Located on Shanghai’s Suzhou Creek, Shanghai Suhe MixC World blurs boundaries between the city’s past, present, and future. The project’s starting point was rethinking commercial spaces to better integrate with their surroundings. The resulting ‘urban valley’ presents a brand-new public space in the city and sets a new benchmark for Shanghai. In 2016, Kokaistudios was invited to participate in a competition for an underground shopping mall in Suhe Creek Green land. Instead, the design opted to present a brand-new public space in the city: a riverside green land with cultural and leisure facilities, incorporating a subterranean commercial area. Property developer CRLand preferred Kokaistudios’ vision for an ‘urban valley,’ the floor of which is a subterranean commercial space that merges into its green land surroundings through a series of stepped slopes.
https://www.archdaily.com/992939/shanghai-suhe-mixc-world-kokaistudios
BEN MSIK Gardens / Tarik Zoubdi Architecte
41 people were killed in the 2003 Casablanca bombings. The terrorists all came from the Sidi Moumen district of the city. These impoverished neighborhoods are often fertile ground for this kind of tragedy (crime, unemployment, extremism...). Consequently, access to decent housing, quality education, and adequate public services are crucial solutions to restoring basic "social justice". In this regard and within the "Cities Without Slums" program, the social housing built in Ben M'sik saw the light of day to provide better living conditions for 240 families from the slums of "Douar Khlifa" located not far from the project site.
https://www.archdaily.com/992983/ben-msik-gardens-tarik-zoubdi-architecteQuzhou Xinhua No. 2 Primary School / LYCS Architecture
Quzhou Xinhua No. 2 Primary School, designed by LYCS Architecture, has officially opened recently. The project was constructed in accordance with the latest "Standardized Schools for Compulsory Education in Zhejiang Province" with the highest standard. The GFA of the school is approximately 37,182 sqm, allowing 48 classes open at the same time. Located in the rapidly developing Quzhou Smart New Town, the school is surrounded by residential areas on its south, north, and west sides, and connects to the Xincheng Cultural and Educational District in the east where Quzhou Jingcai High School and Quzhou No. 1 Middle School are located. Our Xinhua No.2 Primary School extends into the residential area like a "peninsula".
https://www.archdaily.com/992932/quzhou-xinhua-no-2-primary-school-lycs-architectureCool Shed / Vaissnavi Shukl
In the corner of a large farmland located in close proximity to the Thol bird sanctuary in Gujarat, Cool Shed was initially supposed to be a security cabin with a store room. The project name is therefore a wordplay on the familiar building typology of a tool shed, wherein a simple structure is built to store machines and equipment for farming and automobile repairing. Cool Shed was then rethought as service quarters before finally being designed and built as an outhouse for weekend getaways.
https://www.archdaily.com/992969/cool-shed-vaissnavi-shuklBaron39 House / Paco Oria Estudio
This commission comes from a very close friend’s couple. It starts even earlier when they decide to buy the house attached to theirs and we participate in a first visit, where the impression of its potential already emerges. It is located in Godella, a residential district of the Valencia metropolitan area, in a low-density neighborhood with a mandatory typology of semi-detached houses with backyards. The original house, from 1949, responds to the traditional type of a pitched roof with a wide entrance for carts and animals and other rooms on one side, giving way through the backyard to another construction for tools at the back. This composition and its urban conditions allow us to imagine an extension of the main house in height, keeping the courtyard and the construction at the back intact.
https://www.archdaily.com/992857/baron39-house-paco-oria-estudioHow ‘Black Panther’ Production Designer Hannah Beachler Created the Sequel’s Underwater World
The Academy Award winner drew inspiration from Mesoamerican architecture, East African fishing villages, and Zaha Hadid works to devise the kingdoms of Talokan and Wakanda for ‘Wakanda Forever.’
Throughout her childhood, Hannah Beachler had a recurring question for her architect father. "I’d say to him, ‘Dad, I want you to design the house that I live in when I’m older,’" she says. "He would always tell me, ‘I can’t design that until I understand where it is; until I understand the land it’s going to sit on.’ Being young, I was like, ‘You really won’t design me a house?’ but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to understand what he meant: You can’t see anything until you understand where it lives."
It’s a lesson that Beachler has clearly taken to heart in her work as a production designer, crafting the look of movies like Creed and Moonlight, as well as projects like Beyoncé’s Black Is King. Beachler is no doubt most famous for shaping the on-screen world of Wakanda for Marvel’s 2018 film Black Panther, a painstaking process for which she won an Academy Award (and made history in the process). Now, she’s returned to the fictional East African nation for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, devising not only new parts of the vibranium-rich utopia, but also the underwater kingdom of Talokan.
Production designer Hannah Beachler, who won an Academy Award for her work on the 2018 film Black Panther, devised Wakanda and the underwater kingdom of Talokan for the sequel.
Courtesy of © Disney
To create both Wakanda and Talokan, the admittedly "very detail-oriented" Beachler put together two location bibles, each hundreds of pages long. "When you’re developing a civilization," she explains, "You have to think, ‘Where do we start?’ because you can’t create a country in a vacuum." For a place like Wakanda, that meant drawing up not only a map of the country and its capital, but also descriptions of each of its districts, tribes, and vernaculars, a breakdown of regional architecture styles both in real-life Africa and fictional Wakanda, migratory maps and rationales, and a history of the discovery and development of vibranium (a rare metal with energy-manipulating properties that exists in the Marvel universe). "It’s really a breakdown of the country’s history, folklore, and legends," Beachler says, adding that it was also important to her and director Ryan Coogler to think about how Wakandans lived in harmony with nature.
That same kind of attention to detail went into conceiving Talokan, a fictional civilization in the Atlantic Ocean based on Tlālōcān, one of the underworld realms in the Aztec codices. To craft the world of the Talokanil people, Beachler had to learn not only just about everything about post-classical Mesoamerican history and architecture, but also study the effects of water pressure on buildings and materials, given that Talokan is supposed to sit about 12,000 feet below sea level. "That was a hard one, because living underwater is something that humans don’t know very much about at all," she says. "I had to think about the biological materials that would be found in the Puerto Rico Trench [where the Talokanil settled], but also how the people would have utilized them and how those materials would have worked in tandem with animal life. It couldn’t just all be stone, so, like, were they using algae or were they bringing materials from the surface?"
In developing Talokan’s visual look, Beachler says she also gave the undersea kingdom a sort of backstory. Because it’s mentioned in the film that the Talokanil spent about 200 years living in the Gulf of Mexico before settling in the trench, she says that meant she had to look at how their traditional Mayan architecture would have changed in that time, and how it might have evolved from the "more traditional look" to what we see in Wakanda Forever. There are still nods to Mayan temples and spaces for games like Pitz, but Beachler also had to consider how the Talokanil would have used vibranium to harness the power of the sun, creating a massive reflective orb that Wakanda’s Shuri (Letitia Wright) marvels at in the film. Beachler also paid tribute to ancient Mayan storytelling traditions with set pieces like the Megalodon throne of Talokan’s leader, Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejía), and massive red murals that tell his backstory. "Because he’s the Serpent God," Beachler says, she even thought to have "eels that go through the hieroglyphs on the wall," explaining that the sea snakes were using them as a kind of coral reef—albeit one covered in thick red algae.
"I do a lot of research," Beachler says. "But the fun part for me is turning all of those deep dives into a physical place." With eight months to prep the second Black Panther film, Beachler started thinking not just about how to expand the world of Wakanda, but specifically how she wanted to pay tribute to its strong matriarchal society. Part of that came in the development of the more low-slung, eco-incorporating River Village, where Aneka (Michaela Coel) lives in the film. Because the River people "don’t really use technology in the same way as they do in Golden City," Beachler says, this setting is "much slower, much more about agriculture, and much more about following traditional ways."
Beachler put together two location bibles for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, each hundreds of pages long.
Courtesy of © Disney
Beachler says her take on the River Village references real Congo River fishermen and tribes along Ethiopia’s Omo Valley, but also designs by late architect Zaha Hadid, who she cites as a major influence on all her work. "When you’re looking at the walkway in that little town and the way that it curves through and around buildings, it’s very much influenced by her," Beachler says. Citing Hadid’s uncanny ability to blend the natural and the "not so natural," the production designer points to other nods to Hadid’s work throughout Wakanda, from what she describes as the "naturalistic rondavel skyscrapers" with reed tops in Golden City, to the way that vibranium walkways slide through them "kind of like they’re growing through a tree." The buildings are "integrating themselves into the nature around them," Beachler says, adding that she always aimed to create intimate spaces in even the most vast interiors, not unlike Hadid’s work with Rome’s MAXXI or the Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul. "Those buildings are voluptuous and feminine, but there’s a strength to them. As ginormous as they are, they feel intimate."
"I was really invigorated by the idea of Wakanda as this marrying of two things to create something symbiotic," Beachler says. "Instead of humans infiltrating a place and decimating it because we need a bigger parking lot, it’s about how we can lend our sensibilities to the ridge of a mountaintop. It’s the idea of integrating the tradition of a particular tribe into a futuristic world. That, to me, is very much what Zaha Hadid brought to the places where her architecture lives: The idea that a building can be beautiful and it can be healthy. That’s what I wanted for Wakanda."
Top photo courtesy of © Disney.
Related Reading:
Queen of the Curve: 18 Influential Works by Zaha Hadid
The Addams Family Aesthetic Has Been Done and Redone. How Do You Do It Again?
Residential House Cologne Hahnwald / Corneille Uedingslohmann Architekten
The original planning brief foresaw an adaptation of the existing house, which was inhabited by the building owner at the time. The home owner’s driving aspiration for the project was the integration of a swimming pool with a visual relationship to the outside. After many design variations and the exhaustion of all building parameters it became clear this would not be feasible within the constraints of the old house. However the strong desire for a private swimming pool remained, leading the owner to the courageous decision to tear down the original house and build new in order to realize their ideas.
https://www.archdaily.com/803995/residential-house-cologne-hahnwald-corneille-uedingslohmann-architektenCastanheiras Arena in Santana de Parnaiba / Estúdio Trópico
In 2018 a Master Plan has been developed by the Andrade Morettin office, aimed at guiding the Escola Castanheiras growth for the next five years and those debates gave rise to a program involving the first school enlargement stage: a multi-sport court, a refectory aimed at supplying 700 daily meals and rooms for arts, music and theater classes.
https://www.archdaily.com/992948/castanheiras-arena-in-santana-de-parnaiba-estudio-tropicoThe Grand Arras Agronomic and Agri-food Research & Development Center / Atelier Téqui Architects
A center of excellence for a sustainable food economy. This ambitious scientific project will develop research binding the quality of soil and food by dealing with the problems of life cycle and phytosanitary products: soil – plants – vegetable transformation processes – environment. It will provide better visibility to agronomic research and encourage sustainable agriculture in the region while strengthening the attractiveness of these complementary entities by creating a collective hub.
https://www.archdaily.com/992953/the-grand-arras-agronomic-and-agri-food-research-and-development-center-atelier-tequi-architectsVilla Tervas / Sivén & Takala Architects
A retired couple from Kajaani wanted an accessible single-family home for their retirement days in the center of town. The small historical town of Kajaani is the most populous in the Kainuu region of Finland, over 550km north of Helsinki. Kajaani was founded in the 17th century when it was an important town for the pine tar industry, pine tar was used widely as a wood sealant for maritime and building construction. Still today the local economy revolves around trees; the sawmill, lumber, and paper industries.
https://www.archdaily.com/992925/villa-tervas-siven-and-takala-architectsAre We Buying What ‘Buying Beverly Hills’ Is Selling?
Well, not the wildly expensive homes. But the intergenerational realtor drama, maybe!
Welcome to Home Watching, a column about the wild and wooly world of renovation television from a self-proclaimed expert in the genre. Close readers of this column will wonder about the double byline this month. Well, it’s a meeting of the minds between Megan, expert in home design shows, and Kate, expert in the Bravo cinematic universe, which have magically crossed paths in Netflix’s new Buying Beverly Hills.
Megan Reynolds: I have a low tolerance for Netflix’s home renovation reality show offerings, only because they’re often heavy on the drama and light on the stuff that I actually care about, which is the renovation and (often hideous) staging of homes that I cannot afford. Selling Sunset, a perennial favorite, leaves me cold, so I assumed that Buying Beverly Hills would be more of the same. Boy howdy, was I wrong! I don’t recommend watching all eight episodes in one sitting, as I did, but again, maybe I do? Perhaps the best way to really get into this kind of programming is to park yourself in front of the TV and let the theatrics, manufactured or otherwise, wash over you.
Mauricio Umansky is the CEO and founder of The Agency, a real estate agency/cult(?)/cash cow that buys and sells homes in, yes, that’s right, Beverly Hills. His staff is small and also young; his daughter Alexia, and his stepdaughter Farrah, both work there. For some ungodly reason, it appears that the majority of the staff has slept with each other. The realtors tour big houses, bicker with each other over power grabs, and totter around Beverly Hills and its surrounding environs in expensive and impractical footwear. It sounds a lot like Selling Sunset, but for reasons I’m still trying to figure out, it is much, much better.
Kate Dries: I’m already here to correct you: the staff is actually quite large, as they are proud to point out, but in classic reality fashion, we’re seeing but a sliver of them—the Umansky team, aka Mauricio and his aforementioned children, and a few other teams within The Agency, which, as we’re told many times, now spans many cities around the world.
Unlike you, Megan, Buying Beverly Hills was tailor-made for me, a lover of such programs (I simply can’t agree that this is better than Selling Sunset, which was made by aliens and sent to Earth to test humans of their ability to tell the difference between VR and real life) and expert in the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, a show that regularly features Mauricio and his children because his wife Kyle is an OG of it—she’s been on RHOBH since Season 1. Given the amount she and Mauricio wear Agency hats on that program, I’m mostly surprised this one didn’t end up on Bravo proper, the behind the scenes drama of which I would watch a show of in and of itself.
Megan, let’s dive in: what appealed to you about BBH, as I’m now calling it? I’ve heard very little chatter about it from my Bravo friends, so I’m curious who it appeals to.
MR: I think the most appealing thing to me is not the houses (they’re second) or Mauricio (he’s rather attractive, I’m sorry), but that the show itself is a great case study for the perils of nepotism. To your point, the staff that BBH shows is but a sliver of the army Mauricio has assembled, but it really does seem like the ones who are benefitting the most from The Agency’s vast well of opportunities are Alexia, Farrah, and Joey Ben-Zvi, a close friend/perhaps paramour of Alexia’s from childhood, who seems to be given preferential treatment over some of the other staff that are not directly related to the Umanksys.
Farrah, Mauricio, and Alexia on Season 1 of ‘Buying Beverly Hills’
Image courtesy of Netflix
One of Alexia’s major issues throughout the entire show is that no one is taking her seriously as a realtor and, I’m sorry, I get it? Farrah and Mauricio’s relationship seems a little different and more businesslike, probably because they are not related by blood, but Mauricio clearly prefers Alexia above all. And that preference filters down to the listings she gets. When I saw that Alexia was the agent for Milldale, her childhood home, I wasn’t even surprised! Even though that house was going for at least $6 million, it becomes clear that a home of that worth is small potatoes for The Agency. In comparison, Brandon, an Agency staffer who is not related in any way to the Umanskys, tells Mauricio that he cleared $6 million in sales total for a year. The difference is staggering! I bet Brandon’s better at his job than Alexia is! And yet!!!!
Honestly, I could watch hours of this program, if only for the houses, which are nicer and more aspirational than the soulless architecture of Selling Sunset. We can talk about the properties, as I have many thoughts on Joey Ben-Zvi’s family home, all of which are largely positive. But I think discussing the Umansky family empire in the context of this show feels pressing.
KD: Avoiding the nepotism in the room would be impossible with this show, but I was fairly impressed by how hard everyone leaned into it. Re: Milldale, that situation was the only one where Alexia being given a listing of that size kind of made sense to me? Like, the fact that she lived in that house means she does know it intimately, and it’s such a cute peg to be able to say "the realtor selling it grew up here."
But as usual with these types of shows, it’s what’s not being said about the family and the money and the homes that I’m more interested in. The story of how Mauricio founded The Agency is glossed over—in fact, he started in real estate at his brother-in-law Rick Hilton’s (yes, father of Paris and Nicky) agency Hilton & Hyland, which resulted in major tension between himself and Kyle and Rick and Kathy, Kyle’s sister, for years after Mauricio left to start his own business, including rumors of accusations of stealing agents (which Mauricio has denied).
I also found some of the way they present Farrah to be strange; it almost felt as though the producers (or the other cast members) wanted to make it seem as if she was his biological daughter for the point of emphasizing the family aspect of things, and by proxy, the nepotism tension? They’re obviously extremely close, but at one point, one of the agents asks Mauricio if he’s excited to walk her down the aisle one day when she gets married—Farrah has a biological father of her own, and as far as we’ve been led to believe on RHOBH, he is very much alive and in the picture! (Which, to be clear, doesn’t preclude Mauricio from being involved in that event in that capacity, just seemed strange.)
MR: Thank you for this context on Farrah’s parentage, because I was actually pretty confused? Kyle Richards’s genes are strong and I really did think for at least one episode that Mauricio was Farrah’s biological father. And yes, unlike you, I am easily swayed by beautiful homes and hair made wavy with flat irons, so I never really consider the behind the scenes stuff, especially when confronted with homes such as the ones BBH is shilling.
Some homes of note: Glendower, better known as the Los Feliz Murder House, has good bones, even though it was also the site of a grisly murder. Windsor is an absolutely stunning 1914 mansion replete with bold but appropriate wallpaper choices and nine bathrooms (one for each bedroom, very thoughtful). Whoever staged this listing appreciates Glamour; it’s basically a well-executed version of Cara Delevingne’s mansion, and is tasteful, even though it’s loud.
But the place that I yearn for is Camden, the ancestral home of Joey Ben-Zvi. (Technically, it belongs to his great aunt, but that’s close enough). It’s located in the Beverly Hills flats (very desirable location, very rare), and could be the subject of an eight-episode limited series on HGTV. Though the house has fallen into disrepair, the brief glimpses we see are enticing—there’s kitschy orange wallpaper in the pool house, and in the right hands, a renovation of this property could be something out of a Douglas Sirk melodrama, except not in the Northeast. To me, it is perfect, and it upset me every time they merely showed glimpses of the interior and then talked about how they're going to sell it to someone who will completely tear it down.
Mauricio stands with two other brokers from The Agency in one of their many wildly expensive listings.
Image courtesy of Netflix
There’s absolutely no way that I’d ever be able to afford any of the homes shown on this series, but the difference is that they feel manageable. The houses of Selling Sunset are giant monuments to disposable wealth and greed and are therefore soulless, but dare I say that Beverly Hills feels approachable? (Yes, there are a few homes on BBH that are disgustingly big and flashy, but in comparison to the more modest properties, they seem even more garish than they are.)
KD: I totally agree that there’s a wider range of property types than we see on the many other shows in this market (pun intended) right now. It’s a welcome change! But the show also still falls victim to the "have I seen this before?" syndrome that is affecting these luxury real estate shows. There can, shockingly, only be so many $139 million properties within a certain mile radius, and I, like some other eagle-eyed viewers, felt like there was overlap in what I was seeing with some other series, even if some of that was just due to the extremely bland "modern" aesthetic new mansions hold onto. Some is also because of the sheer glut of content (this site included!) around real estate these days, which the show purposefully or otherwise notes when Joey pokes fun at realtor Ben Belack, who starts every video on his YouTube channel by introducing himself as "Beverly Hills super realtor."
The main way BBH seems committed to differentiating itself from Selling Sunset, or Million Dollar Listing: LA, is that it’s purposefully focused on younger, up-and-coming realtors, as well as more established ones, and talks about the career trajectories of each more. Whether real or played up (if I knew cameras were going to be filming me showing a house, I’d probably triple-prepare for fear of embarrassment on national television), you see young agents falter and mess up, which at least adds for more dimensionality than the usual basic competitiveness that is the drive of these shows. There’s also a level to which there’s some admission real estate might not be their number one passion (gasp!), like with Sonika, a former American Idol contestant who seems to have given up on a singing career but is lackluster when it comes to committing to her new one. Which I think works? Despite my obvious bias towards checking it out, I was convinced this show was going to be like watching paint dry, but by the end, I felt sort of impressed that they managed to put a slightly new spin on at this point old tropes.
MR: I was also surprised to find myself enjoying the show, specifically because of its focus on younger realtors, most of whom didn’t seem as thirsty for the limelight as their counterparts on other shows of this nature. There’s something nice about watching a bunch of 25 year olds fumbling around as they learn the ropes of their newly chosen career, figuring out whether they even want to be doing what they’re doing. That’s the most relatable part of this entire enterprise, and without it, BBH would be just as soulless as its predecessors.
Top image courtesy of Netflix.
More from the TV beat:
On MTV’s ‘Cribs’ Reboot, the Celebrity Homes Are Slightly Less Garish But Still Out of Reach
The Knowing Blandness of the ‘Dream Home Makeover’ Aesthetic
World Architecture Festival 2022: Watch the Live Stream
Follow along during the 15th edition of the World Architecture Festival through ArchDaily's Live Stream. As the world’s biggest architectural awards program, WAF brings together more than 2,000 architects and designers to Lisbon for three days of conference programs, awards, and exhibition events from November 30 to December 2. Tune in to our Facebook live streams for a selection of lectures.
https://www.archdaily.com/993011/world-architecture-festival-2022-watch-the-live-streamQuzika 1865 Winery / PL-T ARCHITECTURE STUDIO
Environment. Located in Quzika, Markam County, Tibet, the mission of the project is to generate income for local Tibetans by establishing a winery that can provide cultural tourism experience to alleviate poverty through the development of local industries. The winery is located at the foot of the Dameiyong Snow Mountain, close to the Lancang River, the thousand-year-old salt fields, and the only Catholic church in Tibet. The natural environment of the site is perfect: the mountain terraces extending into the Lancang River are dotted with century-old walnut trees and century-old grape vines. In the site, the mountain streams flow by the remains of an ancient water mill.
https://www.archdaily.com/992859/quzika-1865-winery-pl-t-architecture-studioPlans to Renovate the Sainsbury Wing and National Gallery in London Receive Approval by the City Council
The Westminister City Council adopted a resolution to grant planning permission to the National Gallery for a series of adaptations, including Selldorf Architects’ restoration proposal for the Sainsbury Wing, originally designed by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. The plans to remodel were revealed earlier this year as part of the NG200 Project to celebrate the National Gallery’s bicentennial in 2024. The first intervention proposal for the Sainsbury Wing was met with widespread criticism, which led to a revision of the plans, released in October this year.
https://www.archdaily.com/993002/plans-to-renovate-the-sainsbury-wing-and-national-gallery-in-london-are-approved-by-the-city-councilArchitecture and Landscape: 10 Projects Integrated in the Topography
As a starting point for architectural projects, the terrain and its topography point out the directions that the distribution of the program can follow. Among them, one solution stands out for the continuity between topography and architecture: lowering the level of construction and advancing the land over the roof. From this roof garden created with the same characteristics as the surroundings, the result gives the impression of an almost non-existent intervention.
https://www.archdaily.com/989525/architecture-and-landscape-10-projects-integrated-in-the-topographyOMA's Expansion and Renovation Project of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum Will Open in May 2023
The Buffalo AKG Art Museum (formerly known as the Albright-Knox Art Gallery) has announced that it will welcome its first visitors on the 25th of May, 2023. Revamped and expanded, the new campus designed by OMA/Shohei Shigematsu in collaboration with Cooper Robertson features “new work of signature architecture, the Jeffrey E. Gundlach building, and extensive renovation to existing buildings”.
https://www.archdaily.com/993001/omas-expansion-project-of-the-buffalo-akg-art-museum-will-open-in-may-2023Beyond Storage: Shelving Systems as Design Elements
Shelves have a clear function: to organize, store and display. This simple, yet vital role has made them a must in every household, keeping the place neat and tidy by holding books, clothes, toys or any other items that would otherwise be scattered on the floor. Although usually found in closets, bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchens, shelves are useful wherever the extra storage is necessary. They are especially ideal for making the most out of small rooms, which will always benefit from having cleaner, clutter-free floor space. Responding to this crucial storage need and following a strict 'form follows function' approach, traditional shelves are often comprised of minimal, flat horizontal planes attached to a wall –a simple layout that is not particularly meant to draw attention. Hence, people don’t tend to think about shelving ideas beyond storage, and in that sense, the countless design possibilities they offer are often overlooked.
https://www.archdaily.com/989363/beyond-storage-shelving-systems-as-design-elementsBuenos Aires, Urban “Informality” in Historical Terms
"History of the villas in the city of Buenos Aires. From the origins to the present day" is the book by Valeria Snitcofsky that reconstructs the historical background of the villas in the city of Buenos Aires based on research that began in 2003 and whose advances were expressed in a bachelor's and a doctoral thesis. It is framed within the objective of the Tejido Urbano Foundation, which is focused on promoting research and the generation of knowledge on the problems of habitat and housing.
https://www.archdaily.com/992680/buenos-aires-urban-informality-in-historical-termsMinas House / studio mk27
Minas House is Studio mk27’s first project in Minas Gerais, inland Brazil. Right outside Belo Horizonte, which means beautiful horizon, the house hovers above the Minas Gerais mountains. Set on an especially steep site, two concrete slabs draw strong horizontal lines. To lift it up to 10 meters above ground, a sequence of stilts emerges, disguised amidst the tree trunks of the garden that reconstitutes the original rainforest. Drawing a clear contrast with the neighboring pharaonic embankment walls, occupying such a dramatic site, suspending the house on stilts allows for rainwater to drain and for the house to breathe.
https://www.archdaily.com/992962/minas-house-studio-mk27Carrillo Puerto Theater / ASPJ
The Public Forum of the small coastal town of Felipe Carrillo Puerto represents a community that embraces the ancestral Mayan knowledge of building with natural materials in relation to their environment. The municipality has exuberant vegetation and its geographical condition, in the middle of a mangrove swamp and a low deciduous forest, makes it one of the last refuges in the world for various species of wood.
https://www.archdaily.com/992910/carrillo-puerto-theater-aspjLampadistis Wine Distillery / Eraclis Papachristou Architects
There is a long-established tradition of wine-making on the island of Cyprus. This goes back more than 5000 years, from when the first settlements appeared on the island. A great deal has changed in the meantime but, the wine remains a significant constant. One of the latest additions to the list is the set upon a promontory, above the remote mountain village of Kalopanayiotis. The Lampadistis winery is a deliberately heavy object that has come to perch on the exposed site. Designed by the office of Eraclis Papachristou Architects, it is a thing once simple, ceremonial, and weighty.
https://www.archdaily.com/992971/lampadistis-wine-distillery-eraclis-papachristou-architects