Articles by Andreea Cutieru

In all cities around the world, there are some forms of residual space, forgotten pieces of the urban fabric, remnants of overlapping layers of past development. This land whose conditions make it unsuitable for most types of conventional construction might be a fertile ground for architectural invention. Assigning a new value to vacant corner lots, dead-end alleys and strangely shaped plots opens up a new field of opportunities for inward urban development, expanding available living space and increasing amenities in densely populated cities. The following explores the potential for experiment and urban activation held by urban leftover space.

With society’s needs and aspirations shifting, spatial typologies and architectural programs are continually being questioned, and this re-evaluation creates the premises for innovation. The following is an exploration of how architecture is metabolizing society’s fundamental changes throughout several aspects of everyday life, challenging the existing assumptions regarding program and space.

Created by Japanese architectural historian Norihito Nakatani, the film “A City of Columns” explores the distinctive dwelling culture of nagaya, a housing typology that flourished in the Japanese early modern period. The video depicts one of the few remaining nagaya neighbourhoods in Osaka, revealing the standardization embedded in all aspects of this form of housing and documenting how architectural elements transition between different spatial configurations.

The inertia of politics and governance in a time when major societal changes occur at an increasingly faster pace and the dissatisfaction with the decision process makes room for bottom-up actions, activism and bold endeavours. In the light of so many examples of social activism, do architects have the tools to make their own stand? Does architecture have the power to disrupt the status quo?

Charles Correa Foundation has recently released several snippets of ‘You & Your Neighbourhood’, Charles Correa’s 1955 Master Thesis at MIT, an animation film for which the architect was scriptwriter, animator, photographer and director. The thesis put forward the idea of a participatory process for the betterment of neighbourhoods, with a strong emphasis on creating a framework for improving urban conditions in a bottom-up approach.

Denise Scott Brown once said: “Architecture can’t force people to connect; it can only plan the crossing points, remove barriers, and make the meeting places useful and attractive.” Although it cannot control the outcome, architecture holds the potential to set the stage for chance encounters and social interactions, thus nurturing community building and influencing the fabric of our social culture. The following explores how architecture can improve the social capital of its surroundings through design strategies and thoughtful programming, creating the fertile ground for social interaction among different groups of people.

Like most functions in recent months, this year’s Digital FUTURES, which is held annually since 2011 at Tongji University in Shanghai, had to move online due to the pandemic. The organizers took this as an opportunity to give the event a global dimension, turning the festival into what they rightfully call the most significant worldwide event for architectural education ever staged, with a 24/7 display of workshops, lectures and panel discussions involving some of the most prominent architects and educators. Here is an overview of the festival, together with a selection of lectures from Digital FUTURES World.

As lockdown provided architects with the opportunity to reflect on their design processes, it prompted Morris + Company founder, Joe Morris, to create On reflection, a series of short films discussing the fundamentals of the practice, centring the conversation around model making as a critical element of design thinking and a wide-ranging architectural tool.

Making material recycling commonplace within the architectural field would require a top-down approach in adapting the industry’s processes and standards to create a suitable framework for the task. However, individual endeavours are bringing about change within the profession, pushing for a reconsideration of architecture’s relationship to waste. This article looks at some of the initiatives that are spearheading the transition towards a common practice of material recycling.

The concept of Design for Disassembly (DfD for short) gained increasing traction in recent years, as it addresses the growing concern around the high consumption of resources and low recycling rate within the construction industry. The following article details on the method and features guidelines for a design process that facilitates the dismantlement of future buildings, with the scope of providing a better understanding of this principle within the broader framework of the current practice and circular economy.