Vernacular architecture can be defined as a type of local or regional construction, using traditional materials and resources from the area where the building is located. Consequently, this architecture is closely related to its context and is aware of the specific geographic features and cultural aspects of its surroundings, being strongly influenced by them. For this reason, they are unique to different places in the world, becoming even a means of reaffirming an identity.
Fungi are everywhere. In the air, in the water, in our bodies, in the trees, in the ceilings of our bathrooms, underground. They can be mushrooms (edible, medicinal, hallucinogenic, or very poisonous), or take other simpler forms, such as molds. They can trigger illnesses, but they can also produce antibiotic remedies, such as penicillin, or help ferment amazing cheeses and breads. Could they also be the future of packaging and building materials?
GIDA 2020 - Goldreed Industrial Design Award - is the new international design award sponsored by the Xiongan Future Industrial Design Institute, with the aim of promoting at an international level the concept of “harmony” applied to design.
The 11th edition of MEDS workshop, held in the industrial region of Poland - Silesia, is now open for entries! Apply as a participant up to the 21st of March.
MEDS Workshop
“Meetings of Design Students” is an international workshop organized each summer in a different country. Every year it gathers around 200 participants associated with various fields of art, design, and architecture. In a span of two weeks, guided by experienced tutors, the participants create and construct group projects, getting in touch with different approaches to design and mastering their skills in a wide range of building techniques. Each project combines practical, educational and cultural aspects, creating a meaningful impact on the space and tackling both current issues, and long-standing local traditions.
Previous workshops have taken place in Turkey, Slovenia, Portugal, Ireland, Serbia, Romania, Belgium, Lebanon and Greece.
SB-LAB 2017 - International Conference on Advances in Sustainable Cities and Buildings Development adopted the UN 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development as the reference for its scope and goals. Proposed topics aim to cover all the Sustainable Development Goals in order to achieve the contribute that architects, engineers, contractors, politics and the construction industry in general may bring to these goals. Innovative solutions are a challenge to the near future that seems to be narrow as local actions have global impacts and global impacts affect locally environment, economic, social and culture. It's a difficult cycle to reverse, that seems to spin ever faster.
The International Khalifa Heritage School seeks interdisciplinary-minded students and young professionals to work collaboratively to develop innovative design solutions for a proposed Heritage and Environment Park. The park will occupy a critically important site at the southern gateway to Khalifa neighborhood and overlooking the 13th-century al-Ashraf Khalil and Fatima Khatun Domes, monuments of great heritage significance.
“Of all things that are man-made, bridges are, with dams, the most “structural,” single-minded, and imposing. As connectors at a breaking point, they have a heroic force that is aided by a challenging structuralism. As a strand of continuity in a non-continuum, the bridge is full of implied meanings. It is the opposite of devisiveness, separation, isolation, irretrievability, loss, segregation, abandonment. To bridge is as cogent in the psychic realm as it is in the physical world. The bridge is a symbol of confidence and trust. It is a communications medium as much as a connector.”
-Paolo Soleri, 1970, from “The Sketchbooks of Paolo Soleri”, published by MIT Press, 1971
