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The incorporation of the human figure is one of the most effective tools used in architectural photography: it helps the viewer decipher the scale of work and assess its amplitude. While it successfully communicates a rough idea of the measurements of the elements in the picture, it also helps architecture become more relatable and accessible. People engage better with the built environment when it is populated, mainly because the human sense of society and community is the cornerstone of our civilization. With this in mind, we are showcasing a selection of our favorite photographs where the human figure takes center stage, enhancing our reading of architecture.

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One of the most important design considerations that residential architects have the responsibility to address is accessibility, ensuring that people with disabilities can comfortably live at home without impediments blocking basic home functionality. Accessibility for wheelchair users is a particularly important architectural concern due to unalterable spatial, material, and other requirements necessitated by wheelchair design and use. Because guaranteeing the comfort of all users, including disabled users, is one of the most essential obligations of all architects, designing for wheelchair users must be done with utmost the attention and care, especially in residential environments. Below, we delineate several strategies for designing floors for wheelchair circulation, helping architects achieve this goal of maximum comfort and accessibility.

Architecture is constantly changing and adapting to new needs, which are linked to social, economic, technological, political, and demographic changes. In this sense, the aging population is one of the most outstanding changes of the 21st century: The increase in life expectancy and the decrease in fertility rates mean that the older population is increasingly numerous. How can architecture help to provide a better quality of life, promote the autonomy, dignity, and well-being of the elderly?

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Neon lights are a bold, cosmopolitan statement that can easily revitalize or accentuate an architectural space or structure. With eye-catching brilliance, a plethora of color options, and ties to a retro aesthetic, these lighting pieces can make a space feel simultaneously modern and nostalgic. Yet few understand the scientific workings or material properties of neon, and many architects neglect its use due to its narrow association with commercial signage. Below, we explore how neon works, its architectural history, and how architects can continue to use it today.

As cities around the world go on lockdown in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, most individuals have been asked to stay at home, leaving only essential workers - EMTs and other healthcare professionals, grocery workers, bus drivers, deliverymen, and more - continuing to go out to keep the world running. Other families and individuals have found themselves spending most of their time at home, permitted to leave only to buy groceries or exercise for limited periods of time. With many no doubt searching for ways to pass the time in replacement of social interaction, we suggest several ways to brighten up your home while practicing social distancing, both improving the space you’re in and giving possible activities to pass the time.

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Hospitals and projects related to healthcare must follow specific guidelines based on the rules and regulations of their country. These standards help us to design complex spaces, such as those located in areas of surgery, hospitalization, diagnostics, laboratories, and including areas and circulations that are clean, dirty, restricted or public, which create a properly functioning building.

There are a few spaces that we, as architects, can develop with great ease and freedom of design: waiting rooms, reception areas, and outdoor spaces. These are spaces where architects can express the character of the hospital. To jump-start you into this process, we have selected 43 projects that show us how creativity and quality of a space go hand-in-hand with functionality. 

If you don't like a specific musical style, the theater bores you, or you're not attracted to works of art, you can almost always avoid them. Architecture, however, is different. A poorly thought-out project will affect the lives of many people consistently and for a long time. With interiors, this effect is even more amplified. Humanity is spending more and more time indoors, which directly impacts our well-being and health. In periods of compulsory retirement, as in the current pandemic of Covid-19, we gain a sense of how important interior spaces are for our well-being and even for the prevention of diseases. Designing an indoor environment is a huge responsibility for a professional. An interior designer must plan, research, coordinate, and manage these projects to obtain an adequately healthy and aesthetically pleasing environment for the people who use the space. But what, in fact, is interior design?

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Indoor gardens can contribute important benefits to home living, ranging from aesthetic beauty to improved health and productivity. Research has shown that indoor plants help eliminate indoor air pollutants called Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) that emanate from adhesives, furnishings, clothing, and solvents, and are known to cause illnesses. They also increase subjective perceptions of concentration and satisfaction, as well as objective measures of productivity. Indoor gardens may even reduce energy use and costs because of the reduced need for air circulation. These benefits complement the obvious aesthetic advantages of a well-designed garden, making the indoor garden an attractive residential feature on several fronts.

Throughout history, simple structures have constituted one of the most common forms of human expression. Small-scale housing, shelters, and viewpoints have been shaped by myriad materials that effectively created - depending on the techniques used - different forms of response to the same need.

Here is a compilation of 20 small-scale projects that stand out due to their small size and their simple, practical structures.

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Interior gardens and plants produce many day-to-day benefits, like mood boosting and memory enhancing effects. Interior landscape design, also known as "plantscaping", is much more than the act of bringing plants indoors; it's actually about the strategic placement and selection of plant species within an architectural project to highlight and enhance aspects of spatial design.

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People often gather around sports activities, whether they are the ones exercising or the ones cheering. This internationally recognized social interest brings everyone together seamlessly, regardless of their background, gender, culture, ethnicity and so on.

Urban regeneration can take different aspects, and one of the most prominent and efficient solutions that can reconcile a community with itself and its surroundings is a sports function. In fact, this purpose encourages people to reclaim their fundamental right to public spaces and regenerate demoted, hostile or forgotten areas.

Read on to discover examples from all over the world, where physical activities made an urban impact on the neighborhood and the community.

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It's very likely that you are reading this text in an interior space with the lights on. For most people, modern living entails spending most of the day in closed rooms, bathed in a sum of artificial and natural lights. Yet while artificial light has afforded mankind incalculable possibilities, it has also caused some confusion in our bodies, which have evolved for thousands of years to respond to the stimuli of sunlight in the day and darkness at night. This responsiveness to natural light is called the circadian rhythm or cycle, and describes the 24-hour biological cycle of almost all living beings. Circadian rhythms are primarily influenced by light reception, but temperature and other stimuli also play a role in the process.

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