Through its deep research into the cultures and landscapes of the Gulf, the Kuwait and Bahrain-based practice draws out the regions global networksCivil Architecture was shortlisted in the AR Emerging awards 2024. Read about the full shortlist hereCivil Architecture is a research anddesign practice that makes buildings, and books about them, inthe words of cofounders Hamed Bukhamseen and Ali Ismail Karimi. Formed in 2017 and based in Kuwait and Bahrain, the duo began collaborating two years earlier while students at Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), going on to design the Kuwait Pavilion for the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale. Careful research threads through their exhibitions, publications and design work, which engage with, in their words, the relative position ofthe Gulf within global contexts.Civil Architectures yearly research trajectories are themed; in 2019, for instance, much of their work dealt with water, and in 2020, they investigated farmland and its architectural implications. In 2023, their theme was seasonality, reflected in their contribution to the Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Their installation for the biennial, Sun Path, Rajab to Shawwal 1444, sat under thelofty canopy of Skidmore, Owings & Merrills 1981Hajj Terminal in the King Abdulaziz International Airport. A cleverinversion ofa traditional sundial, itappropriated gaps in the vaulted roof totrack time, letting sunbeams move like spotlights across islands of timekeeping lines painted on thefloor, as well as obelisks, slabs and monolithic sculptural objects.Sun Path, Rajab to Shawwal 1444 references mosque courtyards that traditionally feature sundials, helping worshippers align their inner sense of time with that of the heavens. The Islamic world operates on a lunar calendar, Karimi and Bukhamseen explain, which is different fromthe Gregorian solar calendar and the preIslamic lunisolar calendar. Their earlier research into agricultural and coastal landscapes initiated this fascination with calendrical time. In this work, they found many different calendars with overlapping logics present in the region, reflected in the installations fragmentary calendars of lunar, solar and tidal timekeeping methods, marking cyclical occurrences as well as specific, oneoff events in the biennials programme.Their study of Q8 petrol stations demonstrates how the flow of oiland capital links the Gulf to European territories and economiesTo walk through the lofty space is to traverse varied embodiments of time. Shadows cast by human figures become sundials of their own. In creating a landscape of lines and markers, Bukhamseen and Karimi challenge visitors to consider the cultural production of time. As a ritualistic space, itrecalls the terminals use as a place ofpilgrimage, the starting point for many ontheir journeys to Mecca.For a researchdriven practice, exhibitions and publications are useful platforms to take positions on widereaching issues, spark interdisciplinary discussion and, in the architects words, prompt an open set ofquestions brought into a discourse with alarger cultural realm. Civil Architectures research situates specific ideas within larger political discussions: for instance, their 2019 exhibition Foreign Architecture / Domestic Policy investigated the presence of Kuwaiti oil infrastructure in Europe through their study of Q8 petrol stations, demonstrating through spatial analysis how the flow ofoil and capital links the Gulf toEuropean territories and economies. Karimis doctorate research elaborates onthis, examining from a Gulf perspective the role of sovereign wealth funds and their impact in shaping Londons architecture.Bukhamseen and Karimis indepth research shapes the ways in which they think about architecture. It is the biggest way we intervene in the built environment, they say. These diverse outlets exhibitions, publications, installations and buildings bleed into one another, each approached with the same process and pedagogy. Forinstance, their research on tidal patterns and calendars developed in the Islamic Arts Biennale is now contributing totheir ongoing project for a mangrove visitor centre in Bahrain. This, along with other design projects in the works, is setting a trajectory for more substantial built endeavours, rooted in the Gulf but implicating the world.

The Architectural Review is seeking the most creative adaptive reuse projects from around the worldAs the need for sustainable alternatives to building anew becomes increasingly urgent, the AR New into Old awards celebrate the creative ways buildings are adapted and remodelled to welcome new contemporary uses. Launched in 2017, the awards recognise the imaginative appropriation of existing structures that offer buildings a new lease of life, from innovative insertions to ambitious adaptations.Enter nowEntry deadline: 7 March 2025For more information and to enter the awards click hereThe Farsh film studio by ZAV Architects won the 2021 edition of the awards.Credit:Behnam SedighiWinning the 2021 awards for the Farsh Film Studio in Tehran, Mohamadreza Ghodousi of ZAV Architects instructed architects to design the process, not the building. Ghodousi went on to judge the 2023 awards, commending winning project, Site Verrier by SO-IL and Freaks Architecture, as a joyful urban superimposition that invades the courtyard and revitalises the life of the buildings. Also on the judging panel, Lu Wenyu of Amateur Architecture Studio described the winner as having a visionary design approach that breathes new life into historical sites while preserving their authenticity.Highly commended in 2023 was Laguna Mxico in Mexico City, Mexico by ProductoraCredit:Camila CossioRegardless of programme, budget, site or scale, The Architectural Review is looking for projects completed in the last 5 years which have had their life extended by the insertion of new uses rather than demolition and replacement. All entries will be reviewed by an expert international judging panel, which will choose a shortlist of up to six commended buildings. The judges six chosen schemes will all be visited by an independent critic before the judges choose a winner.The AR New into Old awards are diverse and wide-ranging.Previous winners and finalists include SO-IL, ZAV Architects, David Kohn Architects, Ryan W Kennihan Architects, Davidson Rafailidis, Freaks Architecture, Flores & Prats, Rural Urban Framework, Witherford Watson Mann, Aulets Arquitectes, O-office, Wingrdhs, Zaha Hadid Architects, and Productora.To find out more about the AR New into Old awards and enter today, clickhere, or view examples of adaptive re-use projects previously published in the ARLead image: Site Verrier by SO-IL and Freaks Architecture in Meisenthal, France, won the 2023 New into Old awards. Photograph by Arthur Crestani2024-11-21AR EditorsShare

The Barcelona-based studios handling of topography and material detailing defines the architectural landscape ofthe Alfacs campsiteBajet Giram was shortlisted in the AR Emerging awards 2024. Read about the full shortlist herePau Bajet and Maria Giram believe architecture should perform as a catalyst for joyful and unexpected possibilities. Their work at Alfacs exemplifies this approach and their centring of wellbeing in methods and projects. Situated near the Spanish city of Alcanar, Tarragona, theholiday destination seeks tocharm visitors; communal facilities spill outdoors and overlook the sea, while a staggered plan allows views to the shores from throughout the site. First opened in the 1950s, the campsite grounds were gradually transformed to include 24 timber cabins, each with their own porch; shared showers and toilets; a building used as both reception and grocery shop; a restaurant; communal gardens; and a pool. Bajet Giram has collaborated with Manuel Juli of JAAS since 2016 on the sites openended process of renovation, working within tight spans of six months to allow the business to remain operational between construction phases.On their first visit, the team was struck by the cluttering of caravans along the shore; those not directly on the waterside had limited access to the beachfront. The design strategy was to push all bungalows towards the back and free up the seafront. Thinking about the layout and pacing across the site, the architects devised sinuous routes, incorporating stepped terraces that run parallel to the beach and creating pockets ofspace interspersed with planted areas.This artificial topography embraces the Mediterranean environment, and existing pine trees are preserved. Their shadows temper the hot air, while additional shade is provided by lighter architectural elements: steel rods form pergolas over which wicker mats can be unrolled, for example, creating acovered terrace for the restaurant. While Bajet and Giram understand joy as being beyond functionality, their work also finds joy in meeting the needs of a client.The architects use a lot of timber and earth at Alfacs, but revert to a more mineral palette when necessary. Concrete is used for elements in touch with the ground, such as the steps, square columns and cylindrical bases for porches. Compressed earth blocks are combined with structural concrete elements for the larger buildings; their more imposing presence, with tiled pitched roofs andsprouting towers, offers a permanence that contrasts with the temporality of the camping experience. The earth blocks high thermal mass also helps keep interiors cool.The architects describe the gradual process ofgrowing the Alfacs campsite as a stratification of components; the goal is to make it feel as rich as a city. In their opting for gradual ecologies of spaces rather than blanket design strategies, they have done just that, reintroducing vibrancy and warmth to the quotidian junctures of camping life.

The Marseillebased practice has crafted a portfolio of civic work and social housing across France that aspires to appeal to allAtelier EGRwas shortlisted in the AR Emerging awards 2024. Read about the full shortlist hereIn 2021, a monolithic structure was unveiled in Biot, a fortified medieval village near Antibes in the south of France. Nestled in a steep inclined site, it is a grand concrete extension connecting the village hall to the historical chapel of Saint-Roch, as well as Biots main car park. The extension accommodates anarchive and spaces for public gathering. Frdric Einaudi, who cofounded Marseillebased architecture firm Atelier EGR with Maxime Gil and Anthony Rodrigues in 2013, says that the village hall extension is not a building, but a roof that creates a new form of monumental space.On the upper level, a piazza has been created at the back of the chapel, drawing people into a covered tripleheight loggia. Slender concrete 5.5mhigh columns hold up a flat roof that provides shade for informal public gatherings in the hot summer months. The piazza itself is paved with concrete and a constellationlike pattern ofinset glass blocks. Biot is known for its ceramics and glassblowing traditions, sothemunicipality commissioned artist LucaMengoni to work with local artisans and create what Einaudi describes as asculpture within the square.From the piazza, a ramp and a curved setof stairs provide access to the spaces below (there is a lift too), which include a multipurpose meeting space on the lower ground floor, and an archive at basement level. The multipurpose space is striking at the back of the room, a large glazed lightwell reveals the weathered rockface that sits at the foot of the chapel above. Einaudi calls this space the crypt of the chapel. In addition to the archive and a room for municipal functions, the building also provides access to the car park.Despite its monumental architectural language, the structure mostly blends into the wider urban fabric of Biot. Perhaps thisis the result of meticulous sensitivity toscale, or the conscious decision to use onesingular material concrete. Einaudi describes how the surrounding buildings were constructed with limestone and the architects wanted to use a modern material that provides a similar palette.This considered approach is also evident in Atelier EGRs social housing work across France. In the village of Jouques, outside AixenProvence, they designed 12 homes for lowincome families in 2019. The project is in a rural area with a lavender field on one side and a forest on the other. The ambition was to start developing the site as part of a wider masterplan; the structure needed to be simple and low cost. Built around an enclosed communal garden, the scheme is simple and repetitive; the architects wanted to create a sense of rhythm inspired by the narrow rustic housesin the area.Atelier EGR is gearing up to unveil two more social housing schemes in the south of France. They are also working on a home for older people, with adjoining gardens and patios like the Jouques project, it focuses on bringing the landscape inside the scheme. Atelier EGR hopes to create work that is rooted in context, simple, affordable and, importantly, for everyone.

The 15 projects shortlisted by our judging panel include homes from all over the world, from Brazil to France to VietnamThe private house occupies a unique position in both the history of architecture and human imagination. Beyond its core function of shelter, it is an object of fantasy, a source of delight, a talisman and a testing ground.This years judging panel includes: Stella Daouti, co-founder of Architecture Research Athens (AREA), who were commended in the AR House awards 2021for a weekend house on Salamis Island Boonserm Premthada, founder of Bangkok Project Studio, whose own home and office was shortlisted for the AR House awards 2023 Mike Tonkin, co-founder of Tonkin Liu and based in LondonThe judges were interested in houses that broke the mould, with emphasis placed on rigorous plans that could offer surprise. Architectural quality was appreciated for distinguishing itself from ordinary surroundings, with extensions and renovations rewarded for retaining the legibility of existing structures. Most importantly, the judges asked Would I like to wake up in this house?The winner and commended projects will be announced online later this month and published in the December 2024/January 2025 issue of The Architectural Review.AR House 2024 shortlistRF Residence byAndrade Morettin Arquitetos Associados in Jaguarina, BrazilCredit:Andrade MorettinMapleton House byAtelier Chen Hung in Mapleton, AustraliaCredit:David ChatfieldToue Cabane byAtelier du Ralliement in Le Cellier, FranceCredit:Francois Massin CastanShiplap House byChenchow Little in Sydney, AustraliaCredit:Peter BennettsHouse VMVK II bydmvA in Mechelen, BelgiumCredit:Sergio PirroneReciprocal House byGianni Botsford Architects in London, United KingdomCredit:Schnepp RenouThe Old Byre byGianni Botsford Architects in Cowes, United KingdomCredit:Schnepp RenouOcarina House byLCLA Office in El Carmen de Viboral, ColombiaCredit:Luis CallejasPost-hurricane housing by Manuel Cervantes Estudio in Acapulco, MexicoCredit:Cesar BejarCLT House bynARCHITECTS in Clinton, United StatesCredit:Michael MoranHouse renovation and extension byRAUM in Quiberon, FranceCredit:Charles BouchaibCasa Cosmos byS-AR in Puerto Escondido, MexicoCredit:Camila CossioRosedale House byScale Architecture in Rosedale, AustraliaCredit:Tim ClarkLoli House byT+M Design Office in Hanoi, VietnamCredit:Hoang LeNiwa House byTakero Shimazaki Architects in London United KingdomCredit:Felix KochIt is very rare for two projects by the same practice to feature on the shortlist. It happened once before, in 2014, with two houses by Marie-Jos Van Hee Architecten. This year, the shortlist includes two projects by Gianni Botsford Architects. All entries are submitted and discussed anonymously, and the judging panel only finds out who the project authors are after the shortlist has been agreed. This year is also the first time in the history of the awards, which launched in 2010, that the shortlist does not include a Japanese house.

With an international portfolio of cultural projects, Asif Khan Studio negotiates multiple identities from its London baseAsif Khan Studio was shortlisted in the AR Emerging awards 2024. Read about the full shortlist hereIn 20212022, Dubai hosted the World Expo, the first time the universal exhibition had been held in the WestAsia. Surrounding the site and welcoming the events 24 million visitors into the fair were three colossal portals designed by Asif Khan Studio. The striking ultra-lightweight mesh gates, with doors each 21 metres high, were inspired by mashrabiya the latticed oriel windows used in vernacular Islamic buildings, which studio founder Asif Khan describes as extraordinary devices which provide shade, air flow and privacy. Further references abound: the latticed pattern of the portals bring to mind arish(palm leaf) construction techniques employed throughout the region, while the inspiration for the general approach to the site came from the oldround plan of Baghdad, Iraq.In the west, Islamic architecture is commonly viewed as wholly decorative; Khan argues that it is also highly engineered, sophisticated and performative. The Dubai Expo entry portals are all these things; robotically wound from carbon fibre (and therefore zero-waste), and constructed in collaboration with an aircraft engineer, they connect with the past while, says Khan, charting a direction for the future, much like Joseph Paxtons Crystal Palace or Buckminster Fullers geodesic dome ofprevious World Expos. The Arab world hasa lot to offer, says Khan. It was at the forefront of renewability long ago; all we have done is reinterpret it and show how itmight be applied at scale in the future, withmodern materials.Khan trained at the Bartlett School ofArchitecture in London and set up his practice in 2007 following postgraduate studies at the Architectural Association. Hehas taught in Japan and worked in China, Kazakhstan and West Asia, and describes home as everywhere but nowhere. Khans own identity is layered and complex: his father was from Pakistan (he was forced to leave India during Partition) and his mother East African Indian; they relocated to the UK andtrained as social workers. The studio is working on transforming a Soviet-era cinema into acultural centre in Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan. Ironically, the Kazakh name of the centre, Tselinny, translates to virgin lands. Here, Asif Khan Studios proposal creates space for new art forms that seek tochallenge Kazakhstans post-Soviet legacy. The existing cinema hall, with a height of 18m, will be restored as a multi-use arts space, while a small cinema, caf and rooftop restaurant will be added. The most striking element is the preservation of amural by theSoviet illustrator Evgeny Matveevich Sidorkin, which depicts traditional nomadic life in Kazakhstan inastereotypical style. The mural an instrument of colonialism isilluminated bya large glass facade. Rather than erasing the remnants of the Soviet empire, the proposal strives to provide a reminder ofamoment in time, explains Khan. He hopes that this project, and his studios work in general, can negotiate multilayered identities and provide a space for people to anchor themselves in.

Amid rampant overdevelopment, the Guangdong-based architect seeks to revive an appreciation for Lingnan building traditionsChen Donghua Architects is highly commended inthe AR Emerging awards 2024. Read about the full shortlist hereHistory is the basis for architects, says Chen Donghua, founder ofChen Donghua Architects (CDA), based in Guangdong inChina and active in the Pearl River Delta. For him, this means a rootedness in the architectural tradition of the surrounding Lingnan region its ancestral halls and oyster shell homes impressed on Chen, from an early age, the importance of form, light, openness and adaptability to the local subtropical climate.Chen trained at the South China University of Technology and pursued his postgraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where he became captivated by the typology of the shed. Sheds are usedthroughout Guangdong and typically built from bamboo and tarpaulin to create informal semi-outdoor spaces. Upon returning to China and setting up CDA in 2017, Chen found the architectural landscape plagued by big ambitions and scale and lacking in concern for culture andcelebrating the everyday. This resonated with ideas encountered in Great Leap Forward, research compiled by Rem Koolhaas and students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) in 2001, which argued that western-style development was destroying Chinese social structures.The sheds are materially simple yet structurally complex; they are both interior and outdoor spaceCompleted earlier this year, a primary school extension by CDA in Shenzhen responds to this condition. The school sits amid towering skyscrapers built by foreign architects including Koolhaas. Chen usedsteel, aluminium and fabric to create lightweight sheds and canopies that fill in the gaps across the site. These structures are tent-like and delicate in appearance compared with existing utilitarian school buildings, which were also lightly refurbished.The jewel in the crown is the large rooftop shed, a steel space-frame system that is perched on top of an existing building, andwhich provides a multipurpose hall forthe school. Here, a series of trusses and columns form inverted triangles inspired bythe structural language of Mies van der Rohe. The shed is materially simple yet structurally complex; it is both interior and outdoor space. Harking back to Lingnan building traditions, Chen believes that such gathering spaces should be connected with the external and feature no solid walls, glazing or insulation. The space is enjoyed by pupils all year around.Chen recently met with Koolhaas in Guangzhou, almost a quarter-century onfrom the publication of Great Leap Forward. We spoke about how overdeveloped the Pearl River Delta has become, Chen remarks. It has lost its roots. Chen hopes toexpand his practice, without losing sight of his reinvention of the local vernacular. Hisnext project will be a series of portable sheds for stray cats in Guangzhou.

The Bangalore-based practice imagines a public life for a private guest house, finding community benefit in a commercial briefA Threshold is the winner ofthe AR Emerging awards 2024. Read about the full shortlist hereThe first thing Avinash Ankalge and Harshith Nayak designed together as A Threshold was exactly that: athreshold. In a renovation of anapartment building, the pair proposed abreathable facade, extending outwards from the existing building. The facades gridof concrete planters encloses deep newbalconies, with light and air filtered bytropical plants; from the street, the vegetation contributes tropical green toBangalores urban landscape.The brisesoleil has become a signature element of A Thresholds work resolved variously in brick, terracotta tile, stone and ferrocement and Ankalge and Nayak see them as an opportunity to draw civic value from the typically inwardfacing typology of private housing. We try to give apublicness to every project, Ankalge explains.Nowhere is this more evident than in aproject dubbed Subterranean Ruins. Theproject began during 2020 Covid19 lockdowns when a Bangalore furniture businessman commissioned A Threshold todesign a weekend guest house at his orchards southeast of the city. We had adifferent idea altogether, Ankalge says. What happens for the other three to four days when hes in the city? we asked. Could it be more than a house a kindergarten for the village school, or a space for workshops and exhibitions?Few clients can be convinced of such anidea, but it is a credit to A Thresholds persuasive capacity that the final building partially realises this ambition. The resulting project is a series of spatially independent and so programmatically malleable spaces. Running perpendicular to a natural contour on the site, loadbearing brick walls define four independent rooms. The rooms are connected only by an arched enfilade of gardens on the lower side and a pathway carved into the slope on the other. One of the rooms a halllike space with many doorways out to a courtyard is usually a living room, while the other threerooms, which are more enclosed and feature en-suite bathrooms, typically act as bedrooms, though the architects imagine them becoming classrooms in a nursery, breakout rooms for an office retreat or exhibition spaces in a gallery. How the building is actually used is mostly beyond A Thresholds control, though they say weddings, exhibitions and yoga classes have been held here since it opened last year. The versatile plan as well as the robust material palette make it possible to imagine the building alternating between public and private use over decades, if not centuries. Itis a test case for Ankalges assertion thata house can be a city and a city can beahouse, referring to Aldo Van Eycks pictogram of a tree that rotates to become aleaf. If you give a solution at the scale of ahouse, you should also be able to design forthe city and for its everyday issues. Withpublic projects on the horizon including a school and proposals for the reworking of a highway interchange that borders a temple plaza, market andtransit hub thistheory will soon be putinto practice.

A Threshold has been announced as the winner of the AR Emerging awards 2024, along with Chen Donghua Architects who have been highly commended, and Material Cultures who have won the Peter Davey PrizeIndia-based practice A Threshold has been named the winner of the 2024 AR Emerging awards, receiving a 5,000 prize. Selected from a shortlist of 15 standout practices, the practice was chosen by an esteemed panel of judges, including previous AR Emerging finalist Geir Brendeland, Bahrain-based architect and curator Noura Al Sayeh-Holtrop, and architect and educator Adrian Lahoud.Subterranean Ruins by A ThresholdCredit:Edmund SumnerThe jury praised A Thresholds ability to educate their clients, circumventing private briefs to produce public projects. This practice has a point of view that is rooted in its local context and the traditions of India.Subterranean Ruins by A Threshold. Credit: Edmund SumnerChen Donghua Architects were highly commended by the judges, who highlighted the practices attention to shade a powerful idea in the context of global heating. The judges praised the way the practice works with economical means and lightweight structures to achieve maximum effect, bringing a sense of poetry into everyday life.Nanhai primary school extension by Chen Donghua Architects. Credit: Wu SimingCredit:Wu SimingMaterial Cultures have been awarded this years Peter Davey Prize a prize presented to the editors choice. Material Cultures commitment to decarbonising building practices has never been more important or urgent, explains Manon Mollard, editor of The Architectural Review. The studio attends to the wider ecology of architecture: the landscapes from which building products are created, the pedagogy of construction techniques as well as material research.Wolves Lane Centre by Material Cultures. Credit: Henry WoideCredit:Henry WoideThe winners of the awards, announced today (Thursday 14 November) at Arups offices in London, received a trophy made of 100 per cent recycled materials, designed by The New Raw a Rotterdam-based design studio who transform plastic waste into sustainable products using both robotics and craftsmanship.Credit: The New RawProfiles of all this years shortlisted practices have been published in AR November 2024: click hereto buy a copyThe AR Emerging awards 2024 are sponsored by2024-11-14AR EditorsShare AR November 2024Buy Now

Architects working with clay must stand their ground, Anna Heringer and Nripal Adhikary of Abari argueAnna Heringer The two projects of mine that were recognised in the AR Emerging awards are in rural Bangladesh, where the story of my practice began. For a long time, I was not interested in building in Europe, and neither did I receive commissions nor find clients here. During lectures, as long as I talk about far away regions, it makes sense for the audience. The moment I talk about Europe, I see dubious expressions on a lot of faces. I want to prove that we can build with earth here too. The challenge for me is to learn from my work and processes in the global south and see how I can adapt them to European projects. Not only could this enrich building cultures here, but it is also a reckoning with the responsibility of the global north in the climate catastrophe.Nripal Adhikary We have to accept that earth is not as strong as concrete, and that it is not necessarily a problem. I get very nervous about the word sustainability, because it has been coopted by the worlds of money and technology, as if the solutions were machines and gadgets. This is also causing a loss of local knowledge about construction techniques. Sustainability should be about human labour and local resources, and thought about in both social and environmental terms; we forget it is about people, too.Anna Heringer Scale is useful to thinking sustainably. I always try to multiply my design and material decisions by 8 billion people, to think about what would happen if everyone did the same thing as me. Sustainability must be thought about at the global scale. It does not work if it is just for part of the worlds population. When decisions are taken out of fear and greed, we use much more material than we actually need (deeper foundations, thicker structural elements, but also larger rooms and more space than necessary). Building with earth is, to me, inseparable from social justice and matters of equity. It is also a way of accepting decay and death.Nripal Adhikary Just two days ago, there was a heavy storm in Kathmandu, which caused a landslide on one of our construction sites. There was a lot of mud, which destroyed one of the buildings we were working on. My thinking was that we would let the sun dry the site and simply rebuild it. The collapse did not trigger any fear or concern. Earth is such a malleable and forgiving material. We just need a few people to pick the clay back up and put it together again. It was a really empowering realisation. It is very liberating to know that you can just do it; the material is always fixable. If there is a crack, you scratch the surface and plaster it again. It is so forgiving, like our human bodies.Anna Heringer That is a beautiful way of putting it! A crack is absolutely fine, just like a wrinkle. We need to accept these imperfections they make buildings more alive and they call for the maintenance and repair of the built environment. In Ghana, where I have a project on-site, there are objects considered empty and others that are charged: those that have energy and power. I cannot help but think that there are so many soulless buildings, towns and cities, where we do not feel the human touch any more. We need more charged buildings, that have character because they have been cared for, for generations and generations. This idea of care also relates to feminist theories and practices.Nripal Adhikary One of our biggest achievements with Abari is to have contributed to changing the perception of earth and bamboo in Nepal. We have been building with these materials since 2011, but it was the Gorkha quake in 2015 that marked a turning point. A stone and bamboo school we had built near the epicentre was the only building in the area that remained standing. We started to be taken seriously and received a lot of media attention. There was a huge need to build schools and infrastructure after the earthquake.We were commissioned to design a library in Kathmandu, to replace one that had been damaged. It had to be built fast and we were under a lot of scrutiny: it was a public library which had to be earthquakeproof, and it was the first time we were building in the centre of a city. To guarantee safety, our approach was very pragmatic, and we took many cues from traditional architecture. We looked at a lot of temples and replaced structural elements with bamboo, and designed a roof that is independent of the walls if there is an earthquake, the walls can collapse but the roof remains standing.Anna Heringer The truth is that once you become used to building like this, everything else becomes completely unnatural. When you have leftovers, for example, with clay, you just put them back in the ground and do not worry about it. Any material that cannot be picked up with your bare hands, that might require gloves, feels weird. As do the waste and toxic smells. It is similar to being a vegetarian, it becomes a part of you. In the global south, I learnt that process is just as important as outcome, and participation holds real power, both to make decisions and to carry out the manual labour being on-site, working together.Nripal Adhikary The act of building can be full of poetry and fun. It does not have to be hard hats and big machines. It can be more playful and, in the process, you make something very joyful, too.Compared with 10 years ago, there is more listening now, and many more buildings with earth than there used to be, yet I am not seeing change coming from the top. We need a few rebel architects to push at the limits and spur change. We can lead the way by doing things differently if we are ready to take risks, find loopholes in regulations and do things that might not be completely legal. We have to prove what we believe in.Anna Heringer I agree that we cannot just wait for the rules to change. Being your own client can make a significant difference; this is how Martin Rauch is able to push things forward, testing and showing the way.The media also play a part. There are more examples of earth buildings in the press now, but I would like to see magazines differentiate between stabilised earth and non-stabilised earth. I remember the AR Soil issue made a point about the distinction something I am really grateful for, because it hugely helps to prevent greenwashing.Nripal Adhikary Yes, there was an Outrage about how the use of cement in the mix just makes brown concrete. I use that reference a lot. It is because we have been inspired by you and Martin Rauch that we do not use cement to stabilise the earth.It is also encouraging to see architects such as Yasmeen Lari and Dibdo Francis Kr winning architecture awards and not just the earth categories or prizes. As this work is platformed as an alternative way forward, it becomes more mainstream.Building sustainably requires a radical change of politics and a deep reform of our economic systemAnna Heringer This reminds me that in 2008, I met Bjarke Ingels at a conference, and he asked me why social architecture always has to look so boring and what not. A few months later, we were both shortlisted for the AR Emerging awards and it was I who won!I think it is also critical that we become more truthful about the cost of materials, to include their ecological cost. Currently, it is the planet and the entire society, including future generations, that are paying the price. Earth can truly be recycled, without any loss of quality; for all other materials it is a matter of downcycling. And someone is profiting along the way. Building sustainably requires a radical change of politics and a deep reform of our economic system. In Europe, it is currently more expensive to build ecologically, just like taking the train is more expensive than flying. Carbon taxes would certainly make a huge difference. Rules and regulations are too often about profit even when masquerading under the guise of safety.Nripal Adhikary The important question about rules and regulations is to ask who is making them what is their vision, who are they doing it for, and who profits from these rules. Seeing more architects building with earth and more earthen buildings being published makes me hopeful. Regulations will have to follow if there is a critical mass.Anna Heringer NGOs can be important allies in the global south. My concern is when they say they want to build with clay but show images of earth blocks that have been stabilised with cement, or of a wall that is too tall to be raw earth. There are two issues here: misinformation and, once again, fear. Many NGOs and donors love the idea of building with mud but they find it safer with some cement in the mix; others do not see the difference. It is not even a question of aesthetics.Nripal Adhikary My scepticism with NGOs lies in the fact that the people working in them live in concrete houses, but want to use earth for the poor. As if they were not willing to take the risk for themselves. Private clients are more interesting because it is their own money they are investing; they are taking the risk. I enjoy the conversations that ensue about the buildings longevity, its challenges and need for care.We are currently designing a Buddhist monastery, a building type that is supposed to last hundreds of years and we are so proud that they are trusting this material. The client came to see our work and liked its energy; they said they could just sit here and meditate. Some people associate this material with spirituality.Anna Heringer My clients for the Ayurveda centres guest house were fantastic; it is true they both meditated a lot and they were not fearful. Another incredible client I was lucky to work with was a permaculture farmer; they understood the value and preciousness of the earth. I do not think these clients were afraid of decay either. In the end, it is more a question of mindset than technical solutions or matters of regulations.I also think that the fact that building with earth restricts height unless we use a hybrid structure could be seen as a positive thing. Do we really need buildings to be taller than trees?Nripal Adhikary I like to think that, in a hundred years, if users of the future do not like a project of ours, they can return it to the ground. What I know is that I do not feel guilty; I am not causing harm.Anna Heringer Earth is also an extremely inclusive material; the worlds population is a growing resource 8 billion and counting. Anyone with two hands can get involved.Lead image: Studio Anna Heringer was twice a winner in the AR Emerging awards: first in 2006 with the METI school and two years later with the DESI training centre. Both projects were built in Rudrapur, Bangladesh. (Benjamin Staehli, BARTER Ltd)2024-11-11John LinShare AR November 2024Buy Now

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An open international contest is being held for a permanent new urban climate island installation in Felipe VI Park in Logroo, Spain (Deadline: 29 November)Organised by local cultural festival Concntrico the two-stage competition seeks proposals for a new urban climate island installation which offers thermal comfort and helps residents mitigate the challenges of rising local temperatures caused by the climate crisis.The winning 80,000 installation will be constructed around a lake in the city centre Felipe VI Park on a stretch of terracing featuring a hexagonal square. Proposals may use a range of measures such shading structures, tree planting, water permeable soft natural soil and benches to help reduce temperature at specific points.Competition site: Felipe VI Park climate island, LogrooAccording to the brief: In recent decades, climate change has generated significant impacts on natural and socio-economic systems, with the emission of greenhouse gases, especially carbon-based gases, being the main cause.In southern Europe, an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events, such as heat waves, droughts and floods, is anticipated.Faced with this situation, it is essential to implement adaptation actions to mitigate these effects, especially in cities, where phenomena such as climate islands, areas that experience significantly higher temperatures than their surroundings, are manifested.Logroo, in northern Spain, is a historic city overlooking the River Ebro and is the capital of the Rioja wine-producing province.Earlier this year, the city hosted a series of contest-winning installations selected as part of an annual open call held by The Logroo International Festival of Architecture and Design also known as Concntrico.The festival has delivered more than 70 pop-up installations and pavilions across the downtown area of the historic city since it was founded in 2015.The latest competition aims to create a new permanent infrastructure at the western end of Felipe VI Park close to Hermanos Hircio, Ingeniero Pino and Amorena streets that helps local inhabitants mitigate the impact of increasing heat waves.Competition site: Felipe VI Park climate island, LogrooSubmissions will be judged on their integration into the surrounding architectural and urban environment, versatility, sustainability in terms of materials and circular economy, and feasibility.Round one submissions should include a single A2-sized project summary panel. Four finalists teams will each receive 1,500 to participate in the second phase of the contest and the overall winner will receive a 10,000 prize.The competition organisers will be responsible for the production and construction of the winning proposal in coordination with the selected team.How to applyDeadline: 29 November 2024Competition funding source: Concentrico + Logroo City Council + LIF 2002Project funding source: Concentrico + Logroo City Council + LIF 2002Owner of site(s): Concentrico + Logroo City Council + LIF 2002Contact details: info@concentrico.esVisit the competition website for more information

Beam Camp in New Hampshire, USA, has launched its annual international competition to design a series of $15,000 temporary installations (Deadline: 23 December)The two-stage contest seeks unique, ambitious and spectacular proposals for large-scale artistic structures to be constructed by the youth camps 20 staff and 100 participants over the summers of 2025 and 2026.The project aims to teach young people at the specialist camp about design, planning and construction, with the majority of components for each installation prepared on site and assembled in under 50 hours. The 2023 winning scheme was Welcome Beacon (pictured) by Michael Runge and Mayowa Tomori of AMPL.Beam Camp Project 2023: Welcome Beacon, designed by Michael Runge and Mayowa Tomori. Image by Pearl CohenAccording to the brief: Beam Centre seeks design proposals for an ambitious public artwork that will be brought to life through collaborations between youth, Beam Camp staff and the selected proposer. Projects will be realized by a community of more than 100 young people at Beam Camp in summers 2025 and 2026.Beam Camp is a specialized summer camp for building and collaboration located in Strafford, NH. Our award-winning program offers youth (ages 10-17) the opportunity to cultivate hands-on skills while exploring innovative thinking, design, problem solving and the creative process.Every year, Beam Camp solicits proposals for unique and spectacular large-scale projects that serve as the centerpiece for the 29-day session of camp, during which they will be built and brought to life by 100 campers and 20+ staff.Our Project Team works with the winning designers to translate their project designs into the camp context. We pride ourselves on the high level of craftsmanship and skill that our Projects and the work of our staff and campers reflect. Please take some time to familiarize yourself with our past projects.The annual Beam Camp in rural Strafford was launched 17 years ago by the Brooklyn-based Beam Centre, which promotes youth development through collaboration and creation. Accredited by the American Camp Association, the holiday camp focuses on developing hands-on skills and learning through fine arts, manual arts, technology and teamwork.The 43ha facility is home to many past installations including several on land and water. Structures are demounted in the winter and reassembled each summer. Applicants chosen for 2018s summer installations included Evan Ross Murphy from Wisconsin who created a concrete temple with artistic features and Lucie Bulot and Dylan Collins whose Project Iceberg floating diving platform was constructed from 1,400 colour-changing recycled plastic tiles.The 2022 open call was expanded to include both the new Beam Camp City on Governors Island and the Beam Project NYC initiative where a concept delivered in a local community site within the city. The winners included Baobab The Tree of Life by artist Tijay Mohammed and seeAsaw by UK architect Andre Kong Studio in collaboration with Ruben Correia and Ghost Diving USA.London-based andre kong studio with structural engineer Ruben Correia and US-based charity Ghost Diving won the 2022 contest for a temporary installation on Governors IslandFacilities available at Beam Camp include wood and metal workshops with welding, moulding and casting tools; textile, dye and sewing stations; a ceramic studio; a technology lab; audio equipment and a food garden with commercial kitchen.Submissions must include a project title and detailed description; images such as sketches, diagrams and renderings and background information about the team members with contact details.Participants must be available for bi-weekly project meetings in the six months preceding the concepts installation. The winners will each receive a $5,000 stipend.How to applyDeadline: 23 December 2024Competition funding source: Beam CentreProject funding source: Beam CentreOwner of site(s): Spirit of Adventure Boy Scouts CouncilContact details: contact@beamcenter.orgVisit the competition website for more information

The challenges of creating sustainable social housing are shared by co-founders of Avenier Cornejo Architectes Christelle Avenier and Miguel Cornejo, and Carles Oliver Barcel, architect at IBAVIChristelle Avenier One of our first projects as a studio was a social housing project for 38 apartments on the edge of central Paris, in Clichy, and it was for this project that we won the AR Emerging awards in 2017 (AR November 2017). Our work has become more diverse since then: we have also designed akindergarten and private housing among other things.Carles Oliver Barcel I believe there isan evolution in your work, from the projects finished around 2016 and your morerecentwork. Your first projects are more expressive in volume, while more recent buildings are more massive, simple, orderly and regular.Christelle Avenier We agree that over time the facades have become more regular and more efficient, in order to put the energy into lowcarbon materials. We wantto design good buildings that are ecological, but this is always a fight within the budget; our work is to make projects where we have mastered the details but they do not cost too much, so that we can put financial resources into materials.Avenier Cornejo Architectes won the AR Emerging awards in 2017 with a design for brick social housing in Clichy, on the outskirts of Paris (lead image). They are currently working with Dchelette Architecture (who were shortlisted in the AR Emerging awards 2024) on a project for social housing made out of stone at ZAC Hbert in Paris (above)Credit:Avenier Cornejo ArchitectesCarles Oliver Barcel Lowcarbon materials are more expensive than others, and this is where our work begins, as architects, to perform the miracle of fittingnatural materials into the budget. Inregular and repetitive ways of building, there is the opportunity to perform this miracle: to recover the vernacular materials at the scale of the city.In a project for eight social housing units in Palma that we designed in 2018 at the Instituto Balear de la Vivienda (IBAVI, theBalearic Housing Institute) and completed in 2021 (AR April 2022), the window openings are not regular, and we adapted the structure to the programme. This made construction more complicated. It was also the first building that we madewith stone vaults, and we took thedecision that the vaults would sit on aconcrete beam. This is not something Iwould do again, not only because of the massive amount of concrete that it needed, but also because this beam became the main character of the space.It is essential to learn from these ongoing processes and to refine designs. We were able to solve this in a more recent project inSanta Eugnia, which is version 2.0. The buildable area was bigger and that allowed us to use three rows of columns rather than two: one row along each facade and one along the middle of thebuilding which the vaults sit on rather than a concrete beam. Both the structure and the facade are very repetitive, to reduce the cost as much as possible; all the stone is local, and the wood is recycled from timber beams.Miguel Cornejo In a metropolis like Paris, the luxury is not only the material but also space. It is a real challenge today. We are fighting to provide nice living spaces for families which is not easy whenyou are working, not only with socialhousing, but also in the private sector, where the purpose is to make money.As architects, we have a lot of power because we decide which materials are used and which are notChristelle Avenier Since the beginning, we have always put a lot of effort into the drawing of the apartment, because in Paris apartments are very small we have to work twice as hard to make them liveable.Miguel Cornejo I think our work has matured and we have identified the two really important things in a project: the luxury of space on the one hand, and noble and healthy materials with simple details onthe other.Carles Oliver Barcel I like to ask architecture students if, having designed the plan and the volume, they then decide the projects material at the very end of term, on the last night and many do. Ifwehave learnt to design buildings that way, ittakes a lot of time to start designing from the material.I had a chance to study the meaning of sustainability at IBAVI. In 2009, we started a project in Formentera (AR July/August 2019), funded by the European nature conservation programme, LIFE+. At first, the LIFE+ programme told us that they were not going to pay for a building and wehad to explain that we were not just designing a building but making visible therelationship between theway we extract and produce materials and how these processes are affecting the ecosystem that we live in. We do not live ina house, but an ecosystem.Every material was studied according tonot only lowcarbon emissions, but also where it was produced and the labour conditions of the workers, to ensure that damage was not done, not only at home butalso in other countries. This model is one for providing global social justice.Since then, we have designed small projects as a means of research to keep testing this way of working and to show other architecture practices, who are entering competitions for social housing onthe Balearic Islands, that this is possible.Carles Oliver Barcel won the AR Emerging awards in 2022. A project for eight social housing units in Palma, Mallorca, completed in 2021 by IBAVI, for whom Oliver Barcel works, was thefirst in which they recovered stone vault constructionCredit:Jos HeviaThe vault structure was optimised in a later project in Santa Eugnia, also on MallorcaCredit:Milena VillalbaIts facade is more regularand repetitive than earlier iterationsCredit:Milena VillalbaMiguel Cornejo I like this approach to sustainability: the idea that we do not live in a house but in an ecosystem. In your context of Mallorca, there is an ecosystem, but there is also another system of mass tourism. Against this context and its many constraints, how are you able to reach this highquality architecture?Carles Oliver Barcel The project of social housing in the Balearic Islands is verycollective, and there are many local architects who are working in this sustainable way; I think this way of working is a reaction to mass tourism on the island and the problems we are facing. We share knowledge, we share recipes, weshare everything. This is different from some cities or universities where it seems that architects are trying to protect their own research. Here, we are happy to provide what we have learnt to other architects. They build on your research andthen you can pick it back up and take itto another level that you would never otherwise be able to reach by yourself.Miguel CornejoI can feel the strength of your community and the collective thought in the architectural production in the materials and in the spaces that you all make. I am very happy to see that it is possible it encourages us to work the same way here, sharing our experiences andknowledge.Carles Oliver Barcel What is next for your practice?Christelle AvenierWe would like to explore more environmentally virtuous materials. We are excited to have the opportunity to explore stone in a social housing project we are working on at ZACHbert in Paris with Dchelette Architecture (p46), made of solid stone both for the structure and the external facade. We would love to next work with raw earth bricks or pis (rammed earth).The construction industry has forgotten how to build tall stone buildingsMiguel Cornejo This is the aim of many ofus here in Paris. It is a special time for construction in France because we are waking up and moving away from concrete building. Instead, many architects in Paris are looking for materials such as stone or straw. But it is not easy to propose these materials when you are making hundreds ofunits of social housing. In big cities there are many constraints: not only economic and political but also in terms of density and scale.Christelle Avenier The building will be 11 storeys high, and we are facing some technical difficulties. All architects working with stone in Paris at the moment are facing the same trouble and we are working together: How did you find the solution forthis? Did you find a solution for that? Weneed a lot of solidarity if we want to succeed, and we are sharing our troubles and exchanging any technical advances.Miguel Cornejo The main challenge we are facing is that the construction industry has forgotten how to build tall stone buildings.Christelle AvenierWe have to remember the way to build in stone, as itwas done before by Haussmann in Paris, but with the regulations of today.Carles Oliver Barcel There is the sameproblem here. In Paris and Mallorca, we areall facing the same challenges: how to recover a material that was absolutely underused. When we started designing social housing in stone, we could not find asingle structural engineer on the island able to design it. There are now many engineers in Spain who can design these kinds of structures. You need very specific collaborators.When I was in Paris with practice Barrault Pressacco (AR November 2022), who design a lot with stone, they took me toa quarry near Paris, and it was good to discover that the quarries in Paris are much healthier than the quarries in Mallorca. Most of the quarries in Mallorca are in danger of extinction; in the last 12 years, 12quarries have closed down. The stone inParis is incredibly strong and that is whyyou can design 11storey buildings outof it.That is not possible in our case; the maximum height would be around five tosix storeys.The scenario that I would like to see is that use of these materials is no longer an isolated experiment, but just a regular way of building. This is how buildings have been built for centuries, so why can they not be now.OliverBarcel iscurrentlyworking on thetransformation of a 17th-century cloister intoa research centre for the vernacular architectureof the Balearic IslandsCredit:Carles Oliver barcelMiguel Cornejo There is a system of economy that was based on a concrete system of building. Now is the time to change it.Carles Oliver Barcel There are ways tochange it: through one of the projects built on Eivissa (Ibiza) by Peris+Toral (ARSeptember 2024), we discovered that rammed earth blocks are produced using the same technology at the factory that is used to produce concrete paving blocks. That means that this factory could very easily, with very low investment, produce rammed earth blocks.Factories and manufacturers need to make this kind of transition and have tochange the model. And as architects, wehave a lot of power because we decide whichmaterials are used and which are not.Itisincredible how we can affect theenvironment in which we live.Opinions expressed in this interview by Carles Oliver Barcel are his alone and do not represent the views of either IBAVI or the regional government2024-11-08Sixten RahlffShare AR November 2024Buy Now

Part of the winning team of the inaugural 1999 AR Emerging awards, Sixten Rahlff of 3RW Arkitekter speaks to previous finalists Joshua Bolchover and John Lin about building in ruraland developing contextsSixten Rahlff I was a masters student atthe Bergen School of Architecture whenHans Olav Hesseberg and I won thefirst AREmerging awards in 1999 (ARDecember 1999). We had constructed asmall orphanage in Chhepetar, a village inthe foothills of the Nepalese Himalayas, about six to seven hours northwest of Kathmandu. Today, I am one of the partners at 3RW Arkitekter in Bergen, onthe west coast of Norway.We are around30 people: planners, designers and landscape architects working primarily in Norway, but also with projects in Burkina Faso and other countries.Joshua Bolchover It is a happy coincidence, because I have just started doing some work in Nepal in the last year orso with the District Development Unit (DDU), an impact enterprise I founded in2020 that is based here in Hong Kong. Thegoal is to bring about scalable solutions with respect to affordable housing and civic infrastructure within a radius of a five-hour flight from Hong Kong. Since the Nepal earthquake in 2015, which devastated a lotof the countrys urban settlements, all ofthese beautiful old buildings are being replaced by generic tall concreteframe houses. With DDU, we are looking to createan alternative model which maintains seismic resilience, while workingwith theexisting urban fabric.Sixten RahlffSadly, the epicentre of the 2015 earthquake was near Chhepetar, and Ihave not been able to reach the orphanage or find it on satellite maps since. I fear that, although we built it to be very resistant, with earthquake anchors from the top to bottom beams, it may have been destroyed.Sixten Rahlff and Olav Hesseberg won the inaugural AR Emerging awards in 1999 with Eli Synnevg for their orphanage building in Chhepetar, Nepal (lead image), constructed while they were still students in Norway. Since, 3RW Arkitekter, founded by Rahlff with three other partners, has built school buildings in Mozambique and Burkina Faso (above), typically working on-site for extended periods with students and local construction workersCredit:3RW ArkitekterRecent projectsin Norway by 3RW Arkitekter focus onreuse, such as the Bergen Inclusion Centre, which recycled 65 per cent of the materials from an existing buildingCredit:Alexander CoppoJoshua Bolchover Did you find it difficult to return to Norway after working in Nepal?Sixten RahlffYes. We were there fornearly a year, living at the site and workingtogether. The concept was a small gathering of buildings a dormitory, main house and kitchen with a common open area in the middle. There was no electricity the whole project came together without it. All the stones came from the river and the timber from the forest. I think that in my time working as an architect in the 25 years since, my main realisation has been that there should not be as big a difference between building in Norway and building inNepal. The Nepal project taught me the fundamentals of building: there are people, there are materials and there is the climate.John Lin The challenge is that in economies like Hong Kong and Norway, thebuilding industry is so professionalised, making it very hard to build together as a community. Building is an act of social cohesion. The question is how we go about reclaiming that in the socalled developed world.Joshua Bolchover We are all grappling with this. But in developing and rural contexts, most buildings are not the result of a communityled process either. The places where we work Kathmandu in Nepal, Manila in the Philippines, and Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia are rapidly urbanising and there is a lot of building happening without architects and their expertise. Urban development is mostly determined by the global construction industry there too that is why it is all concrete frames, because it is the most affordable way.The Nepal project taught me the fundamentals of building: there are people, there are materials and there is the climateSixten Rahlff I wanted to ask about that. The model for doing the kind of work we are discussing is to be affiliated with a university, and academic funding. I used toteach a lot here at the Bergen School ofArchitecture, and our 2009 school in Govuro, Mozambique, came out of a student project. I have since stepped back from teaching, but it is still a goal to maintain this kind of work at 3RW. It does not pay as well as building in Norway sometimes it does not pay at all. How do you find the funds and time to work on projects that arenot profitable?John Lin I think we have all found that buildings that must earn profit are a very specific type of building. The profit motive warps the whole thing. Since completing ahospital project in Angdong, Hunan province, in China, with Joshua (as part ofRural Urban Framework) in 2014 (ARNovember 2016), I have actually had something of an architectural midlife crisis and stopped working on building projects. I have focused on research instead. AsFound Houses, for example, is a book Iwrote with Sony Devabhaktuni in 2020 that looks at 20 buildings throughout rural China, all of which are designed by what Bernard Rudofsky would have called the selfbuilder. Another project I did during the Covid19 pandemic was with a collaborator from the University of Hong Kong, Lidia Ratoi, who has a degree in robotic fabrication. We took apart an old wooden house and got a robot to 3D print new walls for it onsite. Afterwards, carpenters reassembled the wooden structure and roof. The idea was that thisuse of technology created a system ofconstruction that supports local and collective participation, while recycling andadapting traditional buildings.The 2020 book As Found Houses by John Lin and Sony Devabhaktuni documents 20 self-built houses in rural ChinaCredit:John Lin and Sony DevabhaktuniLins work also encompasses experiments in robotic fabrication within rural contextsCredit:John Lin and Lidia RatoiJoshua Bolchover University and NGO funding can also be fickle. Around the time that we were working in Angdong, therewas a change of government and subsequent crackdown on the role of international NGOs working in China andwe had been working with a Hong Kongbased NGO. That crackdown really began to affect the model that we were working with, which we had built up over time. When that was removed, it became increasingly difficult to do projects in the way that we had done before; to continue with projects in rural China, we had to work directly with local government, leading to fresh difficulties. Now, with DDU,we work almost as an architectural start-up, and have therefore been exploring alternative ways of generating financial streams for the work that we do. Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investment has been one area we have been exploring so far, unsuccessfully. But we are working on it.Sixten RahlffIt is not that it is easier tobuild in the global south, but the process can often be so much more direct, in that you spend time with the community you are building for and typically have a restricted number of local materials at your disposal. You are certainly working with fewer materials than the vast catalogue that wehave here in Norway. But of course, it isa false freedom we need to change our approach and adapt buildings and already existing materials here as much as we do anywhere else.It is going to be interesting to follow as architects invariably have to find local ways of building things againJohn LinThere is this kind of crisis for architects because of the unsustainability ofthe building industry. In a way, I think that it can be a very positive thing it has brought about a deep introspection in our field. It is going to be interesting to follow in the years ahead, as architects invariably have to find local ways of building things again and also how building codes and regulations will have to adapt.Sixten Rahlff For many years now, 3RWhas worked on a project on a 20,000m2 site that houses a teacher training college. Ithas now been renovated as an inclusion centre for refugees coming to Norway and we have managed to reuse about 65 per cent of what was already there. That is quite a big number compared with the standard 15 per cent specified by the municipality. And for the materials that wedid not reuse in the new building, we organised a flea market of sorts, where people and businesses could come and take whatever was left over. To me, this felt like a way of doing architecture that was akin tothe projects we have done in Nepal, Mozambique and Burkina Faso but adapted to Norway. We did really have to fight for that process, though, because the municipalitys standards and regulations on reuse are so underdeveloped.Together, Lin andJoshua Bolchover have worked on several projects as Rural Urban Framework (RUF), including on the Ger Plug-in prototypes in Mongolia, which offer nomadic dwellers a more permanent abodeCredit:District Development Unit / Joshua Bolchover / Jersey PoonRUFs hospital in Angdong, Hunan province, China, doubles as a villagecommunity space. Lin wasa finalist in the AR Emerging awards in 2009, as were both Lin and Bolchover (as RUF),in 2012Credit:Rural Urban Framework / Joshua Bolchover and John LinJohn Lin One of the big questions in As Found Houses is what the global north can learn from these rural contexts, because in many ways, they are much more connected to the art of living, not just building.Sixten Rahlff This question of who islearning from whom is interesting. Whenwe went to Nepal as students, wewere almost totally unskilled, yet the community saw us as the experts. But we learned a tremendous amount from the stone cutters, the carpenters, and so on. What we could bring to the table in turn was the introduction of new forms of ventilation, and letting more light into thebuildings, as there are public health issues associated with cooking indoors without good ventilation in Nepal. It was afantasticexperience for a group of young, inexperienced architects, and also quite scary. It was definitely an exchange of knowledge and skills.Joshua Bolchover I think it is important to acknowledge that the global norths impact on the climate crisis and global inequality is really evident in the global south. The climate crisis might feel a bit abstract in Hong Kong, or Norway. But when you are somewhere like Mongolia, it is inescapable. You can taste the coal in the air when you are in the city of Ulaanbaatar. So how do we begin to address these two critical issues as architects the climate crisis and inequality and the ways inwhich they work hand in hand with eachother? A real challenge we face as aprofession is that we are completely undervalued in what we do. How can we create a shift in how we see the value in thenotforprofit projects we are doing? Because the impact that it has in the communities is potentially huge.John LinI think it is a question of value versus profit.Sixten RahlffAbsolutely. The idea of anarchitectural midlife crisis that you described, John, really resonates with me. Ithink I have reached that point myself. Iam quite fed up with the focus on shortterm income and the underdeveloped understanding of culture and quality here in Norway. I am much more into music now. Of course, I am not being entirely serious I have a very nice team that I work with, and I still find the work fascinating. But Ikeep returning to the memory of waking upin the fog in Chhepetar, and feeling thatwewere doing something that meant everything for the people trying to build the orphanage and also for us.2024-11-06AR EditorsShare AR November 2024Buy Now

The Norman Foster Foundation has revealed the winners of its international contest to rebuild housing and public spaces in Kharkiv, UkraineOrganised by Buildner in collaboration with Kharkiv City Council, UNECE, Arup, and the Kharkiv Architects Group the competition sought proposals for innovative modular solutions that could be used to retrofit existing concrete panel housing blocks and revitalising public spaces.The Kharkiv Housing Challenge contest launched two years after Norman Foster met the mayor of Kharkiv to discuss reconstruction set out to boost the eastern Ukrainian citys recovery and resilience and will see the winning concepts move from concept to construction.The overall winner was Healing Kharkiv: From Rubble to Renewal, by Andrew James Jackson from Cundall in the UK. The proposal reinforces existing residential buildings using locally sourced concrete and materials from destroyed structures, enhancing security and maintaining integrity.Second place went to Blooming Towards The Sun a proposal offering different interventions based on the level of damage sustained by existing buildings by Zigeng Wang from China. This place was meanwhile awarded to Modus Vita, by Melek Serra Saral, Oleksandr Kinash, Didem Arman and Elif Ilgin from the Yldz Technical University in Turkey.The Russian invasion of Ukraine started more than two years ago on 24 February 2022 and has resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties, the displacement of millions of people and the destruction of large areas of the country.The competition attracted 259 high quality entries from 53 countries, including 27 entries from Ukraine. The overall winner will receive a 6,000 top prize and see their further developed into detail designs for future construction across Kharkiv. A second prize of 3,000 and third prize of 1,000 were also awarded.Kharkiv is the second largest city in Ukraine and has been the focus of significant fighting, shelling and missile strikes amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In May 2022, Norman Foster met with Ihor Terekhov, the mayor of Kharkiv and revealed plans to co-ordinate architects in the rebuilding of Kharkiv.The Kharkiv Housing Challenge launched a year after an international ideas contest was held to reconstruct a former high-school in Kharkiv, Ukraine. In February, the Lithuanian government launched an open international contest to rebuild educational infrastructure across Ukraine.Last month, The Norman Foster Foundation launched a second international contest organised by Buildner to reimagine Freedom Square in Kharkiv.The Kharkiv Housing Challenge focused on the creation of a new modular concept which could be used on a range of existing and war-damaged sites to speed up the renewal and reconstruction of Ukraines residential infrastructure with a renewed, yet locally rooted, architectural identity.The contest site was Saltivka a large suburb of the northern fringes of Kharkiv which is home to around 400,000 people and has been heavily damaged as a result of the conflict.Proposals had to offer ways to retrofit existing concrete panel housing blocks and improve public spaces to create safe, energy-efficient, and vibrant neighbourhoods. Along with modular facade and roof components bomb shelters and additional uses in ground floors were also required.Judges included Norman Foster; Ihor Terekhov, mayor of Kharkiv; Stuart Smith from Arup Berlin; Belinda Tato of Ecosistema Urbano and Harvard GSD; Ammar Azzouz, University of Oxford; and Yurii Spasov from the Kharkivproject Institute, Ukraine.

This years shortlist includes architects who are investigating earth and biobased materials, intervening inthreatened landscapes and breathing new life into existing buildingsProfiles of all this years shortlisted practices have been published in AR November 2024: click hereto buy a copyThe AR is delighted to announce the 15 practices shortlisted for the AR Emerging awards 2024. This years shortlist includes architects experimenting with local and low-carbon materials such as straw, cork and rammed earth adding to and preserving existing structures, and creating generous and robust public spaces.The shortlist comprises architects working around the world, including Belgium, Bahrain, China, Cuba, France, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Japan, Kuwait, Spain, Taiwan and the UK.The 2024 shortlist:- A Threshold- Asif Khan Studio- Atelier EGR- Bajet Giram- Civil Architecture- Chen Donghua Architects- Dchelette Architecture- Infraestudio- Material Cultures- New South- NWLND Rogiers Vandeputte- Paradigma Ariadn- Shen Ting Tseng Architects- Superposition- TYFAThe winner will be announced on Thursday 14 November at the awards ceremony at the offices of partner practice Arup at 80 Charlotte Street, London. Join us to celebrate and meet the shortlisted architects. Tickets are free register hereThis year the shortlisted practices will meet in London and present their work to our jury, comprising previousAR Emerging finalist GeirBrendeland, Bahrainbased architect and curator Noura AlSayehHoltrop, and architect and educator Adrian Lahoud.The winner will receive a5,000 prize, and a second practice will be awarded thePeter Davey Prize, selected bythe AR editors intribute to PeterDavey, former AReditor and founder of the awards. Winners will also take home aspecially commissioned trophy by Dutch research and design studio The New Raw.First launched in 1999, the AR Emerging awards grant early recognition to young designers and celebrate the architectural stars of tomorrow. Since 2018, the awards have recognised a body of work rather than a single building, and aspiring candidates share a small portfolio of three projects with us: a completed building, a work in progress and an idea. Early winners include Boonserm Premthada, Thomas Heatherwick and Frida Escobedo more recently, TO, Carles Enrich Studio and Carla Juaaba.The AR Emerging awards 2024 are sponsored by

A Threshold|Superposition|Civil Architecture |NWLND Rogiers Vandeputte |Architecture is a site of exchange, involving countless conversations between architects as well as an ecosystem ofclients, craftspeople, builders, manufacturers and more. Sharing knowledge and experience across geographies and generations is central to the AR Emerging awards, which launched 25 years ago and grant early recognition to young architects around the world. Today, each edition brings together judges and finalists in productive in-person dialogue before an overall winner is chosen.To celebrate a quarter-century of the AR Emerging awards, this issue features past finalists in conversation. The winner of the awards inaugural edition in 1999, Sixten Rahlff, speaks to John Lin and Joshua Bolchover about building in rural contexts in the global south. Rahlffs winning project, designed while he was still a student, taught him the fundamentals of architecture, hesays: There are people, there are materials and there is the climate. Carles Oliver Barcel, Christelle Avenier and Miguel Cornejo, meanwhile, discuss the power of architects to shift to ecological building systems for social housing. Anna Heringer and Nripal Adhikary talk about the slow democratisation of earth construction and the differences ofpractising in Nepal, Germany and Ghana.This issue also features profiles of the 15 finalists of the2024 AR Emerging awards, whose work tackles the numerous crises facing the profession and the planet. From careful strategies of repair to low-carbon materials research to the revival of ancient crafts, and from Cuba to Hungary to Taiwan, these practices face a similar reality: how to emerge in a world that is in need of new imaginaries.1516: 25 years of AR EmergingCover (above)George DouglasThe AR Emerging awards are an opportunity for exchange across geographies and contexts the architects will meet each other and the panel of judges in London this month. The specially commissioned artworkby George Douglas that appears on this months cover captures this exchange, with each practice bringing their work to the tableFolio (lead image)Carlo LavatoriDouglass artwork was partly inspired by the Italian designer Enzo Maris eclectic collection of objects, which he usedas paperweightsConversationNegotiating the aid paradigmSixten Rahlff, John Lin and Joshua BolchoverConversationEcosystems of social housingChristelle Avenier, Miguel Cornejo and Carles Oliver BarcelConversationBuilding with earthAnna Heringer andNripal AdhikaryAR Emerging awards 2024A ThresholdReuben J BrownSuperpositionOluwatobiloba AjayiCivil ArchitectureLeela KeshavNWLND Rogiers VandeputteReuben J BrownDchelette ArchitectureLeela KeshavTYFADerin FadinaInfraestudioOluwatobiloba AjayiAsif Khan StudioMir JethaBajet GiramOluwatobiloba AjayiNew SouthDerin FadinaParadigma AriadnLeela KeshavChen Donghua Architects Mir JethaMaterial CulturesReuben J BrownAtelier EGRMir JethaShen Ting Tseng ArchitectsDerin FadinaThe last pageAR Emerging awards 2024 trophies by The New Raw

Credit: Robert Hackman / AlamyPhotographer Robert Hackman has spent years documenting Albanias concrete nuclear bunkers, built from the 1960s to the 80s by the communist Hoxha regime and designed to accommodate both families and infantry. Nearly indestructible, the larger family bunkers have since been adapted into beach huts, cowsheds, tattoo parlours and residences, among other things. Urban development continues over and alongside these relics, as seen in this picture ofa smaller infantry bunker.Read stories from the Concrete issue2024-11-01AR EditorsShare

Used to contain, memorialise and ward off nuclear disaster, concrete is the primary building material of the atomic ageIn much the same way that the atomic age begins with the dropping of the Little Boy bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, so too does a certain kind of atomic architecture, which has always been carried out in one material: concrete. The reason for this can be found in Hiroshima itself. Unsurprisingly, it is the most comprehensively rebuilt of all the cities that were destroyed in the Second World War even more than Warsaw or Minsk. Here, leaving aside a couple of reconstructions, you can count the pre1945 buildings in the city centre on one hand. Historical Japanese architecture was usually executed in wood; the bomb destroyed all wooden buildings within a kilometre of the hypocentre. The subsequent fire destroyed nearly all the rest. Concrete buildings were gutted, and their roofs destroyed, but they survived as shells.The largest of these is a building which is usually described as the ABomb Dome. Still standing as a skeleton in the centre of the city, a short walk from the hypocentre, it is one of the most famous of war memorials, an early 20thcentury concrete structure with the metal frame of its original dome visible as a ghostly outline. If it is best known as a memorial, it also reveals something else. Photographs from 1945 (lead image; credit: Moonies World Photography / Alamy)show a nearly totally erased city being surveyed by the concrete building and its dome, an exhibition that concrete buildings could survive a nuclear explosion.The ABomb Dome was built as the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, a somewhat protomodernist Secessionist trade fair building of 1915, designed by the Czech architect Jan Letzel. It is one of a few concrete buildings, some designed by western architects, in early 20thcentury Japan; the technology was favoured because of its ability to withstand the countrys very common earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons, though here it withstood a wholly humanmade catastrophe. It will not do to exaggerate the buildings protective qualities all 30 people at work in the building on the day of the explosion were instantly killed but this building, and a handful like it around the city, were nonetheless evidence of material, if not human, resilience.Concrete was used to entomb the Chornobyl nuclear power stations Reactor 4 within a sarcophagus after itmalfunctioned during a cooling test, causing what remains among the worst nuclear disasters in human historyCredit:SSE ChNPPThe prestige architecture of the reconstructed city such as Kenz Tanges famous Corbusian Peace Memorial Park and Tgo Muranos angry, austere and moving World Peace Memorial Cathedral was executed in the same material, as was the rebuilding of the citys medieval castle, along with thousands of humbler houses, office buildings and housing estates. But the insights of Hiroshima were also applied elsewhere.The first nuclear tests were in the desert, in New Mexico, in which authorities believed that the poisonous radioactive isotopes could be flung far and wide. The first nuclear power stations, obviously, had to take a somewhat different approach. The earliest to be constructed for partly civilian use was Obninsk in the USSR, which began generating electricity in 1954. Rather extraordinarily, its reactors and elaborate cooling mechanisms were encased, as was mandatory in the Stalin years, in a classical superstructure a modest, faintly neoTsarist palazzo. It was soon followed by the frankly modernist Calder Hall better known as Sellafield in the north of England.Neither power station was solely for peaceful use Tony Benn, a decade later, was surprised to find as minister for technology and enthusiast for civilian nuclear power that Calder Hall was also a bomb factory for the Pentagon. But in its wake, scores of nuclear power stations sprang up around the world, most of which claimed nonmilitary use, and vowed to transform the atom from a soldier into a worker, to cite a slogan banner put up at the Chornobyl nuclear power station in Soviet Ukraine. All of these power stations had to deal with the problems of encasing, first, the reactors, and second, the waste they produced.El Cabril in Spain stores low- to intermediate level radioactive waste by encasing it within concrete cubes, each with a capacity of 18 barrels. Once filled, the cubes are again encased within another concrete structure, making it nearly impossible to accidentally open the containersIn design terms, nuclear power stations revolve around the often spherical nuclear reactors, in which the chain reactions that generate power take place. The walls of these had to be several feet thick to contain the extreme heat generated by the reactions, with a steel inner shield. It is these structures which lurk around the outer reaches of the island of Great Britain, sometimes with accompanying landscaping, sometimes with an establishment architect like Frederick Gibberd hired to dress up the elemental forms. Hinkley Point, Sizewell, Dungeness, Dounreay these are buildings of extreme abstraction and monumentality beyond anything any avantgardist ever dreamt up.Nuclear power, though carbonneutral, generates an enormous quantity of waste, which can remain radioactive for centuries. This waste can be encased in a cavern, as it was after an accident at the Lucens nuclear power plant in 1969, but its entombment in concrete is the norm; in a typical example, at the El Cabril nuclear power plant in Spain, it is put within a series of concrete boxes within other concrete boxes so that it would be almost impossible to accidentally uncover and open.Concrete also has a certain role in nuclear disaster prepping. In Britain, the sort of disturbing and often outright foolish contingency plans for nuclear attack, catalogued by Julie McDowall in her podcast Atomic Hobo, tended to entail immense concrete underground bunkers for the elite to escape to when the bombs dropped; the listed entrance to one of these underground cities stands as a bizarre raw concrete object at the edge of the Accordia housing estate in Cambridge.At the Eniwetok atoll in the Marshall Islands, a crater resulting from US military nuclear experiments was capped by a concrete dome in 1980 (opposite). It is currently cracked, though the surrounding sea and land is equally if not more radioactive than its contents, according to US Department of EnergyCredit:US Defense Special Weapons AgencyProject Eastlays was perhaps the most elaborate of these plans, a privatised solution for the Thatcher era which promised to transform a Wiltshire quarry into a vast underground concrete city for 10,000, whose planners invited members of the public to purchase places. An equally maniacal but at least more democratic solution was found in the Stalinist dictatorship of Enver Hoxhas Albania, a state equally hostile to the US and the USSR, which guarded against attack by building hundreds of thousands of tiny, domed concrete bunkers, so that every Albanian family would be able to shelter when the imperialists or the revisionists struck.The most famous example of concrete nuclear architecture emerged as a result of the most notorious nuclear disaster. The Chornobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine is always identified with the material, from the prefabricated concrete panel housing of its company town, Pripyat, to the partially constructed cooling towers left unfinished after the explosion caused by a meltdown in the power stations Reactor 4. The site is dominated by the sarcophagus, an immense arched structure that towers over the surrounding countryside in northcentral Ukraine and southern Belarus. The original sarcophagus, officially the Shelter Object, was a square concrete structure which was erected in haste to stop the further spread of radioactive waste from the explosion in April 1986. This was replaced in 2016 with the arch of the current sarcophagus, known as the New Safe Confinement. This vast concrete arch is the single largest movable object in the world; it was rattled into place along rails, to ensure as little human interaction as possible with the still highly radioactive Reactor 4. It will stand for a century and then will have to be replaced again.Nuclear disasters on the scale of Chornobyl produce a chillingly impressive, brutally funereal emergency architectureOther nuclear disasters have not required such chillingly impressive, brutally funereal emergency architecture. After the only atomic disaster to compare to Chornobyl took place, when an earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in northern Japan in March 2011, the destroyed reactors were covered with a fabric shroud and a metal dome rather than a permanent concrete sarcophagus. Currently, the reactors are being dismantled and the irradiated cooling water discharged into the Pacific Ocean, to the horror of neighbouring China and South Korea.At the Eniwetok atoll in the Marshall Islands, a crater resulting from US military nuclear experiments was capped by a concrete dome in 1980 (opposite). It is currently cracked, though the surrounding sea and land is equally if not more radioactive than its contents, according to US Department of EnergyCredit:US Defense Special Weapons AgencyThe Pacific, however, contains a structure as monumental and disturbing as that of Chornobyl. During the 1940s and 1950s, the US dropped its ever more powerful thermonuclear devices on Bikini and Eniwetok atolls in the Marshall Islands, an archipelago annexed in trust after the Pacific War with Japan. Eniwetok was so pounded by nuclear bombs that its soil became poisonous, and it was strewn with radioactive debris. Much of this was collected and placed into a crater created by a 1958 bomb, which was then covered in 1980 with the concrete Runit Dome, known in the Marshall Islands simply as The Tomb. The structure is currently cracking, though the US Department of Energys 2020 report on its problems concludes that there is no evidence to suggest that the containment structure represents a significant source of radiation exposure relative to other sources of residual radioactive fallout contamination on the atoll that is, given that the soil and sea around the dome is even more radioactive than the material within it, a breach would be fairly irrelevant.This enormous minimalist structure is an image straight from JG Ballards The Terminal Beach, a 1964 short story, set on Eniwetok, that mixed the writers personal memories of the Pacific War (Ballard claimed to have seen the flash of the Nagasaki bomb from a Shanghai prison camp), with his fascination with the concrete structures of the Nazi Atlantic Wall in northern France and the Channel Islands. Uncannily, Ballards protagonist finds a continuous concrete cap upon the island, a functional, megalithic architecture as grey and minatory (and apparently as ancient, in its projection into, and from, time future) as any of Assyria and Babylon. In the story, these structures are a threedimensional representation of madness. The reality may not be so very different.Photographer Robert Hackman has spent years documenting Albanias concrete nuclear bunkers, built from the 1960s to the 80s by the communist Hoxha regime and designed to accommodate both families and infantry. Nearly indestructible, the larger family bunkers have since been adapted into beach huts, cowsheds, tattoo parlours and residences, among other things. Urban development continues over and alongside these relics, as seen in this picture of a smaller infantry bunkerCredit:Robert Hackman / Alamy 2024-10-31Owen HatherleyShare AR October 2024Buy Now

Scott House, Accra, by Kenneth Scott The public reception of Tropical Modernism calls for a wider study of West African architecture, during colonial rule as well as afterTropical Modernism: Architecture and IndependenceVictoria & Albert Museum, London, 2 March 22 September 2024Catalogue edited by Christopher Turner, V&A Publishing, 2024Tropical Modernism: Architecture and Power in West AfricaVenice Architecture Biennale20 May 26 November 2023The first building that comes into frame in the film that closes the Tropical Modernism: Architecture and Independence exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) is Elmina Castle. The building is one of 29 forts and castles constructed by European colonists in Ghana hundreds of years ago and currently classified as national monuments. These buildings on the coasts of Africa were brutality made manifest. Many of them were constructed and expanded following violent attacks on local populaces, the burning down of their homes and the destruction of their religious icons. Elmina Castle, for instance, was constructed in 1482 with stone quarried from a rock venerated as the home of the god of the Benya river. The thick walls were painted white to set them apart from the reddish brown of the nearby architecture. Above all, they were eerie portals through which millions of shackled Africans would be forcibly transported to unknown places and never to return to the lands of their birth.The presence of these forts and castles changed much about the lands upon which they sat and this included the architecture. By the relatively subtle influences of wealth and social status, the architecture of West African coastal elites began to adapt to European architecture, which was perceived as superior. As a 1798 report from the committee of the Privy Council of England described it, they began to erect their houses in a comfortable and convenient manner. These newly westerneducated elites strove to build with stone rather than the earthen materials that were traditional, albeit adapting the forms to their cultural needs, and these materials eventually became aspirational markers of status and modernity.The Tropical Modernism project by Nana BiamahOfosu, Bushra Mohamed and Christopher Turner, with iterations presented at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2023, at the V&A in London and in a recently published catalogue, is the latest in a series of projects aimed at bringing stories of architectural modernism in Africa to popular audiences in the west. These stories tend to be about the work of European architects practising on the African continent, in part because the dominant archival records available to researchers are about this work. The Tropical Modernism exhibitions and catalogue address this imbalance through the inclusion of the thoughts and work of architects such as John Owusu Addo, one of the few named and surviving African modernists from this golden era. Still, the British architects Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry loom large in the narrative, and the Ghanaian part of the Tropical Modernism project the V&A exhibition and catalogue focus on both Ghana and India is framed around their prolific careers.An illustration by Gordon Cullen that accompanied the article African Experiment in AR May 1953, in which multiple projects by British architects Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew in West Africa were publishedCredit:Courtesy RIBA Collections / Gordon Cullen EstateThe long overdue public recognition of African and Africandescended modernists follows from a small but critical collection of academic scholarship which complicates and counters the standard Eurocentric narrative. Through work conducted by researchers including Ola Uduku, Hannah Le Roux, ukasz Stanek and Iain Jackson, practitioners such as John Owusu Addo, Max Bond, Theodore Clerk, Victor Adegbite, Alex Ekwueme and Frank Mbanefo have been introduced to the canon. Nonetheless, much more remains to be done, especially to bridge the gaps between nuanced academic work and that which makes its way into the popular discourse. The public reception of the V&A exhibition demonstrates that there is space for and interest in such stories.By the time Drew and Fry arrived in Accra in the early 1940s, building in earthen materials was marginalised. In discussing the early part of their practice in the then Gold Coast in the exhibition catalogue, Turner writes that the pair had prepared large, coloured relief plans to show their ideas to reform Accra but discovered that the Africans wanted concrete houses, like the Europeans, which used an expensive imported material, rather than the rammed earth ones proposed. That the Africans wanted concrete houses is not surprising knowing the history of architectural domination in the era of the construction of the European forts and castles, and their eventual association with status. Also captured on screen in the film on show at the V&A is the neoclassical building of the Supreme Court in Accra, built in 1929, as the official website proudly states, in solid concrete from its foundations to the third floor.The neoclassical Supreme Court in Accra, inaugurated by the colonial British administration in 1929, is made out of concreteCredit:Rob Atherton / AlamyYet this was not the only force that pushed cementitious materials to the forefront of desirable construction to the detriment of other materials. Towards the end of the 19th century, the British colonial government set out to gain more control over urban environments in the Gold Coast through the institution of the Towns Act and Town Councils. Fiercely resisted by Africans at first, as most things with colonial rule went, the regulations and bureaucracies eventually became established parts of life. Under them, building permits became a requirement for new construction and extensions, and the processes reinforced the imposition and influence of European building materials and styles. Building permit applications submitted to the Accra Town Council from the 1900s to 1920s would sometimes feature marginalia from clerks and other officials noting some key conditions for approving applications. Some of these were around setbacks, water tanks and roof gutters. Others were around materials a common refrain was that houses should be constructed with stone or brick (rather than swish, which was a catchall term used for all the earthen construction techniques), roofed with iron sheets, plastered and white or colour washed. The bureaucratic insistence, under British colonial rule, on building with stone and brick, plastering and painting, required the use of cement.This cement, along with other legally mandated building materials, was exported to the Gold Coast from Britain. As building permit regulations expanded and became more entrenched, the amount of cement and building material exports to the colony increased. In this there is evidence for direct economic benefit to Britain from changing rules and tastes around architecture in the Gold Coast. And along with requirements for new materials for Gold Coasters came the need for new construction technologies and different expertise in architecture and construction, contributing to what I describe as unformalisation the destruction and diminishing of Indigenous architecture and architects by the colonial state.These processes of unformalisation throw more light on the common assumption about the absence of Africans from the architecture profession in the region. It is stated in the catalogue that, as there were no formally qualified West African architects then available, Fry and Drew (from the mid 1940s) began to train a small African staff of six. But to accept that there were no formally qualified West African architects at the time requires a deliberately narrow definition of who counted as an architect and what counted as formal qualifications. Even using European standards, there were westerntrained professionals who had been practising architecture in the Gold Coast for decades. Some of these include C Annan Vanderpuye, the architect of the Adorso House Hotel in Accra; Charles Arthur Albert Barnes, the architect of the Anglican Trinity Cathedral, also in Accra; and Ebenezer Sackey, who the surveyor and biographer Charles Francis Hutchison credits for the building of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Cape Coast. The recent focus on modernism in Africa, welcome as it is, has also contributed to the sidelining of these architects and their work. It inadvertently reinforces widespread assumptions that there were no African architects and hardly any African architecture of note in the region before the modernists arrived.Black Star Square in Accra, completed in 1961, was designed by Victor Adegbite to celebrate Ghanas independenceCredit:Victoria and Albert Museum, LondonThe triumphs of mid20thcentury decolonisation across West Africa touched the built environment in uneven ways. On the one hand, there was a construction boom as part of nationbuilding projects, but on the other hand there was arguably not much anti or decoloniality in those buildings beyond the occasional presence of African architects such as Owusu Addo, Adegbite and Clerk, who strove to infuse their cultural knowledge into the projects they were involved in. On a material level, construction materials continued to be imported, sometimes from former colonising countries. With few ostensibly formally qualified building professionals in newly independent countries, expertise was sometimes imported as well.This dominance of Eurocentric approaches to architecture and construction and the (hi)stories told about it continues to this day, despite much recent work around dismantling the colonial foundations. Thus, unsurprisingly, about 80 years after Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry stated that the Africans to whom they presented their initial design proposals did not want to live in earthen houses, the architect Dibdo Francis Kr, reflecting on his work in Burkina Faso, writes that Africans have resorted to ways of building that were introduced to our continent when it was colonised. Concrete is viewed as modern, and clay dismissed as the poor mans material.Lead image: Scott House by tropical modernist architect Kenneth Scott. Scott was also the architect of a residence for president Kwame Nkrumah in AksomboCredit: Victoria and Albert Museum, London2024-10-30Reuben J BrownShare AR October 2024Buy Now

The Senior Vice President of Development at Northcrest Developments discusses her ambitions for the contest to reimagine the future of the runway at Torontos disused Downsview AirportKristy ShortallWhy are you holding an international contest to reimagine a 2km former airstrip in Toronto?YZD, the former site of Torontos Downsview Airport, will be transformed into seven mixed-use communities over the next 30 years. Its among the largest and most ambitious urban developments in North America and The Runway is the heart of the entire 370 acres.Maintaining and reimagining the sites existing airport infrastructure is central to our vision. The Runway is not only an opportunity to create a pedestrian spine and public amenity, but its an incredibly unique opportunity to imbue these communities with a distinct identity and sense of place.An international contest allows us to tap the top minds in urban design, architecture, placemaking, and placekeeping. We expect YZD will one day be an international example of city building done right. To get there, its critical that we have partners with the creativity, expertise, and vision required by a project of such scale and ambition.What is your vision for how this unique piece of the city could be transformed?The Runway is envisioned as a fully pedestrianized space that runs through the centre of YZD. It will anchor all seven mixed-use communities, while functioning as a welcoming, pedestrian-focused public amenity, animated with community uses and recreation opportunities.YZD itself is a city within a city. Once completed, it will include 2 million m2 of homes, 600,000m2 of commercial and cultural spaces, and nearly 74 acres of parks and green spaces. Over 55,000 residents and 23,000 workers will occupy it. All seven neighbourhoods are aligned to our focus on responsible development. They will prioritize walkability, transit connectivity, and sustainability as cornerstones of their design and development.What sort of teams would you like to see step forward for this unique opportunity?Our competition document states that teams are ideally led by a landscape architect; however, we are open to proposals from teams of different compositions and structures.We are looking for partners that understand the scale of our ambitions and will bring their unique perspective and expertise to the table. Our work is responsive to the needs and wants of local communities, Indigenous Peoples, and stakeholders; it is important that the winning team be willing and able to work alongside these important groups and thoughtfully integrate their feedback.The Runway is an exceptional opportunity for both local and global designers. There are few, if any, projects of this scale and type in North America. We fully expect that YZD, once completed, will emerge as a global example of creative placemaking and how industrial infrastructure can be imaginatively repurposed. To that end, we want to work with the best of the best. The future of YZD requires the creativity, capacity, and ambition of the worlds best designers and thinkers.2024-10-28Merlin Fulcher Share

The Simba Vision Montessori School by Architectural Pioneering Consultants withWolfgang Rossbauer navigates the complex shifts faced by the Maasai people in TanzaniaThe road from Arusha town towards Ngabobo village in northern Tanzania marks a harsh divide between arid and fertile land: possible evidence of uneven water distribution caused by the mountainous topography, or the impact of activities such as overgrazing due to relocation policies. A few kilometres away by the Ngorongoro Crater a World Heritage Site Maasai communities are protesting against forced eviction presented under the guise of conservation. Thousands have been removed from their ancestral land, which has been encroached upon for safari tourism, as the government offers resettlement plans consisting of concreteblock houses in distant regions. Communities on the ground are increasingly wary of both local and foreign interventions.As seminomadic pastoralists, the Maasai peoples access to education has been historically tenuous. While schools are increasingly established by the state, as well as local and international organisations, some innovative curricula integrate modern education with traditional Maasai values. Many schools in this region have been built or supported by Africa Amini Alama, an Austrian nonprofit providing healthcare and education. In 2015, Africa Amini Alama established Simba Vision School, an educational site in Ngabobo, and commissioned a new building in 2019 through an open call for design proposals, in order to embrace the Montessori curriculum a method of education centred on selfdirected activity, handson learning and collaborative play and welcome more students, now numbering 335. The winning proposal was created by Swiss firm Architectural Pioneering Consultants (APC) who have offices in Zrich and Dar es Salaam, and have designed several projects across the country including educational and healthcare facilities along with the Swiss architect Wolfgang Rossbauer.To arrive at the Simba Vision site, children have to walk along small trails interrupted by streams and sliding sand, a terrain that is equally challenging by vehicle. Lucas Massangwe, a Montessori teacherintraining at the school, explains that this piece of land was chosen by elders in the community; APCs managing director Gunter Klix adds that the land was given by the local district council. Klix speculates that the land was given because it was not good for anything: neither grazing nor agriculture. Some ruins on the outskirts of the site, however, suggest that this was not always the case. A series of low walls made of fieldstones, believed to predate independence in 1961, form an enclosure likely used to hold livestock and suggesting there was housing nearby.As I arrive at the Simba Vision site a collection of buildings arranged roughly around an open square students hold a religious studies class in an outdoor amphitheatre. A short walk away through the trees, others are sitting exams in the new building. This structure used Montessori design principles, championed by the Swiss Arthur Waser Foundation which cofunded the new Simba Vision building. The project was an opportunity to test the 28 patterns, or principles, described in Montessori Architecture: A Design Instrument for Schools. For example, classrooms blend into each other, limiting the use of doors, while children activate the floorspace for learning. In Montessori education, the teachers role is to instil a sense of autonomy as a facilitator and observer who moves through the space, as opposed to dictating from the front of the classroom. Learning materials featured in the classrooms are functional, tailored and accessible, allowing a freedom of choice for learners from different walks of life. The learning becomes alive when they interact with these materials, explains John Terevael, a co-ordinator responsible for the Montessori programme at Simba Vision.The new buildings walls are rotated by 45 degrees to the primary axis, orienting rooms at an optimum angle towards the sun, explains Klix; natural light floods the space through diamondshaped windows. In views from the first floor, the grounds stretch out to a large football field on one side and a small farm on the other. The fenceless campus makes it difficult to distinguish the perimeter of the site an alignment with both the Maasais connection with nature, as well as Montessori principles.The choice of a multistorey building is unusual in the area. According to Klix, it was among the most controversial of design decisions, and was adopted to make room for other developments on the site. Klix believes the multistorey volume emphasises the importance and grandeur of education in a community gradually embracing more modern schooling.Drawing closer to Simba Vision, there is a noticeable and sudden change from patches of green pastures and cabbage farms to fine black sand. It is from these remnants of volcanic rock that APC designed concrete blocks for the construction of the new school. The architects experimented with this sand to create a concrete block developed at the Arusha Technical College. After several rounds of testing, the final blocks were made onsite from volcanic sand freely in Klixs words available from the terrain, river sand from Sanya Juu 30km away to strengthen the mix, and cement, at a proportion of 10 per cent, acquired from the coastal town of Tanga about 400km away. Concrete of a slightly different mix, using aggregate from a nearby quarry, was used for the floor slabs, while the roof is formed from zinc sheets from Arusha town, on steel trusses from Nairobi in neighbouring Kenya, 260km north.The concrete blocks provide a sturdy facade in this somewhat harsh climate, but the technique has not been adopted locally, likely due to expensive equipment and material costs. The sense of permanence from concrete also seems to conflict with Maasai architectural heritage. Traditionally, the Maasai live in familybased homesteads called ekang, with women responsible for the construction and maintenance of dwellings known as inkajijik. Their round forms carry grass roofs layered with cow dung and mud, materials also used to plaster walls for temperature regulation. A few small reading nooks in the new building are covered in this plaster made from straw and mud: a nod to tradition while providing private spaces in line with Montessori principles, but this is primarily symbolic and referential.Klix explains that the initial plan for the building had been to use fired clay bricks a potentially less carbonintensive material but this was dismissed as clay was only available over 60km away, a large amount of material requiring transport by road with its associated carbon emissions. Though the cement used in the concrete blocks came from much further away, Klix argues that the amount of cement requiring transport was much smaller than the amount of clay required. Fired bricks were used just 40km away at the Econef Childrens Center, designed by Swedish studios Asante Architecture & Design and Lnnqvist & Vanamo Architects, who were equally mindful of excessive transport costs and prioritised a local community of builders over advanced masonry skills or costly external expertise.Rammed earth, mud blocks and ferrocement (a thin layer of mortar laid on wire mesh) were adopted over 20 years ago by the Maasai Integrated Shelter Project in neighbouring Kenya, showing commitment to replacing traditional materials with more healthcautious and weatherproof alternatives. While the upkeep of traditional methods is laborious, it ensures the biodegradability of materials which are reabsorbed into the earth after serving their time, conducive to seminomadic lifestyles. While there is local use of mud bricks in Ngabobo, Klix explains that a fusion of materials was more appealing than solely traditional materials to the local Maasai people who were consulted. The decision to construct a twostorey building also resulted in structural demands that could not easily be met by raw earth construction.The Simba Vision community heavily relies on a nearby stream for water. Built by both foreign and local workers, volunteers and architects, the new construction was limited to the rainy season when water was more available, especially for work with cement. Unfortunately, the project missed the opportunity to collect rainwater from the roof, depending instead on a water tower that filters water from the stream for nonpotable uses. Due to high fluoride levels, the campus relies on neighbouring Pamoja School for drinking water. A small photovoltaic system is currently the only electricity source for the site, and this lack of electricity has delayed the development of essential facilities, such as a computer lab and dormitories for students and teachers. A larger PV plant which will provide enough electricity offgrid for the entire school will be added once the school has sufficient funds, Klix explains.It is evident that the new school is more of a Montessori school in progress. With two certified Montessori teachers so far, it currently blends a hybrid of state curriculum at the primary levels and special Montessori classes in the nursery. Montessori is still an experimental approach here; it is the first of its kind in this particular region, both architecturally and educationally.Concretes sense of permanence seems to conflict with Maasai architectural heritageThere are also cultural navigations in progress between modern and traditional Maasai culture. Land and livestock are essential to Maasai cultural continuity, and their Maa language remains a crucial tool of transmission of culture. However, the influx of westernised education poses a threat to cultural values, arguably diverting youth from traditional ways of life. At Simba Vision, I encounter a sign by the teachers office reading: No English, no service. If the environment is a third teacher according to Montessori principles, this one does not yet seem fully adapted.The Maasai sociocultural ecosystem faces challenges of rapid urbanisation and conservation projects, limiting their seminomadic lifestyle and leading to a gradual shift towards modern housing and education. The Maasai culture is not stagnant; their way of life welcomes outsiders and is constantly changing with both positive and negative results. The Simba Vision school is testament to crosscultural experimentation in progress, welcomed by the community but with room for growth.2024-10-28Reuben J BrownShare AR October 2024Buy Now

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An open international contest is being held for a new athletics stadium in Podgorica (Deadline: 15 December)The competition seeks conceptual proposals for a landmark new athletics stadium to be constructed on an undeveloped 35,758m plot on the eastern fringes of Montenegros capital city.The project backed by Montenegros Ministry of Spatial Planning, Urbanism and State Property aims to deliver a highly functional new complex which complements its surroundings.Competition site: Podgorica athletics stadium, MontenegroThe contest comes five months after Milan-based studio A-FACT won a major international contest for a new Museum of Contemporary Art complex in Podgorica.According to the brief: The competition objective is to select the highest quality of conceptual architectural design for the athletics stadium in Podgorica, which will, above all, meet the prescribed conditions and achieve maximum alignment with all aspects specified in the competition brief.Additionally, participants are expected to propose a modern solution for the facility, which, through its representativeness in terms of form and materialization, will contribute to enhancing the aesthetic values of both the immediate and broader urban core.Podgorica formerly named Titograd after the Yugoslavian communist statesman Josip Broz Tito is the capital and largest city of Montenegro. It is located at the confluence of the Ribnica and Moraa rivers and was heavily reconstructed following significant destruction during the Second World War.The latest competition comes three years after Podgorica launched an open international contest to upgrade Golootokih rtava Square. In 2020, the city launched a separate competition to transform the banks of the River Moraa into a new safe, comfortable and sustainable recreational zone with better connections to the surrounding historic city.Competition site: Podgorica athletics stadium, MontenegroJudges will include Branislav Gregovi, architect at local firm Studio LXXVI; Davide Marazzi, architect and founder of Studio Marazzi Architetti in Parma, Italy; Ema Alihodi Jaarovi, architect and assistant professor at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Montenegro; and Milan Madgalj, secretary general of the Athletic Federation of Montenegro.The overall winner to be announced on 25 December will receive a 25,000 top prize while a second prize of 15,000, third prize of 8,000 and three honourable mentions worth 3,000 each will also be awarded.How to applyDeadline: 15 December 2024Competition funding source: Not suppliedProject funding source: Not suppliedOwner of site(s): Not suppliedContact details: info@architecturalcompetitions.meVisit the competition website for more information

When used for insulation and nonstructural walling, this promising material offers a lowcarbon alternative to concreteHempcrete is a cultural matter. Theentanglement of design opportunities and social prejudices is manifest in the wayhemp is cultivated and how the crops are regulated, how the material is made andused in architecture, and even in its name. Yet this has not stopped a growing section ofarchitects from embracing the versatile lowcarbon material in their retrofitting andconstruction projects.Hempcrete is a relatively young material; it has only been around since the late 1980s and is made from a mixture of hemp shiv, lime and water. The name evokes concrete, of course. Their mixing techniques and components are quite similar: hempcrete can be projected onto a surface, poured in formwork or cast in block shapes, either onsite or prefabricated and delivered ready to be used. But the resemblance stops here. The first crucial difference isthat hempcrete is not loadbearing, socannot be used structurally. Another difference is the outstanding ecological credentials of hempcrete compared to concrete. The suffix crete does not meananything on its own; hempcrete wasfirstdeveloped in France and called chauxchanvre and bton de chanvre, whichtranslate respectively aslimehemp andhemp concrete. The -creteseems to havebeen a way to add seriousness and robustness to a material that is not only young and biobased, but made from aplant commonly associated with recreational drug use. The plant remains criminalised in the UK, explains architect Paloma Gormley ofMaterial Cultures, where you also need alicence from the Home Office to grow it.In the first few minutes of the interview, Gormley whose practice has designed a number of hempcrete buildings in the UK, including Flat House in Cambridgeshire in 2020 and Block House in Somerset in 2021, and is currently working on a largerscale housing complex of 72 units in Lewes, Sussex lists the qualities of hempcrete. Ithas excellent thermal properties, she explains, keeping interiors warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and its porosity allows the building to breathe byregulating humidity. Hempcrete is alsoverylightweight, and therefore easytomanipulate, in its brick form, onaconstruction site. While research onhempcrete is still in development, currentstudies suggest it is also a great fireretardant and resistant to pests.The magic of hempcrete starts in the field, with soil and sun. Cannabis sativa isa crop that grows quickly and easily onavariety ofgrounds, in a diversity of climates, without pesticides and with an impressive capacity to lock up carbon; some research suggests it is twice as effective as trees insequestering CO2. Bylaw, the cultivars thatare grown in Europe have low levelsofthe psychoactive component tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which differentiates hemp from cannabis. Hemp,on the other hand, has high levels ofcannabidiol (CBD), now legal in both theEU and the UK. The whole of hemp down to its dust can also be exploited foragroindustrial uses, including animal bedding as well as the production of ropes, insulants, varnishes, fabrics and highend mattresses. Yet due to its association with drugs and crime, it retains a bad reputation and is the target of sustained efforts by public authorities to prevent its growth despite having been legalised in 1993 in the UK and 2018 in the US, after it had become illegal in the 1920s and 1930s.The required thickness ofhempcrete changes the economy of a project in dense urban settingsThe situation is different in the rest ofEurope; France, inparticular, is the largest hempgrowing industry in the EU, and second largest in the world after China. Ontop of the traditional cultivation of hemp, farmers in France can now legally sellCBD products (flowers, resins, oils, capsules, etc), increasing the range of goods that can be produced from the plant and including those that are more profitable; theculture of CBD products has even been nicknamed green gold.It seems logical that architectsin France and nearby Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg have been responsive to the outputs of a mature supply chain connected to the cultivation of hemp. The past 20 years have witnessed a constantly growing list ofincreasingly ambitious projects that rely onhempcrete for insulation and walling. Paris-based architecture practice Barrault Pressacco encountered the promising material a decade ago on their maiden construction project, a private house in GonnevillesurMer, Normandy. The client wanted a lowcarbon home thatwould leavelittle imprint on the field it would bebuilt on, and the engineers that Barrault Pressacco partnered with on the design (LMIngnieur) suggested hemp.Since then, even though their most recentprojects have had different scales andcontexts, they have kept pushing for theuse of hempcrete, including in two sevenstorey social housing buildings in Paris (AR November 2022): one is paired with a concrete structure, and the other with the iconic Parisian Lutetian limestone. The practice is about to release Wallness, abook dedicated to their own experience with hempcrete and research they have conducted into the material. Touse hempcrete in a project, explains Thibaut Barrault, means working on acoherent network of design choices triggered by thematerial that will impact the buildings construction and its life. CyrilPressacco adds: It is not about living behind the insulation any more; it is about living withinit.The housing block at 18 Rue de la Huchette in Paris was renovated and extended byDumont Legrand Architectes with LM IngnieurCredit: Dumont Legrand Architectes and LM IngnieurThis enigmatic sentence is key to analysing the role of hempcrete in architecture on three different levels: sensory, social and economic. All the architects interviewed for this article agreethat entering a room made with hempcrete walls is a peculiar experience. Gormley describes the fresh earthy smell that only fades away a year after completion, once thehempcreteiscompletely dry, but also itsability toregulate moisture and soften acoustics. Indeed, when left bare, theirregular surface of hempcrete makes forapowerful sonic insulant. Pressacco describes buildings made with hempcrete as architecture for the blind, because spatiality is defined by other senses than sight, relying on light. Ona social and economic level, hempcrete isan insulant that needs to be lived in alsobecause itdemands more thickness thanother nonbiogenic mainstream insulating materials: between 300 and 400mm forhempcrete, where 80140mm of polyurethane would deliver roughly equivalent insulation. The impact on the design is logically significant, specifically onthe surface area. While this might notmatter so much for a singlestorey detached country house, it changes the economy of a project in dense urban settings, with more constrained budgets andspace.Lime is also a stain on the green credentials of hempcrete, because it is produced from limestone, a rock mainly composed of calcium carbonate, that goes through a process of calcination. Limestone is heated at a temperature close to 900C, and for a long time; on top of the fuel necessary for the calcination, limestone also releases its sequestered carbon, leading to additional carbon emissions. Emile Deroose of BC Architects & Studies,who have used hempcrete in the transformation of an early 20thcentury former gendarmerie barracks in Brussels, agrees the amount of lime should be limited as much as possible. But, as of today, it is an essential part of the mix. The lime enables vapour transport, protects the hemp shives from rotting, and ensures the mix remains light and retains its insulating characteristics. You could mixwith clay, heexplains, but then theproperties would change drastically. Deroose also adds thatdespite the carbonintensive lime, theimpressive capacity of hemp shives tostoreCO2 still means hempcrete is a carbonnegative material more CO2 is absorbed than released in the atmosphere when it is produced and used.Despite all its qualities, hempcrete isfarfrom having reached mainstream status,even in France and Belgium, where itis slowly becoming more common. The construction industry is very efficient so longas you stay within the current industry standard from architects to engineers to contractors, explains Gormley. We are all trained to deliver buildings in concrete, steeland brick, and there is a lot of builtin resistance to any kind of change. The supply chain is not so much the issue, it is the demand: in the absence of regulation ittakes a lot of effort. All the architects interviewed for this piece expressed that themain hurdleis cultural: a reluctance tochange, todo things differently. As oftenwhen discussing the challenges and opportunities of architecture in addressing climate change, the solutions to human beings selfimposed ecological predicament are right here; they are cheap, beautiful, performing, at the ready, and can be scaled up quickly. When the material, knowledge, tools, builders and designers exist, all that is needed is the will to change.Lead image:France has the second largest hemp-growing industry in the world, and La Chanvrire de lAube is its biggest mill. Credit:Giaime MeloniLa Huchette housing inParis, France, byDumont Legrand ArchitectesOccupying the corner ofRue de la Huchette in the fifth arrondissement of Paris, this project includes the restoration of an existing building which accommodates 10 studio flats and itsextension onto Rue Xavier Privas, where the circulation is inserted.The original structure is from the 18th century; itswalls were built with rubble masonry, which gives them high thermal inertia and permeability moisture transfer has been key to the buildings longevity and thermal comfort. The architects worked with LM Ingnieur toinsulate walls with hemp. Hempcrete is sprayed inside, while the lime-hemp plaster, which reduces thermal bridging, is applied onto the facade with a trowel. The fibrereinforced concrete used for the new volume takes its hue from surrounding plasters.With offices in both Paris and Bordeaux, Dumont Legrand Architectes have used hempcrete in a few residential projects to date including private homes and social housing. They are currently finishing a large-scale development in Biganos, where hemp is mixed with raw earth.Credit: Cyrille WeinerCredit: Dumont Legrand Architectes and LM IngneurCredit: Cyrille WeinerBlock House inSomerset, UK, byMaterial CulturesSituated in the grounds ofaSomerset estate, Block House was built solely from plant and limebased materials. Thesmall retreat, which has a floor area of 90m2, replaced an existing hermitage that had been destroyed by a fallen tree. The new dwelling is located just north of the former building, and its timber structure spans between two simple flint trench foundations both of these design decisions seek to have minimal impact on the surrounding trees. Wood-fibre insulation is supplemented with prefabricated hempcrete blocks, sourced in Buckinghamshire, which provide the structure with thermal mass, helping to maintain a stable internal temperature. Hempcrete blocks were used instead of hempcrete applied insitu to avoid having towaitfor the lime in thehempcrete to cure.The blocks are exposed internally and finished with claybased paint. Externally, the structure is clad with locally sourced larch, complementing the steeply pitched roof of cedar shingles. On the buildings two long sides, the roof extends above a verandah, held aloft byoak columns.Credit: Felix KochCredit: Isabelle YoungCredit: Isabelle YoungUsquare Feder inBrussels, Belgium, byBC Architects & Studies and EVR ArchitectenA former gendarmerie barracks in the Ixelles district of Brussels has been transformed into amixeduse building, primarily for the use of staff and students of the the Universit Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). The first phase ofthe project involved thereconfiguration andrestoration of six buildings. As well as reusing the existing structures, materials salvaged from neighbouring buildings, such as bricks and glazing, have been reused in the project. New materials are biobased, including clay plasters and hempcrete. As part of the project, two workshops were held onsite in June 2023 tointroduce participants to hempcrete construction the mixing of hempcrete, creating formwork, compressing hempcrete and removing formwork. The workshop contributed to the construction of hempcrete walls enclosing a seminar room.The project continues BC Architects & Studies explorations in hempcrete; the studio ran a twoweek workshop in 2017 to create the public pavilion FORT V, covering the compressed earth block structure in hempcrete.Credit: BC Architects & StudiesCredit: Farah Fervel2024-10-25Justinien TribillonShare AR October 2024Buy Now

MAIOs social housing scheme in the suburbs of Barcelona walks a tightrope between budgetary restraint and environmental responsibilityOn approaching MAIOs new social housing scheme in the Barcelona suburb of Sant Feliu de Llobregat on a hot day, it seems as if Christo and JeanneClaude have given the entire fivestorey structure their trademark fabric wrap treatment. But what you see is in factthe lightweight metal exoskeleton that supports heavy textile curtains made from the standard PVCbacked canvas material used for most awnings in Spain. With little maintenance required and a long lifespan, these curtains are one of the lowcost strategies that the architects have employed to control solar heat gain within the building. The 40 housing units in this scheme have an average floor area of 65m2 and mean monthly rental cost of 550, amounting toapproximately 8.40/m2. This stands in starkcontrast tothe 16.20/m2 listed by Barcelonas city councilas the standard price for a rentalunit in the second half of2023.Like the rest of Spain, and many other parts of the world, Barcelona suffers from anacute housing crisis. Its roots lie largely in the neoliberal politics of the late 1990s, which ushered in a wave of deregulation andprivatisation that, in turn, resulted in aconstruction boom led mostly by private developers. In 2006, at the peak of the real estate bubble, there was no discussion at allabout housing, Ada Colau, Barcelonas mayor between 2015 and 2024, noted in 2013. It was not a main topic in politics nor in the mass media. After the crash of 2008 and its terrible effect on many peoples finances, groups such as Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (Platform for People Affected by Mortgages, or PAH) ofwhich Colau was one of the founders started campaigns to stop foreclosures and evictions, and even broughtabout changes inthe legal framework. One such change occurred inJuly 2018, when thecity council approved a new law that required any residential development of more than 600m2 to allocate 30 per cent ofthe surface area to social housing.In this context, Barcelonas long tradition of holding architectural competitions to develop public housing was rekindled in thelate 2010s. Today, the construction ofsocial housing is widely promoted by adiverse set of institutions operating atregional, metropolitan and municipal levels.The Institut Metropolit de Promoci de Sl i Gesti Patrimonial (Metropolitan Institute ofLand Development and Property Management, orIMPSOL) is one such publicbody to organise social housing competitions in Barcelonas metropolitan area, including that for the Sant Feliu de Llobregat scheme.However, IMPSOL and the other agencies continue to operate under restrictive regulations and low construction budgets, sometimes making it difficult to experiment with new materials and typologies. Most social housing in Barcelona is made from concrete. There are a few exceptions: Lacols cooperative housing scheme, La Borda (ARJuly/August 2019), was Spains tallest building to be built entirely from timber at the time of its completion in2018; a year later, the first building as part of thecitys programme Allotjaments de Proximitat Provisionals (Close Proximity Temporary Housing Programme, or APROP) used recycled shipping containers. But these are exceptions rather than the rule economies of scale mean that concrete is still the most affordable construction material available toarchitects, its environmental harms notwithstanding. MAIOs new housing block, which uses concrete sparingly for thestructural frame and floor slabs, and terracotta blocks for the facade, managed afinal construction cost of 950/m2, in contrast to the 2022 national average of1,700m.The use of concrete for the slabs is advantageous when used properly. Anna Puigjaner, cofounder of MAIO, explains that during the winter the buildings large windows allow the floor slabs which have ahigh thermal mass and are only covered byterrazzo floor to capture heat from the sun due to the angle of incidence at this latitude. This heat radiates at night to warm up the interior spaces. On hot summer days, on the other hand, the buildings internal courtyard creates a wind tunnel that is designed to channel the prevailing winds during the afternoon the worst time of dayin terms of high temperatures. This captures the wind from the sea, directing itinto the courtyard, and distributing it across the housing block. The facade is built using local terracotta block, a humble building material with a long tradition in Barcelona, and is clad with an external thermal insulation system called WallTerm, which provides a significant reduction in energy consumption for heating and air conditioning. Alongside the curtains, these passive systems help dramatically reduce energy consumption throughout the year.Social housing in Barcelona is maintained by the agency in charge in this case IMPSOL. Representatives from IMPSOL arein constant touch with the residents, who also have a responsibility to care forthebuilding and alert the agency ifanything needs specific attention. This maintenance model demands that residents are active participants in the care of their building they need to understand how andwhen to use the outdoor textiles, atwhich times of day to open and close windows to make the most of the wind tunnel, and so on. This active engagement isaimed at making residents feel more incontrol of their quality of life.Measures have also been taken internally to give residents agency and a maximum amount of space. Puigjaner explains that the primary constraint that MAIO worked under was to fit as many units as possible into the building, resulting in a relatively compact structure. One way of carving backa little space for residents was to make the interior partitions from plasterboard, because it is thin and will still have the desired insulation properties. At a width of 70mm, compared with the 100-150mm of a standard terracotta block, the space created may notseem like much, but itadds up to an increased and very valuable usable surface area for each unit. Similarly, although thedesign team wished to incorporate continuous balconies on the entire block, connecting all the residents, this was not allowed under current building regulations instead, the balconies use the maximum space allowed, which is 50 per cent of thefacade.The strict budgetary and regulatory framework that comes with building social housing can make it seem that architects have little agency or autonomy in the design and material choices when building within this typology. But MAIO, in addition to designing a lowcost building, have managed to infuse it with their philosophy of nonhierarchical design. Born out of a deep interest in the ways that the normative nuclear family a married heterosexual couple with their own biological children has changed over time, and in many instances been replaced by other forms ofkinship and communality, this philosophy renders all rooms the same or a similar size, and therefore importance, in an architecture that is meant to evolve and adapt rather than stay fixed. The nonhierarchy of the social housing scheme in Sant Feliu de Llobregat is a direct architectural response to this idea. It is an inclusive design that departs from traditional housing plans, which create spaces for specific and prescribed uses. The architects, as well asthe agency that commissioned it, should becommended for experimenting with this engrained typology2024-10-21Ethel Baraona PohlShare AR October 2024Buy Now

An international contest is held to reimagine the future of the runway at Torontos disused Downsview Airport (Deadline: 22 November)The two-stage contest seeks proposal to transform the 2km-long airstrip into a new centrepiece for a planned future 150ha mixed-use neighbourhood dubbed YZD and set to be constructed on the site of the historic airport which closed for redevelopment earlier this year.The Runway at YZD competition invites cross-disciplinary design teams led by a landscape architect to holistic develop design guidelines for the runway which is earmarked to become a new pedestrian spine and public amenity for the surrounding development.The two-stage contest seeks proposal to transform the 2km-long airstrip into a new centrepiece for a planned future 150ha mixed-use neighbourhoodAccording to the contest announcement: The Runway at YZD is envisioned as an unparalleled outdoor experience a continuous, pedestrian-focused and publicly-accessible corridor that will become a destination, attracting people from across the globe to experience its creative public spaces and wide range of programming.Not only will the former airstrip connect the seven complete communities at YZD, but it will also be animated by community uses, public amenities, and recreation opportunities for the 55,000 residents and 23,000 workers that will eventually live and work at the site, plus many more who will visit it every year.Toronto is the most populous city in Canada with a population of 2.7 million residents. It is currently the sixth most expensive city for housing in the world and has the highest rate of homelessness of any Canadian settlement.The latest contest comes shortly after WilkinsonEyre won an international design competition for a new bridge in Toronto. The City of Toronto named Rotterdams West 8 as the winner of its international competition for a new downtown 2,600m public park in January.Planned to be developed over the next three decades the 150ha YZD project will create seven new mixed-use neighbourhoods on the site of the decommissioned Downsview Airport in the centre of Toronto.Planned to be developed over the next three decades the 150ha YZD project will create seven new mixed-use neighbourhoods on the site of the decommissioned Downsview Airport in the centre of TorontoThe latest contest focusses on creating a new pedestrian amenity on a former runway at the centre of the airport which was home to a test airstrip, a military base, and aerospace manufacturing facilities before being sold for redevelopment in 2018 and eventually closing earlier this year.Judges will include the urban designer, city-building advocate, and author Ken Greenberg alongside other yet-to-be-announced design, development and placemaking experts.Following an open call for expressions of interested, shortlisted teams will be invited to participate in a requests for proposals round. An overall winner for the commission to create design guidelines for the runway will be announced in the summer of 2025.How to applyDeadline: 22 NovemberCompetition funding source: Northcrest DevelopmentsProject funding source: Northcrest DevelopmentsOwner of site(s): PSP InvestmentsVisit the competition website for more information

The US Department of Energys new definition of a zero emissions building is pure doublethinkIn June this year, the US Department of Energyreleased a National Definition of a ZeroEmissions Building in an effort, it claims, to help decarbonise the building sector. ADepartment of Energy certainly seems like thesort of agency that should know exactly the amount of, well, energy, it takes to construct a building, and the associated emissions. Yet the definition revolves around operational energy use that is, a building can be zero emissions ifit burns no fossil fuels on-site and uses clean energy during its life.This is the latest example among many disappointing institutional definitions of net zero and zero emissions. The Greater London Assemblys vaunted 2030 net zero pledge, for example, admits that embodied emissions in goods, services, or construction projects are notincluded in [its] analysis while recognising, inthe same breath, that actions to address these emissions must be considered as part of wider climate change mitigation strategies. These definitions seem almost designed to maintain astate of Orwellian doublethink, allowing us tosit happily in our steel, glass and concrete buildings, assured of their environmental impeccability because they have a few solar panelsand an air source heat pump.The construction industry struggles to come toterms with embodied carbon as a concept. Theidea that organisations and individuals, while not burning coal themselves, should still assume responsibility for the emissions that result from making the materials they specify isunappealing. According to the Chatham House think tank, the cement industry alone accounts for around 8 per cent ofglobal emissions. Insome ways,embodied carbon is more criticalthan operational energy use, because itisproduced when the building isbuilt rather than over its lifespan. These emissions damage the climate here and now rather than at an abstract point in the future.When challenged, designers and developers have a few stock explanations for their inability to depart from the status quo. It is frequently claimed that timber is too expensive to insure; the building insurance industry is spooked by theprospect of rot and fire associated with this new and innovative construction material. But bizarrely, no one worries about the abundance of crumbling concrete buildings and infrastructure that has barely survived half a century. Neither does the fact that many of the worlds towns and cities are full of centuries-old wooden housing seem to persuade this industry of the materials durability. Do insurers realise that their actuarial decisions are a major impediment to moving to a replenishable construction material?Insome ways,embodied carbon is more criticalthan operational energy use, because itisproduced when the building isbuilt rather than over its lifespanIt is also often said that low-carbon alternatives are too expensive. This is a central paradox in the sustainability debate; building sustainably should mean using less material and less energy. To produce concrete, for example, limestone with a compressive strength of 60N/mm2 to 150N/mm2 is crushed and burned in a rotary furnace to create cement. It is then mixed withsand (which is nowincreasingly scarce), freshwater and more crushed stone in a batching plant. Often afleet oflorries with revolving tanks then deliver thisproduct to site, where it is poured into hugestructures erected as moulds and filled withreinforcing steel. The resulting material willhave a strength of 40N/mm2. Why are these processes lower cost than the simpler, shorter and often more local processes of using the limestone in its natural form?The OECD reports that manufacturing and energy subsidies are hard to pin down, but suggests that aluminium and cement are the highest subsidy recipients globally, with steel ateighth place. But fossil fuel and industrial subsidies do not explain the cost gap. It seems more likely that the volume of timber and stone construction is still too low to breed an industry of mature efficiency to rival the mass production of high-carbon materials.In response to benchmarking by organisations such as the RIBA or the Green Building Council, designers are starting to measure embodied carbon. It is hoped that when this practice becomes more common and standardised it willopen the door to regulatory limits that may make it far less easy to build with steel, concrete and brick, all while calling it zero emissions. Fiscal measures such as carbon credits and the EUs carbon border tax should push up the relative cost of high-carbon materials and make it more economical to use low-carbon ones instead. This could in turn promote industrial interest in low-carbon materials.Despite these optimistic possibilities, the outlook is still gloomy. The pushback from the industry and well-oiled lobbying organisations is, and will continue to be, significant and effective. The US Department of Energys misleading zero emissions building definition suggests that the lobbies have the ear of the government of the worlds biggest economy. Despite the brave efforts of a few designers and developers around the world, the broader construction sector is very slow to adopt the kind of radical change tobuilding practices that the climate crisis demands. It seems it is unlikely to be forced todo so especially if governing bodies cannot get the fundamental definitions right.Lead image:Limestone, seen below quarried in the UKs Peak District, has a compressive strength of60N/mm2 to150N/mm2. It is transformed into cement by being crushed and burned, thenmixed with aggregate to make concrete a weaker building material at40N/mm2. The process is carbon intensive at every stage, but such embodied carbon emissions are rarely accounted for in official definitions of net zero or zero emissions buildings. Credit:Paul White / Alamy2024-10-23Kristina RapackiShare AR October 2024Buy Now