Archinect - News

Fernanda Canales talks to the New York Times about designing better social opportunities in a challenged Mexico

2024-03-04T13:22:00-05:00

“Without opportunities for social interaction, places are more insecure, divided and isolated [...] How can you provide value to a landscape that is neglected? How do you provide an opportunity to see your town in a new way?”

Against a national backdrop poisoned by femicides, border politics, and the equally toxic influence of cartels, Fernanda Canales is making democratic life in underserved Mexican communities more feasible through her highly user-sensitive and socializing designs.

The Mexico City-based architect tells the New York Times' Sam Lubell of her contributions to the government’s $2 billion Programa de Mejoramiento Urbano (or P.M.U.) program, "They will survive local circumstances — issues of budgets, politics and vandalism," adding that "Over time, the public starts to make decisions and inject life. Things change and adapt. Time teaches us what prevails. Often it’s what we can’t imagine now."

Canales was also one of a century profiled in RIBA’s new 100 Women: Architects in Practice, which came out in January and has been reviewed favorably as an essential guide to future equality in the profession. She has been teaching at the UT Austin School of Architecture since the Fall after seeing ...

New RIBA and Create London commissions debut to boost social life in large East London housing development

2023-07-12T19:28:00-04:00

A pair of new interventions commissioned for East London’s Becontree Estate have debuted this summer as an artistic effort to provide space for residents of the historic community that was at one time considered to be the largest social housing development in the western world.

The first, spread across six locations on the 281-acre estate, uses furniture designed by artists Ivan Morison and Heather Peak in order to create “subtle” spaces for gathering and interaction in areas that had previously been overlooked or underutilized. They say their contribution was made using a “shared vocabulary of basic forms” (cone, cylinder, and slab), and have the simplicity of children’s toys with the equally playful title “Two Cannibals Eating a Clown.”

Image © Thierry Bal

"We wanted to create sculptural forms that also offer rest and contemplation," Morison said. "We stack a cylinder on a cone and call it a table. We put a flat slab on a smaller slab and call it a bench. We put ...

For civic-minded designers, a New York NGO presents a career opportunity to impact marginalized communities

2022-08-24T15:55:00-04:00

In March 2022, we published a feature article exploring failures in the maintenance and administration of public housing in the United States. The piece was one of several features on our editorial that have exposed architecture’s connection to pressing social issues, with recent examples including labor, gender and racial inequalities, governance of public space, and homelessness.

Archinect Feature: America’s Public Housing is Burning, Fueled by Cold Indifference

Our coverage of these issues has also brought to the forefront a broad range of individuals determined to find solutions, from Weronika Zdziarska’s investigations into the impact of urban design on gender-based violence to Todd Brown’s exploration of social, environmental, and racial justice.

Archinect Feature: Perceptions of Safety: Weronika Zdziarska Questions Urban Design and Its Impact on Gender-Based Violence Experienced by Women in Cities

While Zdziarska and Brown offer examples of individuals who have used funded ave...

Adaptive reuse project transforms former Spanish prison into ethereal community center

2022-07-11T16:18:00-04:00

Adaptive reuse continues to be a powerful tool used to save, preserve, and reform older buildings. In Tarragona, Spain, Josep Ferrando Architecture collaborated with Gallego Arquitectura to transform the former Reus prison into the El Roser Social Centre.

In November 2021, Archinect reported the debate circulating in the U.S. around prison reuse. "The movement to design spaces that are actively working to undo some of the social harms caused by mass incarceration is still fairly nascent [...]." This newly-completed project in Tarragona follows a similar sentiment.

The architects explain that the building's rehabilitation and intervention establish "a dialectic between the new more ethereal, light, tectonic elements, and the composition and stereotomic mineral materials of the heavier existing structure."

"The rehabilitation of the building listed as a Cultural Asset of Local Interest and included in the Inventory of Architectural Heritage of Catalonia." Image © Adrià Goula.

The f...

Maya Bird-Murphy and the Chicago Mobile Makers deepen their roots in community change with the opening of their new headquarters

2022-07-01T17:54:00-04:00

When reading through architectural media, it's easy for larger architecture firms or "prominent" names to rule headlines. However, many design practitioners and groups are making impactful changes in the industry and their communities beyond the media clout. This is the case for architectural designer, maker, and educator Maya Bird-Murphy, Founder and Executive Director of the Chicago Mobile Makers.

If you're familiar with the Oak Park, Illinois native, it's due to her work with Chicago's local youth and her team of designers and educators leading workshops in their hard-to-miss repainted UPS trucks.

What started as a thesis project for Bird-Murphy during her time at Boston Architectural College soon grew into the award-winning non-profit it is today. After reflecting on her own experiences as a Black female architecture student and designer working in firms, she saw the need to increase diversity within the industry. The architect/non-profit founder soon realized this change in re...

'Her architecture is elegant, ecological and always intriguing' — Architect Anupama Kundoo wins 2021 RIBA Charles Jencks Award

2021-08-17T16:53:00-04:00

The RIBA Charles Jencks Award has been given to architects and firms who have made "a major contribution to both the theory and practice of architecture." This prestigious award has been presented to Débora Mesa and Antón García-Abril of Ensamble Studio (2019), Herzog & de Meuron (2015), and Eric Owen Moss (2011) to name a few.

The notable shortlist of nominated architects includes MASS Design Group, Emilio Ambasz, Alexander Brodsky, Nigel Coates, Beatriz Colomina, Francis Kéré, Peter Salter, Marina Tabassum, and Eyal Weizman.

This year's RIBA Charles Jencks Award is presented to Indian architect and researcher Anupama Kundoo. Her winning the award is a great reflection of influential architectural practices and academic work in South Asia.

Wall House by Anupama Kundoo. Image © Javier Callejas

Trained in Mumbai, Kundoo's focus on housing initiatives, material research, sustainability, and community-driven design has positioned her as an advocate for socially responsible architectur...

maat Lisbon's new exhibitions explore a sense of 'being with' as they address relevant social, geopolitical, and environmental issues

2021-04-08T15:43:00-04:00

The Museum of Art, Architecture, and Technology (maat) launched in October 2016 as an international design institution championing discourse and creative practice to "inspire new understandings of the historical present and an empowering engagement with the common future." The riverfront museum, designed by AL_A (Amanda Levete Architects), has focused its efforts towards "fostering critical discourse and creative practice that inspire new understandings of the historical present and an empowering engagement with the common future."

In addition to its exciting 2021 Spring line-up, maat also focuses on climate action topics. With plans for investing in exhibitions and public programming that emphasize this initiative, the museum has developed the Climate Collective, a year-long project chaired and curated by T.J. Demos.

Image still taken from maat April 2021 exhibition video. Video © maat

In preparation for 2021, new Covid-19 health and safety protocols are allowing museums to welcom...

Social Design and Restorative Justice: Architect Deanna Van Buren teaches us how to re-design with values

2021-03-03T09:30:00-05:00

For Deanna Van Buren, designing towards justice and equity is more than a trend; it's a lifelong calling to dismantle a system that perpetuates oppression and suppression for Black and Brown communities. Back in October 2019, Archinect chatted with Van Buren to learn more about her firm Designing Justice + Designing Space (DJDS) , and what it means to "design spaces for peacemaking, inside and out."

Many may be familiar with her remarkable work involving decarceration and "justice architecture" by unbuilding racism. Van Buren makes it very clear that while many may call her a "justice architect," her mission works towards ending mass incarceration by developing infrastructure that "counters the traditional adversarial and punitive architecture of justice—courthouses, prisons, and jails."

When we spoke with Van Buren in 2019 she shared, "We started a new practice together because we felt that traditional architecture and real estate development firms were not practicing in alignment...

NYC recognizes collection of LGBT historic sites

2019-06-24T12:48:00-04:00

Six LGBT historic sites have received official designation as local landmarks from the New York City Landmarks Commission, The Villager reports.

The sites represent an ongoing effort to expand historic preservationprotections to sites that are significant to the civil rights struggles of the LGBT community.

The sites include:

The Caffe Cino, 31 Cornelia St., a local playhouse where gay men met to share their work free from persecution at a time when depicting homosexuality in theatrical productions was outlawed. The space played a role in developing "Off-Off-Broadway" experimental, and gay theater movements, according to the site's landmark description.
The Gay Activists Alliance Firehouse, 99 Wooster St., a space considered to be New York City’s “first gay community center.” The space was used by a variety of activist groups, including: the Lesbian Feminist Liberation, Gay Youth, the Gay Men’s Health Project, and the Catholic group Dignity.
The Women’s Liberation Center, 243 W. 20...

Peek inside All Square's new grilled cheese restaurant in Minneapolis, designed by Syracuse-based Architecture Office

2018-09-21T20:34:00-04:00

Since Archinect spoke with All Square founder Emily Hunt Turner in 2017, the nonprofit civil rights social enterprise now has its first brick-and-mortar gourmet grilled cheese restaurant that opened in Minneapolis earlier this month.

Located along Minnehaha Mile, All Square's mission — which aims to prevent recidivism and employ and empower formerly incarcerated individuals — now has a physical presence. The project symbolizes “the importance of a clean slate and community support while sending a message that those who have paid their debts to society are ‘all square’ with society and should be afforded the right to live, unhindered, into their future,” Turner told Archinect in 2016.

Photo: Caylon Hackwith.

Jonathan Louie and Nicole McIntosh of Syracuse-based Architecture Office were in charge of converting a 900 square-foot space into a welcoming, community-oriented casual dining spot. The resulting project features a simple interior of white and gray tones ...

A criticism of London's museum effect and the survival of everyday spaces

2018-08-31T14:39:00-04:00

London is pure object in these images and likewise in those taken from the other aforementioned viewing points. Like visitors to a museum, we wander the corridors atop the Switch House and observe the artefacts curated for our all-consuming gaze: a shard, a walkie-talkie, a gherkin, etc. Like Tower Bridge, the new Museum of London, Battersea Power Station and the Tate Modern, the skyline of the city is presented as a display – complete with its own exhibition gift shop.

George Kafka argues that London's trend in preservation and commemoration in the built environment is directly related to the decline of small-scale spaces and small businesses centered around everyday life.

Kafka cites recent developments in London's built environment over the past few years: the V&A preserving a of a section of Robin Hood Gardens, the Museum of London moving into Smithfield Market, and the Tate Modern's viewing platform extension.

He does not necessarily argue against cultural preservation and commemoration, but rather aims to draw attention to a trend in "objective gaze prioritized over subjective experience" and the effect this has on the survival of small, everyday spaces.

An engineer's comic addresses social equity in transportation planning and design

2018-07-23T15:40:00-04:00

Engineer Ryan Martinson uses his cartooning skills to explore why and how to better incorporate social equity goals into transportation planning Equity & Mobility, a 12-page comic article published in the Summer issue of Transportation Talk," the Canadian Institute of Transportation Engineer's quarterly newsletter.

The Canadian Institute for Transportation Engineers newsletter showcases a comic strip addressing social equity in transportation design. The article looks at how planning decisions can be affected by a biased user experience design process affecting who is included in our transportation systems.

Summer issue of Transportation Talk comic by Ryan Martinson. Image: Equity & Mobility.

Martinson's comic describes how faster transportation modes like automotive travel are often favored over more inclusive ones such as walking, biking, and public transportation.

Summer issue of Transportation Talk comic by Ryan Martinson. Image: Equity & Mobility.

While pointing out these design issues, he also offers specific solutions on how to design more inclusively and better impact people's economic and social opportunities. You can flip through the full article here.

Fougeron Architecture transforms 1920s office building in Oakland into the Kapor Center's new HQ

2017-11-27T18:57:00-05:00

Fougeron Architecture, who recently completed the 400 Grove mixed-use in Hayes Valley, has left their mark again in the Bay Area in designing the new Kapor Center for Social Impact headquarters in downtown Oakland. The Kapor Center needed a new collaborative workspace to carry out their mission, which is to improve access to opportunity and stronger influence for historically underrepresented communities through investing in information technology and partnerships with like-minded nonprofits.

Photo: Bruce Damonte.

Fougeron transformed the existing 1920s office building into a new workspace for the Center and its partner organizations. “The new headquarters had to be an architectural manifestation of the Kapor Center’s core values: connectivity, openness, and democracy,” the architects describe. Based on those values, the new Center's design is modern and harmonious, featuring open, flexible workspaces that are fit for collaboration.

Photo: Bruce Damonte.

Photo: B...

Nine honorees join Curry Stone Social Design Circle for May 2017

2017-05-03T12:46:00-04:00

Another month has begun, so that means a new set of honorees for the Curry Stone Social Design Circle have been announced!...For May, nine new members — including Rural Studio, bcWORKSHOP, and Theaster Gates' Rebuild Foundation — were selected for the theme “Can We Design Community Engagement?”.

Here's a glimpse of the May honorees:

buildingcommunityWORKSHOP