an impermanent environment.”

The 2016 winners are:

Rania Ghosn and El Hadi Jazairy, DESIGN EARTH, Cambridge, MA and Ann Arbor, MI

Juan Alfonso Garduño Jardón, G3 Arquitectos, Querétaro, Mexico

Neyran Turan and Mete Sonmez, NEMESTUDIO, San Francisco, CA

Neeraj Bhatia, The Open Workshop, San Francisco, CA

Hubert Pelletier and Yves de Fontenay, Pelletier de Fontenay, Montreal, Canada

(cover image) Yasmin Vobis and Aaron Forrest, Ultramoderne, Providence, RI

Find out more on Bustler.

Previously:

2015 Architectural League Prize "Authenticity" winners to lecture and exhibit next month

Winners of the 2014 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers

Get Lectured: California College of the Arts, Fall '14

2014-09-04T14:02:00-04:00

Say hello to another edition of Archinect's Get Lectured! As a refresher, we'll be featuring a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. If you're not doing so already, be sure to keep track of any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss.

Today's poster comes from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Speakers include Neeraj Bhatia, Elena Manferdini, Jorge Otero-Pailos, and David Benjamin of The Living -- who designed the Hy-Fi Tower at MoMA PS1.

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your school's lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

Unless noted**, lectures begin at 7 pm in Timken Lecture Hall at the CCA San Francisco campus. All events free and open to the public.

SEPTEMBER

Sept. 3
Chip Lord & Curtis Schreier / Ant Farm; UC Santa Cruz

Sept. 15
Neeraj Bhatia / InfraNet Lab; The Open Workshop; CCA Urban Works Agency San Francisco

Sept. 22
Frida Escobedo / Taller Frida Escobedo - Mexico City

OCTOBER

Oct. 6
Interior ...

Bracket [takes action]: submissions selected and new website launches!

2014-06-26T17:01:00-04:00

[takes action] is the fourth issue from Bracket, Archinect's collaborative publication with InfraNet Lab. Edited by a diverse collection of professionals from the intersecting worlds of architecture, environment, and digital culture, Bracket's content is sourced from an open-call for submissions.

Bracket [takes action] asks: What are the collective projects in the public realm to act on?

How have recent design projects incited political or social action? How can design catalyze a public, as well as forums for that public to act? What is the role of spatial practice to instigate or resist public actions? Bracket 4 provokes spatial practice’s potential to incite and respond to action today.

Peruse the selected entries (on the brand new website !): Bracket [takes action]

The Jury included:

Pier Vittorio Aureli, founding partner of Dogma, teaches at the AA School of Architecture in London and is visiting professor at Yale University.
Vishaan Chakrabarti, Principal at SHoP Architects.
Adam ...

“En Pointe” runner-up entry by The Open Workshop + Lorena Del Rio Architects for E12 Austria, Kagran

2014-01-10T17:29:00-05:00

After submitting "En Pointe" to the Europan 12 Austria competition, The Open Workshop + Lorena Del Rio Architects team placed as a Runner-Up in a three-way tie for the Kagran site (In other words, a "Winner" title wasn't given.) "En Pointe" uses the arcade concept and hybrid, multi-functional spaces to improve Kagran's connectivity and potentially enhance the city at an architectural and urban level.

Here's a preview of their project:

Find out more on Bustler.

You can also click here to see other Europan 12 entries.

“En Pointe” runner-up entry by The Open Workshop + Lorena Del Rio Architects for E12 Austria, Kagran

2014-01-10T17:29:00-05:00

Here's a preview of their project:

Find out more on Bustler.

You can also click here to see other Europan 12 entries.

Get Lectured: MIT Fall '13

2013-10-18T15:13:00-04:00

Archinect's Architecture School Lecture Guide for Fall 2013

Here on Archinect we recently launched "Get Lectured", where we'll feature a school's lecture series--along with their snazzy posters--for the current season. Check back regularly to stay up-to-date and mark your calendars for any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss.

It's finally Friday! Let's finish this week with the bountiful list of Fall '13 lecture events from MIT Architecture.

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your school's lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

Unless noted**, "Discourses in Practice" lectures will be on Thursdays at 5:30 pm in the Long Lounge 7-429.

As a Friday bonus, the list below includes events under MIT Architecture's Discipline Groups: Architectural Design (AD); Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture (AKPIA); and Center for Advanced Urbanism (CAU) seminars. Events organized by category.

"DISCOURSES IN PRACTICE" SERIES

SEPTEMBER

September 13
Tatiana Bi...

Bracket [Goes Soft] Toronto Book Launch

2013-02-22T19:56:00-05:00

Bracket [Goes Soft] Toronto book launch will be hosted by creatures:collective on March 1st, starting at 7pm. Editors Lola Sheppard and Neeraj Bhatia will launch the book, which will be available for purchase. Edited by Neeraj Bhatia and Lola Sheppard of Infranet Lab, this second volume in the impressive [bracket] series “examines the use and implications of soft today – from the scale of material innovation to territorial networks.” Free and open to the public, no RSVP is required.