Carlson-Reges House (1992-1996). Image Courtesy of Michael Rotondi
Michael Rotondi’s buildings—museums, civic centers, education facilities, monasteries, restaurants, and residences—evoke kinetic mechanisms that fold, hinge, twist, and split open. They express the architect’s feelings, thinking, and mood at the time they had been designed, and, on some occasions, during their assembly and construction. Rotondi was born in 1949 in Los Angeles.
He established his RoTo Architects, a research-based firm in his native city, in 1991 after co-heading Morphosis for 16 years with Thom Mayne. Parallel to his practicing career, the architect has been teaching and lecturing at SCI-Arc, Southern California Institute of Architecture, which he co-founded in 1972, led its graduate program from 1978-1987, and was the school’s second director for a decade from 1987 to 1997.
Studio KO’s curation of the Uzbekistan Pavilion for the Venice Biennale is based on research, curiosity, workshopping, and experimenting with the senses. For over two years, the studio has worked alongside the Arts and Cultural Development Foundation, designing the Center for Contemporary Arts and their initiatives to restore and rehabilitate vernacular houses, transforming them into artist residencies. While exploring the 18th International Architecture Exhibition onsite in Venice, ArchDaily had the chance to speak with the founders of Studio KO, Karl Fournier, and Olivier Marty, curators of Uzbekistan National Pavilion. Their exhibition for this year’s theme, “The Laboratory of the Future,” focuses on the country’s rich heritage as a potential tool and inspiration for developing a more sustainable future.
Pihlmann Architects is a young Copenhagen-based architectural run by Søren Pihlmann. In this interview with Louisiana Channel, the rising architect elaborates on his unique practice, the values he holds, and what he finds fascinating about architecture. Most notably, Pihlmann explains that his view on the practice has transformed from being an architect into becoming a type of curator, selecting very few things with great sensitivity.
While exploring the 18th International Architecture Exhibition onsite in Venice, ArchDaily had the chance to speak with Jayden Ali and Joseph Henry, two of the co-curators of the British National Pavilion. The exhibition titled “Dancing Before the Moon” was created together with Meneesha Kellay and Sumitra Upham, and features creations from six designers and artists. As the curators explain, the aim of the installations is to expand the general understanding of what architecture is and to integrate it into a wider conversation with fashion, music, art, dance, and performance, rather than separating it as its own class of creativity. On June 20th, a few days after the conversation, the British National Pavilion was awarded a special mention at this year's award ceremony.
Proposal Comparison, Autodesk Forma. Image Courtesy of Autodesk
The architecture profession is increasingly facing the pressures of a rapidly changing era marked by urbanization, population growth, and climate change. To effectively navigate the complexities surrounding architectural and urban projects, there has been an acceleration in the adoption and integration of data-driven technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning. However, valid concerns have risen regarding the potential loss of the designer's creative control, with fears that their role may be reduced to a mere "parameter adjuster." Is this a genuine possibility or merely a reflection of resistance to change?
In a conversation with Carl Christensen, Autodesk's Vice President of Product, we delve into the impact of AI on the traditional role of the architect and explore the opportunities that arise with these technological advances. As paradigms shift, forward-thinking architects and designers could find themselves especially empowered to expand their influence and shape a new future for the discipline.
Roland Halbecame into photographyentirely by accident, discovering it at the age of 15 in a class on optics. His physics teacher presented camera obscura effects, which immediately triggered his fascination. He then started borrowing his father’s old camera quite regularly. While still in high school, Roland worked part-time at a camera shop, eagerly discovering everything there is to know about photography. Those were the circumstances that kindled Halbe’s lifelong romance, first with black and white, and, eventually, color photography with a focus on the built environment.
The First Islamic Arts Biennale, artistically directed by Sumayya Vally, opened on January 2023 and is still ongoing until May 23, 2023, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The inaugural event was commissioned and produced by the Diriyah Biennale Foundation and was curated by Vally alongside Dr. Julian Raby, Dr. Omniya Abdel Barr, and Dr. Saad Al-Rashid. The biennale re-imagines the Western Hajj Terminal at King Abdulaziz Airport, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and winner of the 1983 Aga Khan Award, as a cultural space to redefine Islamic Arts from "within, in a way, that connects some of these art forms and forms of artistic expression to the experience and rituals" of those that live it.
Sumayya Vally is a South African architect, founder, and director of the Johannesburg-based collaborative architectural studio Counterspace. Designer of the Serpentine Pavilion in 2020/2021, she was the youngest architect to get this commission. Part of Time’s 100 emerging leaders who are shaping the future, in 2021, the only architect to make the list at that time, Sumayya started her career as a curator and teacher, and recently she was appointed as artistic director of the first Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah. ArchDaily had the chance to talk with Vally about her contribution to this biennale, her vision of the exhibition, the venue, the scenography, and the participating architects. Sumayya also shared some exclusive info about her entry for the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, starting on May 20th, in Venice, Italy.
The Second Studio (formerly The Midnight Charette) is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features different creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions.
A variety of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes are interviews, while others are tips for fellow designers, reviews of buildings and other projects, or casual explorations of everyday life and design. The Second Studio is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.
This week Cavin Costello, Principal Architect of The Ranch Mine, joins David and Marina of FAME Architecture and Design to discuss his background; architecture school; starting an architecture practice with his wife, Claire Costello, and their working relationship; their approach to finding clients; and more!
Library of Muyinga. Image Courtesy of BC Architects
Nowadays, the understanding of our building culture and the application of local construction methods may seem like a distant and obsolete concept given the role of industrialization and globalization in the construction industry. We can now obtain almost any material from around the globe just by searching the internet for a distributor in our region. But this practice has important implications for our society, from the loss of architectural identity to environmental costs related to high CO₂ emissions associated with the processes of extraction, manufacturing, transportation, and disposal of these materials.
The increasing global need to reduce our carbon emissions and use materials in more efficient ways has led us to research and learn about the origin of our region's resources, eventually leading to better understanding their applications within a circular economy approach. But why not look right under our feet? Soil is one of the most common materials on the planet, and when it is locally sourced, it does not generate considerable amounts of embodied CO₂. It seems that after industrialization, we have forgotten that building with earth was for many years a viable construction method for our ancestors in different parts of the world. We spoke with Nicolas Coeckelberghs, one of the four founders of BC Materials, a worker cooperative based in Brussels that has been working with earth, rediscovering its use, and sharing its knowledge on a global scale while working with a local conscience.
https://www.archdaily.com/999074/building-with-waste-transforming-excavated-earth-into-architectureEnrique Tovar
Shawn Basler, a New York-based architect, founded his firm Basler Mosa Design Group in 2000; seven years later he merged with Perkins Eastman, one of the world’s biggest and most dynamically growing architectural practices. He is now co-CEO/Executive Director—with Nick Leahy and Andrew J. Adelhardt III—of this 1,100-strong global force headquartered in New York City and operating a total of 24 offices, seven of which are outside of the U.S., namely in Shanghai, Mumbai, Dubai, Singapore, Vancouver, Toronto, and Guayaquil in Ecuador. In addition to designing many international projects, Basler shares the responsibility for fostering the firm’s growth around the world.
The Second Studio (formerly The Midnight Charette) is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features different creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions.
A variety of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes are interviews, while others are tips for fellow designers, reviews of buildings and other projects, or casual explorations of everyday life and design. The Second Studio is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.
This week Architect Rick Joy, Founder and Principal of Studio Rick Joy joins David and Marina of FAME Architecture and Design to discuss his background; transitioning from his career as a percussionist to architecture; his philosophy and practice; the pros and cons of design-build; his process and thoughts on architectural style; and more.
Architect and planner Peter Calthorpe has a new book coming out, Ending Global Sprawl: Urban Standards for Sustainable Resilient Development. But when I called Calthorpe last week to interview him about it, he was more interested in talking about something else: last year’s passage in California of AB 2011, the so-called “Affordable Housing and High Road Jobs Act of 2022.” That’s legislation intended to significantly increase housing production by allowing construction on commercially zoned property. Calthorpe had an active hand in crafting many aspects of the bill, which is scheduled to go into effect on July 1.
David Hotson (b. 1959) founded his New York City-based practice David Hotson Architect in 1991. His projects – houses, loft residences, penthouse apartments, and galleries – are known for their remarkable spatial and visual complexity. His Church of Saint Sarkis in Carrollton, Texas is especially distinguished for the luminous and sculptural qualities of its interior space as well as the exterior grade high-resolution digital printing on its west façade. Earlier this year this appealing work won the US Building of the Year award by World-Architects.com. Hotson obtained his Bachelor of Environmental Design from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, and earned his Master of Architecture in 1987 at Yale.
In the following interview with David Hotson, we discussed the architect’s design process, focusing on making concave spatial voids legible and primary, being inspired by Byzantine architecture and his favorite building ever built, what structure he considers the most important work of contemporary architecture, what makes his award-winning Church of Saint Sarkis special, and the use of space and light as the essential tools in creating architecture as a figural void and ultimately an art form.
The Second Studio (formerly The Midnight Charette) is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features different creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions.
A variety of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes are interviews, while others are tips for fellow designers, reviews of buildings and other projects, or casual explorations of everyday life and design. The Second Studio is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.
This week David and Marina are joined by Architect Joshua Aidlin, Founding Partner of Aidlin Darling Design to discuss his background in the arts; his design approach and philosophy; camping on project sites; creating good office culture; his partnership with David Darling; and more.
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.The New York Times Building, 1984. Image via Wikimedia
The hosts and producers of the Uncertain Things podcast, Adaam James Levin-Areddy, and Vanessa M. Quirk, conduct interviews with experts with a variety of experiences to answer the question, “Now what? How did we get here and what is next?”. In this episode with Michael Kimmelman, they touch upon many interesting subjects, namely, The New York Times institution and its evolution, Kimmelman’s new book the Intimate City, and our overall understanding of communities in cities.
Captivated by cinematographic references and the narrative space, Ole Scheeren's work stands out by its disruptive solutions to the present social challenges and the cities we live in. With more than 30 years of career in the architecture field, Ole Scheeren has won several awards and one of its most iconic works includes the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing when was director and partner at OMA, before founding Büro Ole Scheeren.
In this interview, documented at the World Architecture Festival 2022, Scheeren discusses the importance of the narrative of a project and the quality architecture has by building the stages where people live: "the fictional anticipation of life".
Rahul Mehrotra is a practicing architect based in Boston and Mumbai and he has been teaching at Harvard’s GSD where he is currently Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design and Director of the Master in Architecture in Urban Design Degree Program. Born in 1959, Mehrotra grew up in Lucknow, a city in Northern India and an important cultural and artistic hub. His father was a manager at a large machine tool company. The family moved a lot following Mehrotra senior’s frequent promotions, which led to changing residences owned by his company. Besides a few years in Lucknow and Delhi, they lived in different neighborhoods within Mumbai.
Pretentious as it may sound, we can say with certainty that bamboo is one of the most promising materials for the future of the construction industry. Neil Thomas, principal engineer at atelier one, says that if we were to design an ideal building material, it would look a lot like bamboo. This is because it grows very fast, is present in many countries around the world, has a highly efficient cross-section, and has impressive load-bearing strength. But beyond its structural use in its raw form, bamboo is also a material that allows a high level of processing and can be laminated for flooring, fixtures and, as we will see in this article, for Structural Engineered Bamboo (SEB) structures, which are very similar to Engineered Wood. We spoke with Luke D. Schuette, founder and CEO of ReNüTeq Solutions, LLC, a company in St. Louis, Missouri, that has been working with this structural material technology.
