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This article was originally published on Common Edge.

There is nothing like a crisis to bring people together. After Hurricane Katrina, more than 9,000 citizens participated in the development of the Unified New Orleans Plan that our firm Concordia coordinated in collaboration with 12 other planning teams. Now we’re working with another stellar group on a project called LA Safe, with the goal of creating a plan for residents of south Louisiana who will be among the first to experience the devastating impacts of sea-level rise.

Due to population growth and an increase in urban density and real estate prices, architects and urban planners have been pursuing alternatives for new spatial configurations for settling and housing in the cities. The multiplication of shared housing and workspaces is an example of how the field of architecture is adapting to new ways of living in society. 

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Perhaps the most arduous part of every aspiring architect’s career is the built-up doom and gloom that surrounds the process of mentally preparing, and actually taking, the Architect Registration Exam- also known as the ARE. What ideally should be more of a process that tests real-world application and knowledge about the practice itself, has slowly evolved into a mentally exhausting challenge of sourcing highly specific information just to survive each exam. The only thing harder than studying for the exams themselves, is navigating the increasingly saturated array of online practice tests, advice forums, one-off study guides, and rogue tips that seem to shroud the six-part quest for licensure in more mystery than provide any sort of clarity or guidance.

The Brundtland Report, 1987 - "Our Common Future" - introduced the notion that the sustainable use of natural resources must "meet the needs of the present generation without affecting the ability of future generations to meet theirs." Since then, the term sustainability has been popularized and, often, trivialized in our daily lives. In the construction industry, this is no different. As much as we know that to build, we need to destroy, how is it possible to mitigate the effects of construction during the useful life and demolition of buildings? A sustainable building, in its design, construction, and operation, must reduce or eliminate negative effects overall and may even generate net positive impacts on the climate and environment – preserving resources and improving the quality of life of the occupants simultaneously. To say that a building is sustainable is easy and even seductive. But what exactly makes sustainable construction?

Answering this question is not a simple exercise. That is why, in the last 30 years, several building sustainability certifications have been created. Through outsourced and impartial evaluations from different sources, they aim to verify the sustainable aspects of any construction. Each of them addresses particular building elements and is typically focused on certain regions of the world. While there are some certifications that verify whether the building meets certain efficiency criteria, others create different classifications, assigning a score based on these evaluations. Below, we list some of the primary sustainability certifications around the world – ranked alphabetically – and include their main architectural applications alongside a brief explanation:

When building for a more sustainable world, the materials you choose undoubtedly play the biggest part in minimizing your project's carbon footprint. Building a wall out of plastic bottles, for example, prevents them from adding to the hoard in a landfill. However, there is a material used for centuries throughout the world that tops all the rest when it comes to sustainability: adobe.

In residential architecture, there have always been central, indispensable spaces and peripheral spaces more easy to ignore. When designing a home, the task of the architect is essentially to configure, connect, and integrate different functions in the most efficient way possible, necessarily prioritizing some spaces over others. And although today many are designing in ways that are increasingly fluid and indeterminate, we could say that the bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen are the fundamental nucleus of every house, facilitating rest, food preparation, and personal hygiene. Then meeting spaces and other service areas appear, and with them lobbies, corridors, and stairs to connect them. Each space guides new functions, allowing its inhabitants to perform them in an easier and more comfortable way.

However, fewer square meters in the bathroom could mean more space for the living room. Or, eliminating some seemingly expendable spaces could give more room for more important needs. In an overpopulated world with increasingly dense cities, what functions have we been discarding to give more space to the essentials? Here, we analyze the case of the laundry room, which is often reduced and integrated into other areas of the house to give space for other functions.

“BEFORE/AFTER” documents the drastic changes, both physical and psychological, which took place during the renovation of Beijing’s Fangjia Hutong in the months between April and September 2017. In 2019, OPEN Architecture was invited to participate in “Unknown City: China Contemporary Architecture and Image Exhibition”, the opening exhibition of the Pingshan Art Museum, with their work “BEFORE/AFTER”.

In the dome of the Pantheon in Rome, several construction techniques were used to allow such a bold construction to stand. One concerns the composition of the concrete (in this case, non-reinforced concrete) with different densities throughout the structure. Closer to the top, lighter stones were used in the mixture, reducing the dome's weight retaining the solidity of the base. Another technique was the inclusion of “coffers”, which are nothing more than subtractions in the concrete, reducing the weight of the dome while maintaining a cross section sufficiently robust to support its own weight. Built almost 1,900 years ago, this building still surprises us with the genius of the solutions. Using a quantity of materials just high enough to fulfill its primary function, and creating intelligent structures as a result, is just one of the lessons that this building provides.

Skateboarding is its own urban experience. As interactive public spaces and tactile surfaces, skate parks have slowly begun to shape the way we think about urban design. Beyond the boundary of parks themselves, skaters look at the architecture of the built environment outside of its intended purpose, and in turn, are rethinking how we gather, move around, and reimagine the future of urban life.

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New Generations is a European platform that analyses the most innovative emerging practices at the European level, providing a new space for the exchange of knowledge and confrontation, theory, and production. Since 2013, New Generations has involved more than 300 practices in a diverse program of cultural activities, such as festivals, exhibitions, open calls, video-interviews, workshops, and experimental formats.

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In Yucatan, architects are reviving an ancient Mayan stucco technique for contemporary buildings, merging modern architecture with regional history and culture. The technique is called “chukum,” a term derived from the colloquial name for the Havardia albicans tree native to Mexico. Made with chukum tree bark, the material has several defining qualities that separate it from traditional stucco, including impermeable properties and a natural earthy color. Though chukum initially fell out of use following Spanish conquest of the Maya civilization, it was rediscovered and reemployed by Salvador Reyes Rios of the architecture firm Reyes Rios + Larrain Arquitectos in the late 1990’s, initiating a resurgence of use in the area.

Ever since Hashim Sarkis introduced How Will We Live Together? as the theme of Venice Biennale 2020 (now 2021), the central question has become more relevant than ever.