Archinect - News

Marvel proposes new Maritime, Business, Research, and Innovation Center for Puerto Rico

2023-04-25T18:13:00-04:00

Marvel Architects has unveiled their proposal for a new research facility in the rural Puerto Rican community of Ceiba.

The plan for the island’s Maritime, Business, Research, and Innovation Center (MBRIC) calls for the addition of a new landmark building at the site of a former U.S. Coast Guard-operated pier looking out over the Straight of Vieques.

Image courtesy Marvel

The oval building at the center of the proposal is elevated to avoid flooding and will encase an undisclosed research mission, highlighted by improved site access, research decks, and enhanced vegetation.

Marvel says: “In shape as well as in intent, the proposed designs draw inspiration from the reference to atolls as natural restorative responses to nature events of volcanic activity and erosion.”

Image courtesy Marvel

A series of restorative site improvements extends the surrounding mangrove further toward the shoreline in order to protect its status as a natural habitat and increase its ability to serve as a na...

Resilient housing prototypes designed by Marvel Architects utilized a range of self-sustaining strategies to survive Hurricane Fiona

2022-09-23T12:00:00-04:00

After Hurricane Fiona tore through Puerto Rico on Sunday [Sept. 18], roads in the small mountain city of Caguas—hit with more than 20 inches of rain—were underwater. Landslides washed away some streets. As on the rest of the island, the electric grid went down, and it wasn’t clear how many homes had been damaged or destroyed. But in two new prototype homes, the electricity stayed on.

The prototypes are single-family homes completely off-grid with electricity and potable water. They were designed by New York City and Puerto Rico-based Marvel Architects and paid for by nonprofit Acacia Network. The homes utilize hurricane and seismic-resistant components, which include an insulated concrete panel system that has shown to be just as if not more effective against earthquakes than traditional concrete block construction. They also employ passive design strategies, allowing natural cross ventilation, heat extraction, and shade. In addition, the structures are modular so that they can adapt to a variety of locations and square footage.

Jonathan Marvel, the firm's founder, addressed the cost of these resilient homes with Fast Company's Adele Peters stating, "I don't want to say 'affordable,' because the average Puerto Rican income is below the level of poverty in the United States. So this is a housing system that's going to require assistance to build." Marvel added th...

Footage released of the Arecibo Telescope's dramatic cable failure and collapse

2020-12-07T11:12:00-05:00

The National Science Foundation (NSF), last week, released video of the Arecibo Telescope's cable failure and collapse. Part of the Arecibo Observatory, the telescope was completed in 1963, and was the largest single-aperture telescope until 2016. This year, NSF decommissioned the telescope following two cable breaks. On December 1st, the suspended receiver's supporting cables failed, resulting in the collapse of the entire assembly.

See the NSF-released video footage below:

After the Storm: Puerto Rico's Architecture Schools in the Wake of Hurricane Maria; Part 2 — Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico

2017-11-10T19:53:00-05:00

For Archinect's After the Storm mini series, we had reached out to various architecture schools in Puerto Rico to get a better understanding how the recent Hurricanes Irma and Maria — and the devastation they left behind all over the region — had impacted school facilities, academic infrastructure, and student life.

In Part 1, we interviewed Mayra Jiménez-Montano, Interim Architecture Dean at the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan.

In this second installment, we're talking with Luis V. Badillo-Lozano, Dean of the School of Architecture at the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico in Ponce, the island's second largest city.

Archinect: How have the recent hurricanes Maria and Irma impacted the school's daily operations and student life? Have school facilities and infrastructure been affected?

Luis V. Badillo-Lozano: Neither Hurricane Irma nor Maria had a big impact on our School's facilities. Some water infiltration through the roof and a crack on a glass door (some floor ...

After the Storm: Puerto Rico's Architecture Schools in the Wake of Hurricane Maria; Part 1 — University of Puerto Rico

2017-11-08T12:31:00-05:00

Several weeks have now passed since Hurricanes Irma and Maria consecutively ravaged through the Caribbean and southern states and territories of the U.S., leaving behind a trail of destruction and overwhelming infrastructural challenges. Puerto Rico was hit particularly hard — in terms of human loss, damage to homes, businesses, and life-sustaining networks like power grids, communication systems, water supply, wastewater treatment as well as the subsequent long-term health dangers and the ongoing exodus of professionals and their families.

We have reached out to Puerto Rico's architecture schools to get a reading on the current state of architectural education on the island in the wake of the storms and how faculty, staff, and students manage to cope with the new circumstances. Since most school websites were still down until recently and spotty power and internet supply made using the official .edu email systems near impossible, much of the communication had to be conducted via so...

Having endured two major hurricanes, Puerto Rico's museums begin to reopen

2017-10-05T15:11:00-04:00

Three weeks after the category four Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico on 20 September, devastating the US Island, knocking out power and killing an as yet undetermined number of residents, local museums are back to work and helping with community relief efforts.

While the U.S. President spent his visit in double-hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico tossing rolls of paper towels into the crowd like t-shirts at a Knicks game, the island's museums are busy assessing the damage and getting their institutions reopened to the public.

German company Sonnen provides micro grid power relief in Puerto Rico

2017-10-04T12:45:00-04:00

Puerto Rico’s electricity grid was completely knocked out when Hurricane Maria slammed into the island Sept. 20, and repairs are expected to take months. That’s generating interest in microgrids, small-scale systems that combine solar panels and batteries that can be installed quickly to restore power to a few buildings at a time.

German company Sonnen GmbH will provide 15 solar powered energy storage systems to Puerto Rico's emergency relief centers. Most of the Island is still without power after Hurricane Maria.

Andrews University architecture students help with disaster relief in Puerto Rico

2017-10-02T15:56:00-04:00

Beginning in July 2017, the graduate Urban Design Studio began to pursue a service project (..) to assist with the design of new housing and public spaces in a flood-prone, impoverished informal settlement in central San Juan. The studio planned to visit the site and engage the community in a participatory design process beginning on Sept. 26, 2017. But then hurricane Irma hit, followed by hurricane Maria on September 20—an event that will change the island forever.

Graduate architecture students from Christian University Andrews will participate in disaster relief efforts in Puerto Rico as part of their studio class. Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico on September 20th, 2017. Since then, most of the island has been left without electricity and cellphone coverage.

"Rum being the medium of choice", and other thoughts from "Play With Your Food", the upcoming AA Visiting School in Puerto Rico

2014-05-30T14:30:00-04:00

What do cooking and mixology have to do with architecture? Can food and drink, as prototyped and iterative objects, help us better understand architectural design? The AA Visiting School is traveling to San Juan, Puerto Rico this summer for “Play With Your Food”, to tackle these questions and, in the process, try to find the secret link between gastronomy and architecture.

Program directors Drew Merkle, Jorge Mendez-Caceres and Miguel Miranda (all recent alumni of AA’s DRL program) laid out "Play With Your Food" for us over email, touching on their own histories with culinary experimentation and why they decided to host the school in the alleged “rum capital of the world”.

What inspired AA to create a visiting school on the relationship between food and architecture?

It was really us that brought the idea to Chris Pierce and Brett Steele who are the directors of the Visiting School, and the AA respectively. The relationship between food and architecture, is something which has been aro...

IluminAction by UrbanoActivo Selected for Venice Architecture Biennale

2012-06-19T13:45:00-04:00

The project IlluminAction by UrbanoActivo, an open design collective from Puerto Rico, has been selected to represent the island in the 13th International Venice Architecture Biennale in Italy this fall (August 29 – November 25). The selection was narrowed from 450 project submissions nationwide and will be presented as part of the Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good exhibition by The Institute for Urban Design.

This exhibit will be part of an archive of actionable strategies around U.S. cities to improve the public urban realm.

Click here to see more Archinect News posts related to the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.