Between Housing Demand and Environmental Goals: Alejandro Aravena on Incremental Solutions and Net-Zero ConcreteSave this picture!USB Basic Services Unit Prototype installed in Venice. Image © celestiastudioDuring the Time Space Existence exhibition, organized by the European Cultural Centre in Venice, Pritzker Prize-winning architect Alejandro Aravena and his firm ELEMENTAL unveiled a full-scale prototype for a new approach in incremental housing solutions. Titled the USB Core, standing for Basic Services Unit housing prototype, this proposal aims to demonstrate how efficient construction can provide all the essential housing components in a minimal space. The prototype is also the result of a collaboration between the architecture office and concrete manufacturer and researcher Holcim, and is built out of a newly developed type of net-zero concrete mix. It also incorporates fully recycled aggregates, in alignment with circular economy principles. The collaboration aims to demonstrate a more environmentally conscious yet cost-effective way of providing essential services to at-risk communities without harming the planet.While on site in Venice, ArchDaily's managing editor Maria-Cristina Florian had the chance to sit down with Alejandro Aravena and discuss the implications of this collaboration, the urgent need for housing, and the role of the architect as the coordinator of a process involving many actors. Save this picture!A key innovation of the project is the new formulation of concrete that significantly reduces carbon emissions by integrating in its composition "biochar," a charcoal-like material that permanently sequesters the CO2 that would otherwise be released at the end of the life of organic matter. One kilogram of biochar is calculated to prevent the release of 3 kilograms of CO2, making it a carbon sink, meaning it has a negative carbon footprint. Integrating it within a low-carbon formulation of concrete reduces the overall footprint without compromising performance. With an average transportation distance of 300 km for cement and 100 km for aggregates, the resulting biochar concrete mix has a net-zero carbon footprint, according to Holcim's Life Cycle Assessment. Additionally, this innovation complements other sustainable strategies like recycling of aggregates from demolition waste, a process that prevents the use of virgin natural resources and ensures a circular building process. The prototype in Venice used the Biochar mix in addition to 100% recycled aggregates. Related Article Alejandro Aravena’s Elemental and Holcim Collaborate on Carbon-Neutral Housing at the 2025 Venice Biennale Save this picture!ArchDaily [Maria-Cristina Florian]: One of the main questions that drove this project is an almost Shakespearean one: "To build or not to build?" It represents two contradicting forces of the building industry: on the one hand, the need for housing, on the other, the need to protect the environment. How can those two forces be made to point in a similar direction?Alejandro Aravena: Now is a time when we are witnessing this Catch-22 situation: the pressure is to accommodate people in a decent living environment. In the conditions of the migration towards cities, migration between countries, if you don't offer a proper solution, then the living conditions worsen. It's not that people will stop coming; they're coming to cities and migrating anyhow, but they are living in awful conditions. This is not just a humanitarian disaster, it creates the perfect conditions for Narcos, organized crime criminality, and too many people who have nothing to lose. It leads to a social and political crisis. So, from a multidimensional point of view, there is a huge and urgent need to build a proper, decent living environment.Save this picture!The materials that we have available nowadays to produce this huge scale are limited, and when I'm saying huge scale, we're talking about a million people per week migrating into cities who, if not accommodated properly, will live in slums. On average, we have to provide solutions with just $10,000 per family. We call it the 3-S menace: Scale, Speed, and Scarcity of means. If we don't build, people will come anyhow and create this social ticking time bomb. We don't know how to solve that, but imagine we create enough knowledge and that governments align to create policies so that we can build for that amount of people, with the current building materials, taking into consideration the consequences on the environment and the planet. If you don't do anything, you have a problem. And if you do something, you have a problem. Until now, it was one or the other, and one had to choose. When you live in a developing country, you choose people over the environment. If not, people who can build by themselves will build, using the same materials, so the carbon footprint is still there. - Alejandro Aravena Therefore, the moment we heard that there was some scientific research being done and knowledge was being developed in the concrete industry, one of the industries that has the largest presence in the built environment, there was excitement. People want to build resilient homes, so as soon as they can, they will go for something solid. Concrete is at the top of those expectations. With this innovation, there is a material that can potentially dissolve this Catch-22 situation, that can capture carbon and sink it into the material so that when you build, you're doing something good for the environment, not just reducing harm. We see this as a potential chance to finally be able to move ahead, not having to choose between one or the other. That's why we said, let's partner with somebody that has the research and development capacity to advance this.Save this picture!The only thing we did here was ask What is most needed? What is the kind of project that, if this works, may have an impact on the social dimension but also on the environmental dimension? That is why we went to this Core of Basic Services (in Spanish, USB stands for the Basic Services Unit). In the end, this is where every settlement starts and it is what takes care of the basic needs of the population: health to start with, the fire resistance, seismic resistance, and then maybe we'll be able to channel the people's own capacity to be part of the solution, not of the problem of the built environment.Save this picture!AD: Could you elaborate on this idea that poor communities have this under-appreciated capacity to build, but often do so in a dysregulated manner, making them vulnerable? Additionally, how does your incremental process, which you have been promoting for years, address this issue?AA: Whatever you picture when you think of a slum, it's a very dense, overcrowded environment of a poor quality, unarticulated roofs and walls, and shacks. Of course, one could see that it is a problem; there are health issues, basic sanitation is not there, one could see this as an incapacity to create a decent built environment.Save this picture! From another point of view, it could be seen that, despite not having any type of aid, technical support, or scientific knowledge, people are intuitively able to put a roof on top of their heads. And this is a big force. - Alejandro Aravena In a country like Chile, the two rounds of class census showed that 2/3 of the square meters built in Chile do not have a building permit. The formal thing that we've studied in the universities, or the presumption that the government is part of the building program, that's an exception. The majority is in this other case. Therefore, unless we look at this situation as part of the solution, instead of part of the problem, we will never arrive at creating those conditions needed to address the need for a decent building environment.Save this picture!So, what is missing there? When you look at the slum picture, what is needed is not more construction, it is in what is not built. If you think of any city, like Copenhagen or even Manhattan, places we associate with a good quality of life, the ratio between public and private space is close to 1 to 1. When you go to a slum, that proportion drops to less than 1 to 10, so for every square meter of non-built land, there are 10 square meters of private space. What does it mean? An ambulance cannot enter, a fire truck cannot enter, people just circulate, but they have no place to gather. Where do children play in such an environment? In this context, what is extremely important, more than adding more square meters, is who coordinates what's not going to be built. Because that is a big force that you can channel. Instead of resisting or replacing, our job is first and foremost to create the conditions for the common ground, for the common space not to be occupied by individual actions. Individual actions, even if well-intentioned, cannot guarantee the common good. We have been systematically understanding that our role as a designer, is not being the provider, but the channel for a much bigger force that could be part of the solution or not part of the problem. Save this picture!AD: Continuing on this point, what is the role of the architect? Should they learn to let go of some of the control that they've been taught to hold? AA: The architect has to understand that, for the big challenges, what we have to deliver is a process and not a product. Control is guaranteeing quality in the end, so we have to be responsible from the beginning to the very end, but in most cases, your job stops when the building is finished. In housing or in disaster relief, because it is a much bigger challenge, the day you finish, it only starts, and then the big forces take over.Save this picture!You must understand the logic behind these big forces. You place your designs as frames that will make people's lives easier, not more complicated. Then, in this framework, the individual actions can guarantee the common good, so the role of the architect is to protect and enable this spontaneous care for the common good. You cannot just cross your fingers and hope that people will not invade the street.Geometry and clarity of shape have been studied from the 60s and the 70s. In Chile in the 70s, we had what was called "Operation Chalk", meaning that we used chalk to mark on the ground what was private land and what was a public space. This allowed for the rules of the game to be clear for the collective, so in the end, this apparently marginal operation made a big difference. The Law of Indies in the whole of Latin America was similar, setting a simple geometrical rule, yet the cities that had the capacity to develop came from these very basic shapes. In Spanish, they had what was called "alarife", somebody who traced on the ground, on the land, showing who's going to have what, what is going to be public, what we can't provide. This apparently offensive move is at the very core of a process that later allows for a loss of control.Save this picture!We want to just introduce a couple of things, like a structure that is solid, that is fire resistant, that provides basic sanitation, water, sewage, and electricity, cross ventilation for the worst case scenario. This way, when families arrive, they don't have to perform complicated and difficult structural operations.  Every dollar that they spend is just on things that are relatively easy for them to achieve, or that are closer to their personal identity or taste, like the color, finishes, or furniture, because all the complicated technical operations have been taken care of by the professionals involved.AD: Can you expand on what is the concept behind the USB Core, and how is this different from the other incremental housing strategies you have been developing? AA: Normally, by the Chilean housing policy, you have to deliver basic sanitation, a bathroom, a kitchen, and partition walls that are fire-resistant and seismic-resistant. For this proposal, we decided to do it in 2 floors because it achieves more density in the future.Save this picture! By being able to accommodate the square meters that the policy requires in two floors, we have more chances to have denser projects, therefore being able to spend more for expensive land, and because of that, have a better location in the city, which leads to a better integration into the network of opportunities and services that cities concentrate, instead of being expelled in a low density, far-away periphery, segregated from those opportunities. A certain density is needed in low-rise to be able to be well located in the city. Because of the policy, in addition to sanitation, we need to provide at least two rooms. That requires more resources and more time. When you're under pressure, let's say you're in a disaster situation, where you have to build as fast as possible, if you receive a shelter like a tent or other emergency intervention, that tends not to have this basic sanitation core. Rooms are relatively easy to add later on. To have a kitchen and a bathroom, and a partition wall it's rather difficult to build properly by a family. What we have been exploring is how, in case there is an emergency, we can compress and be more radical in what we are offering. The aim is to have more efficient resources, which are always scarce in the public sector, and to reach more families instead of providing more complete solutions, but only to a few. In this last case, in the meantime, the others cannot wait. They will produce their own built environment, but in very bad conditions.Save this picture!Save this picture!This is why we are compressing. Some of the housing we conceived at ELEMENTAL did start like that, but then the policy required us to add more rooms, so we did that. The USB core is just the more radical version because, in between the units, we would like not to have anything at the beginning, but become a big part of what the families, or other sources of financing, bring. This is the most radical version also because of the material that has a net-zero carbon footprint. This is something that was not available before.Save this picture!For the prototype here in Venice, when we started working with the site, we received this requirement of maximum weight per square meter. Previous solutions would have been too heavy for the place, so we were required to take out weight. The effort of taking out matter without losing resistance led us to think beyond the shape of a circular hole, to many other shapes. We took this as an opportunity to address one of the pending issues we had: how can we engage emotionally with the families, so that when they receive something, they feel there is a more careful treatment, the notion of beauty. Somehow, when you're dealing with the strict conditions, it tends to be that aesthetics are the first to be sacrificed. Given that we now have building systems that were not available 10 years ago, like robots doing the form work, the way to extract matters gives us a degree of freedom while maintaining the same resistance. What about the pattern? Can we make a workshop with the families? Maybe it could change from one to the next one.Save this picture! This process of customization introduces some level of detail, which is something that people prefer. Take a look at Venice: more lines somehow are more appealing. They're interpreted as more care, instead of a blank wall. I think that in this case, we are making a more radical solution in terms of public policy, but at the same time, a more careful solution in terms of the emotionally involved potential outcome of this equation that has many dimensions that have to be solved at the same time. Save this picture!AD: In this equation, the choice of material is also important, and concrete seems to be the preferred option, especially for these conditions. Why is that? Why is concrete specifically essential? AA: Before going into concrete, let's imagine the sum of attributes that you need to fulfill, and then, if there is more than one material, we would consider it. It has to be durable: if you're going to spend resources, make sure that the results will last. There's something that is atomic in human behavior that doesn't appreciate temporary solutions; something that holds and persists through the test of time is very important. If you are benefiting from a public policy, you are not getting funding for things that do not last. In a country that has to choose between education, hospitals, infrastructure, or housing, it wants to make sure that the result will have a quality that is certified and that it will be physically there in the next couple of decades.Save this picture! It has to be so resistant, it has to be durable, it has to be fireproof, it has to be seismic proof. Families have to feel that if they want to expand, they can touch the wall and understand that "Oh, I can't take it out because it's solid, I'd better not mess with the structure because my security and safety depend on that." Safety and security, and the feeling of safety, matter a lot. What other materials out there in the world would feel all that? There are not that many options. That is why, I think, concrete tends to end up being rather high in the list, not to mention costs, because the cost per performance is difficult to equal.Save this picture! The issue is how to improve the carbon footprint of this material that has so many other favorable attributes. The development of this new biochar concrete finally adds to this list. If you want to make it sustainable and good for the environment, you now have another option. But it's not these other attributes or the environment; it adds to the same list. This is something that we were interested in seeing how we can benefit from this, and at the same time, help to develop. AD: This opens up another topic, which is the wider collaborations across industries. How do you see these collaborations going forward? What is their role in the architectural profession? AA: By nature, architecture has to be collaborative. I mean, it's not just me as an architect waking up in the morning and having an incredible desire to build a building. If I were a sculptor, I could do that, but not as an architect. In the first place, somebody has to need the building, then funding will come from either the state or a private resource, and then, you don't build the things with your own hands. You have to understand that the building industry will provide workers with knowledge, with skills, and with procedures that have a sequence.Save this picture! You have to make sure that whatever you produce makes social sense and makes political sense. Therefore, by nature, architecture has historically been required to speak many languages, so that it can channel all that knowledge into what you are delivering as a solution. You are sitting around the table with many other professionals. Sometimes, the more complex the question, the greater the need for synthesis. If there's any power in design, that's the power of synthesis. You have to establish the priority, you have to establish a hierarchy. At the core of what we do as architects, we are trying to do projects, and a project is organized information in a proposal. It is not a diagnosis, it is not a report, it's always the negotiation having listened to all, the budget, the code, the need, the social pressure, it is the moment when somebody picks up the pen in the meeting and says, What if we do this?Save this picture!That jump into the void of making a proposal and taking the risk to do a proposal is the key. You may fail, somebody might find an issue, point out that this would fail here and there. You take this information and reiterate, but you have to take the risk of organizing the conversation around the proposal. If you have a conversation about the origin of the problem, the meeting never ends, and the energy is very negative. The moment you throw in a proposal, the energy in the room changes. By nature, this process has always been collaborative, but the specific role that we play as architects is to be able to organize all the information in a proposal. It is listening to many languages, but in the end, the language you speak is that of giving form to the places near where people live. That's what we do. It's not more complicated than that, but also not easier than that. Sometimes your role is to have control over the entire process, sometimes it is in recognizing that this is so much bigger than ourselves, so others take over: the social workers, the families themselves, the building industry. It changes from question to question, but in general, I would say that we understand we are required to speak different languages: that of economics, that of code, that of politics, and how to communicate with people. However, our ultimate way to engage in these non-architectural conversations is by doing what we know best, which is design. This is a non-architectural conversation we enter with specific knowledge of architecture. This is, I'd say, the dance between specific knowledge and non-specific questions. Save this picture!AD: Looking towards the future, what are the next steps for this concept? AA: An institution, in order to lend money to a country, may require that the country fulfill sustainability goals. We now have this new material that can respond if this becomes a condition. Normally, this would come from financing institutions that are interested in not just solving social problems but also environmental issues. If we can specify this new material as designers, it has a higher chance of checking more boxes at a political level. And if it checks more boxes, it is more likely to be replicated and repeated. It is about having one more tool in the toolbox that was not available before; it provides more goods and benefits at the same cost. The moment you can show a prototype or give an example, it demonstrates that it is possible. For us, it is desirable for this material and this solution to be multiplied as many times as possible.Save this picture!We invite you to check out ArchDaily's comprehensive coverage of the 2025 Venice Biennale. Image gallerySee allShow less About this author

The second, and final, part of an extensive look behind the scenes of the visual effects production for Lucasfilm’s pirate-themed Star Wars adventure series. By Clayton Sandell (Credit: ILM & Lucasfilm) The Observatory Moon Still searching for At Attin’s coordinates, Jod (Jude Law) and the kids land the Onyx Cinder on the Observatory Moon, seeking help from an alien, owl-like astronomer named Kh’ymm (voiced by Alia Shawkat). The group treks from the ship to the observatory, a striking sequence that includes visuals of the characters silhouetted against a night sky dominated by a nearby planet. The scenes were all captured in camera on the StageCraft volume, with the actors walking across a practically built dirt mound and the background displayed on the LED screens. “That was another one of our more successful volume shoots,” ILM visual effects supervisor Eddie Pasquarello says. “Perfect use of that, in my opinion.” The volume also helped create the illusion of the observatory center rotating within the outer walls. “That one was the most technically challenging,” says ILM virtual production supervisor Chris Balog. “We had to figure out multiple ways of tracking the camera to make sure that the wall was moving in conjunction with it. For some shots they had a circular dolly moving around the set. So we had to make sure that the wall was moving correctly too.” The volume was used in 1,565 shots in all, Balog says, and 900 of those shots were in-camera finals. Like Neel (Robert Timothy Smith), Kh’ymm was also realized using a combination of digital and practical techniques, depending on the scene. In some shots, a practical puppet created by Legacy Effects captured her performance entirely in camera. In other scenes, ILM collaborator Important Looking Pirates created a full computer graphics head composited on top of the puppeteered body or utilized a fully digital replica carefully animated to closely match the movements of the puppet. The episode concludes with the arrival of a pair of familiar New Republic ships summoned by Kh’ymm. “Of course, we see our first X-wings,” Pasquarello smiles. “That was right in our wheelhouse and fun for everyone to do.” (Credit: ILM & Lucasfilm) Can’t Say I Remember No At Attin The Onyx Cinder arrives at a world that initially looks a lot like At Attin but is actually the conflict-battered sister planet At Achrann, a place where children are trained as soldiers in a war between the Troik and Hattan clans. The kids hike through the decayed remains of a neighborhood and city that once looked like their own. Live-action scenes were shot with minimal sets against blue screen backgrounds and completed with extensive environments created by ILM partner DNEG, including dilapidated buildings and streets, a fully-digital armored assault tank, and a small herd of horned eopie creatures. The heroes are challenged by a Troik warlord named General Strix (Mathieu Kassovitz) to prove their strength in battle. In exchange, Strix’s daughter Hayna (Hala Finley) takes them to an abandoned tower that may have the coordinates they need to get home. Inside the tower – another set that utilized the StageCraft volume – SM-33 (voiced by Nick Frost) reveals that his previous captain ordered him to destroy the coordinates to At Attin. Fern attempts to override his memory, triggering a hostile response and transformation sequence that required significant digital work by ILM’s Sydney studio. “Whenever SM-33 goes into attack mode, he’s more CG versus the puppeteered, less-docile version of him,” Pasquarello explains. “When he has those armored plates on, or whenever he grows, that’s all CG.” The abandoned tower set utilized a mix of 3D elements and backgrounds in the volume along with practical columns, floor, and set dressing. “I thought it had a really amazing photographic feel to it,” says Balog. “Some of the biggest challenges are blending the volume with the real set. And that’s why the virtual art department is such a key factor, because they have to work hand-in-hand with the set department and the 3D content to make sure the textures on everything look the same.” “ILM had a really great content team led by [visual effects associate supervisor] Dan Lobl, creating content that is believable and looks real,” Balog says. “We’re not successful unless they’re successful.” The setting also provides subtle foreshadowing to events that unfold inside the At Attin Supervisor’s Tower in episode eight,” says Pasquarello. “The environment was unique and custom,” he explains. “There’s a deliberate tilt up to the ceiling, and you can see some cables hanging. Those are the remnants of their Supervisor, who’s been totally gutted and ripped out. I think it’ll be fun for people to watch the series again, and they’ll understand.” (Credit: ILM & Lucasfilm) Lanupa’s Luxury and Peril Next stop is a mountain on the planet Lanupa, the site of an old pirate lair that SM-33 believes contains At Attin’s coordinates. It’s also the site of a lavish hotel and spa occupied by high-end patrons, including a Hutt who swallows a Troglof mud bath attendant and a massive, tentacled creature called Cthallops, both achieved digitally with the help of Important Looking Pirates. Jod is captured by the pirate horde and sentenced to death. He’s allowed a few remaining minutes for a final appeal, measured by an hourglass filled with churning blue plasma. “It wasn’t a fully fleshed-out idea on set. We knew we needed an hourglass, and we would be doing it, but it was just kind of a fun adventure to figure out,” Pasquarello says. “We were trying to do some fun ideas with how the plasma would show the passage of time.” Successfully navigating a series of booby traps, the children, Jod, and SM-33 enter the subterranean treasure lair of pirate captain Tak Rennod, another set that relied heavily on the StageCraft volume. “They built the big skull throne that the pirate king sat on,” says Balog. “They had all the treasure in the room, four big columns, and the stairs and the rock when they walked in. Everything else in the cave was created with the volume.” After finally discovering At Attin’s secret, as well as its location, Jod betrays the children, who escape the lair by sliding down a series of tunnels to the base of the mountain. As Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers), Neel, Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), and KB (Kyriana Kratter) figure out how to get back to the Onyx Cinder, they encounter a cast of curious trash crabs. “They’re not droids,” explains Pasquarello. “They’re literally crabs with garbage on their backs. And that was a lot of work to make that understandable. They’re not synthetic. It’s one of those sequences that is very rich in detail, and there’s a lot going on.” While the baby crabs are digital, a massive mama crab was created as a detailed stop-motion puppet by Tippett Studio, the production company founded by original Star Wars animator and creature designer Phil Tippett. The beast’s jagged, rusty, junk-laden look prompted the Tippett crew to nickname it “Tet’niss.” (Credit: ILM & Lucasfilm) “We generally did the rough blocking of the shots at ILM first,” production visual effects supervisor John Knoll explains. “We figured out what the shots wanted to be, the pace, and how big the creature was going to be. Once we got all those layouts approved, it went to Tippett’s, including all the camera info so they could figure out where the camera was positioned relative to the set and the puppet.” A low-resolution, untextured 3D model of the mama crab also helped animators work out the creature’s speed and movement in advance of shooting on the stop-motion stage. “Since stop-motion is very labor intensive, you don’t want to have to go back and reshoot things,” Knoll says. “So we got approval on their preliminary animation, and then they would go in and do the detailed stop-motion. And that was a particularly complicated character because there are so many moving parts on it. Obviously, there are the eight legs, but then there are all kinds of little pieces on it that bounce and move when it starts to walk. I’m impressed that they were able to keep that all straight in their heads.” The mama crab puppet weighed in at about 15 pounds, requiring support from a mechanical harness that was digitally erased in post-production. (Credit: ILM & Lucasfilm) Onyx Cinder Metamorphosis The kids reach the Onyx Cinder just as an enormous scrapper barge closes in, threatening to pulverize the ship and ingest the remains into its fiery maw. “There’s sort of a tug-of-war between the ship and this garbage muncher,” Knoll explains. When the ship is snagged by one of the muncher’s claw-like arms, Fern decides their only hope for an escape is by triggering the emergency hull demolition sequencer. A series of rapid explosions ripple down the hull, causing the Onyx Cinder to shed its worn outer shell. A smaller, silver-colored version of the ship is freed and rises out of the debris. “Our code was the ‘ironclad’ and the ‘sleek ship,’” Pasquarello says of the two Onyx Cinder variants. “We went around a lot with the shedding of the hull. We didn’t want it to all blow off and just be conveniently revealed. It had to come off like a snake’s skin. “And the effects are just dialed up to 11,” continues Pasquarello, who hopes that fans notice a key storytelling detail of the ship’s metamorphosis. “One cool thing that I don’t think everybody knows is that when you transition between the ships, we don’t share all the same engines, but the engines that we do share between the ships change from a warm color to blue. “One of our challenges was that the sleek Onyx Cinder is a cleaner-burning ship,” Pasquarello says. “The whole conceit was that the engines were that orange color because they were dirty and running bad oil. We kept debating: ‘When would it turn blue?’ The sequence is a very elegant transition shot where you see it sputtering away all of that oil and dirt to the cleaner burning blue that we got.” Knoll says the transformation was one of the more “complicated” scenes to pull off. “There are a lot of simulation layers that are in there, and the sleek ship doesn’t actually fit inside the armored hull, so there was some sleight of hand that had to happen to make that appear to work,” he explains. The end result is one of Pasquarello’s favorite sequences. “Every time I watch it, I still get chills,” he says. “It just speaks to the detail that the creators had about this show. They thought of everything. [Jon] Watts was very clear with us that this is why this is happening. And we just had to figure out how to execute that.” (Credit: ILM & Lucasfilm) The Return to At At Attin’s coordinates in hand, Wim, Fern, KB, and Neel arrive at their home planet aboard the transformed Onyx Cinder. A horde of pirates led by Captain Brutus (portrayed by Fred Tatasciore and performance artist Stephen Oyoung) are not far behind. But the pirates are stopped by the planet’s protective, nebula-like barrier. “Going through the barrier for us was a really big endeavor,” says Pasquarello. “It’s something that started early because it’s so effects-driven and heavy and large scale, and there’s a lot of story to be told in there.” An array of satellites protect At Attin, blasting deadly arcs of lightning toward unauthorized ships. SM-33 reveals the Onyx Cinder is an At Attin vessel, which allows it to pass safely. The design and function of the satellites – crafted by ILM’s digital modeling department – evolved over time, says Pasquarello. “At one point, the satellites were actually emitting atmosphere. There were versions where you could literally see atmosphere coming out of them to create that cloudy environment,” he explains. Pirate ships pursue the Onyx Cinder through a toxic swirl of greenish-blue gasses but are destroyed by the satellites. “There’s a lot of heavy, heavy sims [simulations] and work that went into that sequence, and then the landing on At Attin,” Pasquarello says, giving credit to ILM’s compositing and effects teams. One element featured in the return to At Attin came along late in the production process. With shot delivery deadlines approaching faster than a ship in hyperspace, John Knoll got an email from Jon Watts. “He said, ‘We’ve done animatronic creatures, we’ve done rubber monsters, we’ve done stop-motion creatures. We did miniature and motion control. The only thing we haven’t really done from the old days is a traditionally-painted matte painting. Is it too late to do one?’” Knoll recalls. With only two months to make it happen, Knoll reached out to former ILM artist Jett Green at her home in Hawaii and asked if she’d like to put her brushes to work creating a traditional oil matte painting of At Attin. Using paint instead of pixels to compose a matte image is something ILM hadn’t done in about 30 years, according to Knoll. Green – with a long list of credits as a traditional matte painter on films including Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Labyrinth (1986), and Willow (1988) – says she was honored to be asked. “I love being part of this history,” Green tells ILM.com. “John and I had this conversation about it being a planet. He had the references already, and he told me what he needed. I even built the Masonite panel for it, and it just felt really good.” Knoll now has the roughly six-by-two-foot painting displayed in his ILM office. At Attin matte painting created by Jett Green (Credit: ILM & Lucasfilm) Posing as an emissary from the New Republic, Jod gains access to At Attin’s bountiful treasure: 1,139 subterranean, credit-filled vaults. The vault is an entirely digital environment that DNEG populated with security droids, industrial robotic arms, and a seemingly endless supply of golden computer graphics credits that line the walls and spill into Jod’s rapacious hands. Jod, Fern, and her mother, Fara (Kerry Condon), ascend the Supervisor’s Tower. The Supervisor is revealed to be a large, domed droid with a red eye. Only a small part of the Supervisor droid was constructed physically, with the StageCraft volume completing the illusion. “Virtual production is the future of visual effects,” says Chris Balog, a 20-year ILM veteran with a background as a digital compositing artist. “It’s where the next evolution is going. And if you can do it successfully, it’s an amazing tool.” Jod destroys the Supervisor with a lightsaber, triggering a citywide power outage and disabling the barrier satellites, clearing the way for the massive pirate frigate to reach the planet’s surface.  The enormous frigate survives the barrier and floats ominously over the city. “The great effects work done with the frigate coming through the clouds was Travis Harkleroad, our effects supervisor,” Pasquarello says. “Those explosions all come from him and his people.” The all-computer graphics frigate’s arrival is meant to evoke the alien-arrival feeling of films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Independence Day (1996). “There was no practical frigate,” Pasquarello says. “It’s a gorgeous ship. It’s a very complex-looking ship, and there’s a lower and upper deck that was built inside, and ships and skiffs that come out of that.” Wim, Neel, and KB devise a two-part plan to rescue Fern and call Kh’ymm for help. Jumping on speeder bikes and pursued by skiffs loaded with angry pirates, the kids – along with Wim’s dad, Wendel (Tunde Adebimpe), make their way across the city. For close-up shots, the actors were shot on a blue screen stage, with the more dangerous action – like a perilous jump across a canyon – requiring the use of digital doubles. “The speeder bikes on this show were a real challenge in the sense that we can’t put kids into a lot of heavy stunt work,” says Pasquarello. “So there was a lot of work done to help the dynamics and the physics of that chase.” The action continues through an all-computer graphics forest, through the city, to the school. Pasquarello praises ILM’s animation, layout, simulation, and environments teams for the extensive 3D build. “They’re going through an entirely CG environment, created by the environments team that you just don’t question,” he says. “Not one thing that they fly over or go through is real.” Summoned by Kh’ymm, New Republic forces arrive at At Attin, attacking the pirate frigate and saving the day. The squadron of X-wings is backed up by B-wings, another fan-favorite fighter that first appeared in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983) and later in Star Wars: Rebels (2014-2018). “The B-wings were a favorite of mine as a kid, so I did my best to try to get them featured in some big, heroic moments,” says ILM animation supervisor Shawn Kelly. “Initially, we had them dropping bombs on the pirate ship, but [Lucasfilm chief creative officer] Dave Filoni had the great suggestion to try the ‘composite laser’ weapon. Honestly, I had no idea what that was at first. As soon as the meeting was over, I looked it up and realized it’s the ridiculously cool quadruple-beam attack seen in Rebels. I got so excited by the idea that I stayed up late and designed a new shot that could really show off that attack. I felt like I was 10 years old again, playing with my B-wing toy in the backyard!” Balog would composite the B-wing shot himself, working in collaboration with the FX team to evoke the feeling of the laser as seen in Rebels, but with a more realistic style appropriate for live-action. The battle-wounded pirate frigate makes a spectacular crash landing, a completely computer graphics sequence that Pasquarello says was carefully designed to depict minimal casualties. “The conceit is that everyone’s been rounded up to a specific space, so we know that everybody evacuated,” he explains. “You notice it doesn’t really tear into buildings as the frigate crashes; it’s just pulling up the street and abandoned cars. It crashes gently into the waterway.” (Credit: ILM & Lucasfilm) Galactic Global Effort Bringing Skeleton Crew to life with its creative mix of old and new took a tremendous amount of effort from artists around the globe. “I worked with a team of 50 animators that were in San Francisco, Vancouver, Singapore, Sydney, and Mumbai,” says Pasquarello. “A big team. We’re one big happy family; we’re all working together to bring these characters to life.” Knoll and veteran ILM modelmaker John Goodson say they feel lucky to still be bringing old-school ILM effects expertise to new productions. “You know, there’s only a few of us that still know how to do this stuff,” says Knoll. “And part of this for me was, I want to bring some younger people who are exposed to what we’re doing, who are trained up to use the gear so that when I’m not available to do this stuff there are people who know how to do it.” “We both came here because we wanted to shoot spaceship models,” Goodson adds. “And we’re still getting this opportunity. It’s a phenomenal experience to be able to do this, to take advantage of some of the newer technologies, and revisit this stuff from our past, which is the reason we got in the business to begin with.” For Shawn Kelly, a 28-year ILM veteran, working on Skeleton Crew was a career highlight. “Our review sessions on this project were by far the most enjoyable, fun, collaborative,” he says. “Watts and Ford are awesome. They have tons of great ideas. They’re really collaborative and open to ideas. It felt like a family just trying to make the best thing we can make all together.” (Credit: ILM & Lucasfilm) – Clayton Sandell is a Star Wars author and enthusiast, TV storyteller, and a longtime fan of the creative people who keep Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound on the leading edge of visual effects and sound design. Follow him on Instagram (@claytonsandell) Bluesky (@claytonsandell.com) or X (@Clayton_Sandell).

Part antiques dealer, part architect, this Belgian maverick is an unlikely source of lessons for contemporary material reuse Marcel Raymaekers (1933–) never qualified as an architect. This did not stop him from procuring the materials for, designing and building around 150 villas across Belgium. The exact number is unknown: Belgium’s architectural establishment mostly ignored and rejected Raymaekers just as he ignored and rejected them, and as a result his work has never been collated or taken seriously. Raymaekers himself never kept records of his work; he regarded the drawing board as a ‘torture device’, preferring sketches and improvisation on site, determined by the material batches he had to hand. The extent of Raymaekers’ oeuvre is also hard to fathom because he wanted to keep it under the radar of the tax authorities. They caught up with him eventually; he was bankrupted in 2014. Today, Raymaekers is a 92‑year‑old tenant living inside what was once his personal empire, Queen of the South, in the Limburg countryside in north‑western Belgium. This compound was – and to a limited extent, still is – a vast salvage yard packed with components scavenged from aggressive postwar demolition. This puzzling place, completed in 1972 but constantly expanded, is stuffed with billowing pitched roofs, impossible archways, numerous appendages and antechambers. In its heyday – the 1970s and ’80s – Queen of the South also had a nightclub, a restaurant, a jazz venue, Raymaekers’ own ultra‑luxe apartment, and an estaminet – a plush, wood‑panelled, banquet‑seated, mirror‑pillared café‑bar. Marcel Raymaekers was born in 1933 near Leuven in Belgium. In 1950, he enrolled to study architecture at the Sint-Lukas School in Brussels but left a year later without a degree. Though not officially an architect, Raymaekers proceeded to design around 150 projects, from suburban homes to hotels and music venues – in 1986, he completed the Orlando discotheque, which burned down in 2014 Credit: Roger Dyckmans It was here that Raymaekers would sit – when he was not criss‑crossing Belgium scouting for materials – scoping out clients as they stumbled giddily into his world, overwhelmed by the aspiration and status anxiety that Queen of the South was designed to induce. The project was also a cultural hub attracting misfits and eccentrics, wheelers and dealers, experts and charlatans. The novelist Hugo Claus had his 50th birthday at Queen of the South, honouring Raymaekers in his speech. Raymaekers and his wife Hilde did interviews for newspapers, magazines and TV, often while reclining on their bed. The media was not interested in him as an accomplished architect, but as a purveyor of kitsch, an absurdity.  What Raymaekers had to sell his clients was more than simply antiques or even houses composed of them (buy enough materials and he would design you a house for no charge: that was always the deal). What Raymaekers was really selling were dreams of nobility: the life of a lord and lady of the manor, set apart (and above) from an increasingly modernised, homogenised world. Sensuality and hedonism, expressed through haptic, resplendent materials, was a big part of the allure too – the promise of a new way of life. One of Raymaekers’ bigger projects was a love hotel, Rubensexclusief, near Diest, completed in 1979. Each chamber was bestowed with an excess of padded velvet upholstery, often creeping up the walls and curving onto the ceilings. In the lobby, a salvaged confession booth was intended as a hiding place for guilty parties. Raymaekers brought several clients here to celebrate a successful transaction or to introduce them to his material language before starting design negotiations. His clients were middle‑class professionals – teachers, dentists, entrepreneurs, doctors, engineers, florists, pharmacists. Wealthy, but not extraordinarily rich. Many of his houses allowed them to live and work – interfacing with the public – on the same property. House Kelchtermans from 1970, for example, designed with architect Jos Witters, is composed of three pyramids – a home, a doctor’s office and a garage – structured with reclaimed oak beams. The roof tiles were salvaged by the client himself, Dr Kelchtermans, who received tips on where to find them from his patients, many of whom were farmers whose buildings were undergoing modernisation or demolition. Inside, it is all split‑levels, enormous fireplaces and complex, spiralling spaces. But the house’s biggest flourish is the skylights: 23 cupolas from decommissioned Lockheed T‑33 fighter jet cockpits. Raymaekers had found them languishing in a salvage yard on the other side of Flanders, saw their architectural potential and persuaded the client to buy them. Client participation was everything. The Boncher family’s house, completed in 1984, is a mash‑up of components from a derelict slaughterhouse in the city of Tienen and an army barracks in Verviers. The Bonchers themselves spent weeks carefully dismantling the bricks, Gobertange white stone and fleur‑de‑lis roof tiles from the slaughterhouse. Raymaekers had the grand entrance and guardhouses from the barracks available in his stock at Queen of the South, probably at a time‑sensitive discount. Many of the construction and final design decisions for House Boncher were left to happenstance; as the contractors built the walls up row‑by‑row, whenever a hole was needed for a window, Raymaekers would decide the dimensions only at that moment, based on whatever blue limestone window frame he happened to have in stock. Occasionally, the masons had to deconstruct part of a wall if a larger‑than‑anticipated window became available.  ‘Raymaekers’ houses are intelligent, instinctive assemblages of unpredictable material streams’ The interior, too, required improvisation. A white stone staircase, salvaged from a church pulpit, was meant to spiral up to the main bedroom of House Boncher but turned out to be about 200mm too short. The solution? Raymaekers and the contractors decided to build a hefty bump into the floor, consisting of cobbles and decorative tiling. It gave the staircase the necessary boost to reach up to the bedroom. It was typical of how designing exclusively with old materials required Raymaekers to empower and trust his contractors. Their design contributions, extemporisation and management of materials and how they might fit together were intrinsic to the realisation of every project. Working with large batches helped simplify matters – or allowed further complexity. When the Antwerp townhouse of art nouveau architect Joseph Bascourt was demolished to make way for the extension of a car park, Raymaekers snapped up the facade. Without knowing or caring how the pieces were originally composed, Raymaekers shuffled them into a new configuration for the facade of a flower shop a client had commissioned in the Brussels hinterland, completed in 1987. Raymaekers moved Bascourt’s decorative entablature from the top of the facade down to eye level, the better to be enjoyed; that this meant the windows on the top floor would now poke strangely above the roofline was fine with both Raymaekers and the client. The shreds of Raymaekers’ reputation that survive today, and what can be retrieved and reconstructed of his private and professional habits, are complex at best. His charisma and determination enabled him to convince artisans, contractors, labourers and clients to stretch themselves beyond what they thought possible, adding their own talent to his difficult buildings. But Raymaekers could also be intimidating and domineering. Collaborators often stepped away from his all‑consuming process; clients who considered him too pushy and found themselves running out of money could cease working with him. But this was not the case for his spouses, sons, grandchildren and daughters‑in‑law. They were bound to him by more than his business practice and art, and some of them suffered enduring and even unbearable distress. Their suffering is the shadow behind Raymaekers’ work. When researchers from Belgian design practice Rotor and the University of Ghent – also the authors of this article – started showing up at Queen of the South in 2011, it was not because of Raymaekers’ reputation; it was merely to include Queen of the South on Opalis’s database, a roster of salvage dealers covering much of north‑western Europe. We only realised the extent and importance of his work after several years and at least three visits. Raymaekers had refused all interviews since his bankruptcy, but after some persuasion, a meeting was scheduled in the courtyard on a grey winter day. Triggered by newspaper cuttings, his own limited archive of photographs and strolls through the stock, a picture emerged of the rich reuse ecosystem in which he was active in his glory days. It is this ecosystem, along with the remarkable and necessary fluidity of Raymaekers’ practice with old building materials, that was critical to his success. Belgium was blessed in the postwar period with a remarkably robust network of demolition contractors who were also salvage dealers, antiques dealers who were also designers, industrial scrapyards willing to let architects pick through their mountains of waste. The landscape was ripe for reuse. So was the legislative field. Raymaekers’ oeuvre could be mistaken, at a cursory glance, for just more Ugly Belgian Houses (several of them have indeed appeared on Hannes Coudenys’ infamous blog). His houses appear to be kitsch, chaotic, brazen, overstuffed with mixed metaphors. But they are much more than that. They are intelligent, instinctive assemblages of unpredictable material streams. They are bracing, never boring. And though they are wildly out‑of‑step with today’s tastes, the houses – and moreover, the kind of innovative practice that built them – have a lot to teach spatial practitioners about reusing architectural materials and circularity in the construction industry. And as with any of those so‑called ‘ugly’ Belgian houses, the label is a trivialisation (and an elitist one) of something systemic and generative. What makes possible such expressionistic and characterful suburban houses in Belgium – whatever one thinks of their quality – is government policy since the postwar era. While other European countries went all in on standardised social housing, in Belgium, the 1948 De Taeye Law offered construction grants and a state guarantee on mortgages, triggering families to initiate, help design and sometimes even execute the construction of their own homes, tapping into a rural tradition of self‑reliance. Raymaekers worked at a time when modernisation – and the demolition it demanded – was churning out a constant flow of antique materials. It was also a time when the merger and exchange of roles in the architectural process – from material procurement, to design and collaboration live on site – was still possible. Material reuse today is much harder. It must work precisely against the linear flows of extraction, capital, efficiency and predictability – all supercharged by the digital and its requirement of an almost omniscient predictability, and by increasingly demanding rules around compliance and liability. But to explore the wild potential of material reuse – not just to reduce embodied carbon, but to unleash new design potential and a richer culture around material (heritage) and practice – it must be possible to imagine ways in which material procurement, construction sites and the architects’ role can change fundamentally again.  Illustration: Laslo Antal for The Architectural Review. Read more about the process of making this portrait here 2025-05-15 Justinien Tribillon Share AR May 2025CircularityBuy Now

Source: Bureau de Change Architects / HGGThe proposed scheme A proposal by Bureau de Change Architects to redevelop a single-family home in Dartmouth Park, Camden, into a five-storey block of flats has drawn national attention, including opposition from Dame Justine Thornton, a barrister and judge, who is also wife of energy secretary Ed Miliband. The project, submitted for developer HGG London, would see the demolition of a 1930s detached house on Dartmouth Park Road, located in the Highgate ward of the London borough, and its replacement with six apartments ranging from one to three bedrooms. The proposal seeks to increase the site’s density while referencing local Victorian architecture in its massing and façade design. In its design and access statement, Bureau de Change describes the proposal as a “sensitive and site-driven design” that aims to deliver “much needed new housing for the area”. The site sits within the Dartmouth Park Conservation Area. Thornton wrote that the proposed block was “too tall, too bulky and too dense for its plot given the context of the surrounding houses and the wider conservation area”. While expressing support for additional housing in principle, she cited the nearby Highgate Newtown residential development as “a brilliant example of thoughtful design in harmony with neighbouring properties” and suggested that the application represented “another opportunity for the Council to demonstrate its commitment to the provision of sympathetically designed housing by acknowledging the benefit of redevelopment whilst rejecting this particular design”. The project has highlighted the ongoing tension between national planning policy objectives and local resistance to change. The Labour government has made housing delivery a key part of its growth agenda, pledging to prioritise brownfield development and to take a more assertive stance against anti-development sentiment. Architects Joanna van Heyningen and Birkin Haward, founding partners of van Heyningen and Haward Architects, also submitted a formal objection to the scheme. In their response, they stated that the proposal was “too tall for its context, too deep, too close to the houses to its south and east, provides poor living standards for its intended inhabitants, and ignores the requirement for bio-diversity net gain”. Referring to the design, they described the illustrated façade as “a naïve architectural response that attempts to be contextual by aping some of the proportions of neighbouring buildings, whilst completely failing to respect them”. The proposed schemeSource: Bureau de Change Architects / HGG The proposed schemeSource: Bureau de Change Architects / HGG Proposed ground floor planSource: Bureau de Change Architects / HGG 1/3 show caption Actor Benedict Cumberbatch and his wife, theatre director and playwright Sophie Hunter, who also live nearby, submitted their own objection. They argued that the scheme would be “out of keeping with the architectural style of the area” and warned it would “disrupt the aesthetic of the street” and be “directly in opposition to the nature of a conservation area”. They also expressed concerns about the impact on privacy and daylight, writing that the proposed building “will dwarf houses on both roads” and “look directly onto adjacent properties and gardens”. The objection concluded by cautioning that approval could “set a precedent for the area”, asking: “Could I now demolish my property and replace it with flats and not require the same extensive planning approval?” Camden Council is yet to decide on the application. Bureau de Change Architects and HGG London have been contacted for comment.

Ogle Hall. Photo credit: University of Saskatchewan’s website The Friends of 114 Seminary Crescent have expressed concern regarding the University of Saskatchewan’s recent decision to proceed with the demolition of 114 Seminary Crescent (Lutheran Seminary) and 113 Seminary Crescent (Ogle Hall), as announced in a press release published by the StarPhoenix on April 18, 2025. In response to this decision, the Friends of 114 Seminary Crescent are requesting a pause in demolition and a special meeting with the Board of Governors to discuss other paths forward. The Friends of 114 is a volunteer collective of architects, planners, heritage advocates, community leaders, and citizens committed to preserving and repurposing one of Saskatoon’s most significant heritage assets for the benefit of future generations. The University cited three primary reasons for demolition: finances, safety, and alignment with USask Mission and Strategic Plan. Friends of 114 wishes to offer the following clarifications. In terms of finances, the University claimed “failed attempts to find alternate uses” and cited a new cost estimate of $55–$60 million for restoration. However, Friends of 114 said that as per the Expression of Interest (EOI) guidelines, restoration costs were to be borne by proponents, not the University. Lutheran Seminary. Photo by daryl_mitchell from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada via Wikimedia Commons According to Friends of 114, in November 2024 at a public meeting, USask provided an estimate of at least $26 million for restoration. Independent professional assessments by architects and engineers, following tours of the building, confirmed that the costs would be in the mid-$20s. At least two EOIs submitted strong financial plans demonstrating viability. Respondents were assured the EOI process would be phased, with an initial concept submission (phase 1) followed by detailed budgeting in phase 2. No second phase occurred, and the much higher $55–$60 million estimate was never disclosed to proponents during the process, noted Friends of 114. In terms of safety, the University referenced an order from the Saskatoon Fire Department requiring the building to be repaired and operational by May, and stated that demolition was the only practical and financially viable option for public safety. However, Friends of 114 said that communication with the Saskatoon Fire Department confirmed there were no demolition orders for either building. The Fire Department does not require buildings to be made operational. Both buildings are considered repairable, and current security measures meet requirements to prevent unlawful entry. EOI proponents had also committed immediate resources to enhance safety and security. A letter clarifying this communication was sent to the University’s Board of Governors on April 14, prior to their decision regarding demolition. In terms of alignment with USask’s Mission and Strategic Plan, the University stated that restoration proposals showed “…a lack of purpose for them [restored buildings] that would align with its teaching and research mission” in an email communication received by Friends of 114 members from Greg Fowler, USask’s VP Admin & COO. However, Friends of 114 noted that two known EOIs—one from the Saskatoon Tribal Council for a Centre for Indigenous Excellence, and one from the Saskatchewan Child Advocacy Centre (ASK)—strongly align with USask’s stated goals around inclusivity, Indigenous engagement, reconciliation, and community leadership. According to Friends of 114, both initiatives would strengthen the University’s position as a national leader and leave a lasting, proud legacy.     The post Friends of 114 Crescent oppose USask demolition announcement appeared first on Canadian Architect.

It’s been less than a year since the world’s largest dam removal project was completed along 420 miles of the Klamath River, near the border of Oregon and California. But if you look at the river now, you might not know that four dams had ever been in place. Instead of concrete walls and artificial reservoirs, the river is now free-flowing—and parts of the former infrastructure have been replaced by wildflowers that are in bloom. Iron Gate Dam, circa 2023 [Photo: Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images] “It’s been an incredible transition,” says Ann Willis, California regional director at American Rivers, a nonprofit that supported Native American tribes in a decades-long fight to take out the dams. “It’s really strange and wonderful to stand on the bridge that goes across the Klamath River and look upstream where Iron Gate Dam used to be. I used to imagine a river above it, and now I see the river.” Construction crews remove the top of the cofferdam that was left of Iron Gate Dam, allowing the Klamath River to run in its original path for the first time in nearly a century near Hornbrook, California, in August 2024. [Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle/Getty Images] The dams were built between 1918 and 1962 to provide hydropower, and immediately blocked salmon from migrating. Over time, the ecosystem started to collapse. By 1997, coho salmon in the river were listed as endangered. (The river was once the third-largest salmon fishery in the continental U.S.) In 2002, when the federal government diverted water to farms instead of letting it flow downstream in the river, tens of thousands of salmon died. Local tribes like the Yurok—who have lived by the river for at least 10,000 years, and who consider salmon a central and sacred part of their culture—started the long fight to take out the dams. Beyond the direct impact on fish, the dams impacted the larger environment as the flow of nutrients down the river stopped. Willis compares dams to a blockage in human arteries that eventually lead to a heart attack. “When you put a dam in a river, there’s an entire living network of things that depends on the flow of the river—the patterns and relationship of the river and its flow with the land around it,” she says. “When you block it, you start this long process of decline. That’s the bad news. The good news is one of the fastest ways to resuscitate a river and its surrounding ecosystem is to simply remove the dam.”  Copco No. 1 prior to removal [Photo: Daniel Nylen/courtesy American Rivers] The advocacy was a challenge. But the tribes and environmental groups behind the campaign were helped by the fact that it was ultimately more expensive for the power company to keep the aging dams in place than to get rid of them. The power that the dams provided was also relatively easy to replace, since it made up only 2% of the utility’s power generation. (The utility’s overall plan to meet power needs includes more investment in renewable energy, more energy efficiency, and a small amount of natural gas.) In 2016, after years of negotiation, the power company transferred the dams to a nonprofit in charge of their removal. In 2022, the federal government greenlit the plan, which had a cost of around $450 million, funded both by California state bond money and by utility customers. From top: Before the removal of Copco No. 2, and after. [Photos: Shane Anderson/Swiftwater Films/courtesy American Rivers] The dams were taken out in phases, with the smallest removed in 2023 and the rest last year, all carefully timed to avoid disrupting fish that might try to swim through the area. First, the reservoirs were drained. Then demolition crews blew up larger concrete structures. Dump trucks cleared away rocks, dirt, and sand, returning some of the material to the hillsides it was carved out of decades ago. The former Copco reservoir site [Photo: Matt Mais/Yurok Tribe] Plans for restoring plant life started earlier. A crew of primarily Yurok tribe members began collecting seeds from native flowers and trees in 2019. Most of the seeds went to nurseries, where they were grown in fields to produce more flowers and even more seeds. “There were over 2,000 acres that needed revegetation,” says Joshua Chenoweth, an ecologist who worked with the Yurok tribe on the project. “Because it’s so large, you can’t collect enough seed to just throw it back on the landscape.” [Photo: Matt Mais/Yurok Tribe] The crew eventually spread billions of seeds using a variety of methods, from hand-planting to using a helicopter in areas where it was too dangerous to walk. Right now, the hills are covered in California poppies and a mix of other plants. “The hand-seeding exceeded my wildest expectations,” Chenoweth says. [Photo: Matt Mais/Yurok Tribe] The fish also came back faster than scientists expected. “The dam removal was officially complete on September 30,” says Willis. “The first salmon was detected swimming upstream into that ancestral habitat in three days, which was just shocking. Then, within a month, 6,000 salmon were detected swimming upstream. I don’t think anyone expected this quick of a response at this really large scale.”

If you’re like most people, you’re getting a real-time crash course in tariffs, imports, and exports these days. Realizing that tariffs are going to increase costs for just about everything is just the beginning: The next phase of acceptance is realizing what “everything” means. We import so much of the stuff we use in our daily lives that it’s going to be impossible to avoid what is essentially a new tax on stuff.That means that any plans you have to renovate, remodel, or repair your home are going to be a lot more expensive. How much more? Some experts suggest a blanket 25% increase in your budget, driven by an estimated increase in building materials costs of about $7,500 to $10,000 per house. That’s a lot of money no matter how big or modest your renovation plans are, and might make you think twice about your project. But there are strategies you can use to blunt the impact of those tariffs if you plan your home project carefully.DIY thoughtfullyYour first step is to consider where you can offset those extra costs by doing some of the work yourself. Demolition is often an easy way to shave a bit of money from a renovation budget, and if you have any other applicable DIY skills (or the willingness to learn), you can offset extra costs by doing some tiling, painting, or installations yourself. Just be thoughtful about it—you won’t save anything if you screw up part of your renovation and have to pay someone to re-do the whole project.Pad the budgetThe worst outcome of a renovation or remodeling project isn’t extra costs, necessarily—it’s not being able to finish the job because you run out of money and finding yourself doomed to live in a half-finished house. To avoid that fate, review your renovation budget—which should already include some padding against unexpected costs—and add an additional “pad” to cover potential tariffs.Since everything about these tariffs changes more or less constantly, you can’t accurately predict each and every impact. Assuming an additional blanket cost of about 20% on top of your current estimate is probably a pretty safe course.Buy materials nowWhen, exactly, prices will start jumping due to tariffs is difficult to quantify; it depends on how large a supply remains, the specific country a material is sourced from, and when the last non-tariffed shipments arrived. But if you have plans for a renovation in the near future, it might be smart to buy your materials now, even if you’re not ready to engage contractors for a while. If you know you want imported marble tile, for example, chances are they’re as cheap right now as they’re going to be for a very long time. And if your kitchen reno involves all-new appliances, you’ll almost certainly pay less today than you will in a few weeks or months.Go domesticOf course, you also ask yourself if you need imported materials at all. While the U.S. isn’t a manufacturing powerhouse, you can identify domestic options for a wide range of renovation and remodeling materials. Costs still may go up if those companies need to import goods to produce those made-in-the-U.S. products, but this strategy may help mitigate costs. A few examples include:Chasing Paper offers made-in-the-U.S. peel-and-stick tile and wallpaper.Mohawk flooring offers laminate flooring and other flooring products that are free from tariffs.Copeland Furniture manufactures collections that are mostly made in the U.S. (like most furniture makers, they import some machined parts, like nuts and bolts), so tariff impacts will be minimal.Barker Cabinets makes kitchen cabinetry right here in the U.S. using domestic lumber.A little research and consultation with your contractors can identify many domestic alternatives for materials that can help offset or eliminate tariff costs.Work the contractWhen you hire a general contractor or a subcontractor, there’s always a negotiation (or there should be). That means you might be able to claw back some of the extra tariff-related costs by pursuing some strategies in the renovation contract:Price locks. If you’re relying on your contractor to supply the necessary materials for your project, ask to insert price locks in the contract. This is language that freezes the cost of those materials for a period of time (typically a few months). This at least insulates you from a sharp uptick in costs due to sudden shifts in trade negotiations and tariff rates.Guaranteed Maximum Price ("GMP"). You can also ask to have the maximum cost of the project written into the contract. A GMP is the most the contractor will be able to collect from you, no matter what else might change in terms of their materials costs (or any other cost). It usually includes some padding to cover reasonable overages and their fees, but it can be a useful defense against uncertainty when it comes to the cost of the project.Shared savings clauses. You can also suggest that you and the contractor “share savings,” which means that if they identify lower-cost options for materials, labor, or any other aspect of the job, you agree to pay them a percentage of the savings total. This incentivizes the contractor to evade tariffs, seek out domestically sourced alternatives, or find materials already sitting in a warehouse somewhere that don’t need to be imported new.Wait for the off seasonAnother way to offset tariff increases in a reno project is to wait. Many renovation projects have a season, and contractors often go through skinny periods when business drops off. They’re often motivated to offer discounts or work with smaller budgets during these periods, so if you’re willing to endure some extra logistical problems (like having work done during the winter months), you can make up at least some of the difference in terms of tariff costs. Some examples of renovation “seasons” include:Most kitchen, bathroom, and landscaping projects are done in the spring, as are most roofing and HVAC projects. These contractors may be more amenable to discounts in the fall or winter.Window replacements and hardscaping projects like patios are usually done in the summer.Exterior paint is typically done in the fall, when temperatures are cooler and humidity is lower, but you can have your house painted as long as temperatures are above 35 degrees, so painting companies may be motivated to offer discounted work in different seasons.Many flooring installers run promotions during the winter, when business is slower.If you buy your materials now to save some money and then start the project in the off-season, you can maximize your savings.

Last year, Louis Sullivan’s Wainwright Building was listed for sale, raising concerns among preservationists and historians about the fate of one of America’s earliest and most influential office buildings. Now, after acquiring the building for $8.25 million, a private equity firm is exploring potential uses for the site, prompting new questions about how the historic structure will be preserved, or transformed, for the future. Arch to Park Equity, the real estate fund coordinated by Greater St. Louis, Inc., issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) last week inviting developers, architects, and preservationists to submit plans for the future of the historic Wainwright Building. The document states the firm is “looking for the best ideas from around the world to redevelop the Wainwright Building into an anchor and destination in the heart of Downtown St. Louis.” The winning plan will demonstrate alignment with local planning guidelines, practical feasibility, and, most importantly, the greatest benefit to the growing neighborhood.  “The site offers the unique potential to catalyze the surrounding neighborhood while preserving and enhancing an architectural and historic asset,” the RFP continued. “A successful proposal will celebrate St. Louis’s past while providing a visual statement about its future.”  The Wainwright Building, designed by Louis Sullivan, was built in 1891 with an addition built a century later. The 10-story, terra-cotta building predates many of Sullivan’s most well-known buildings like the Bayard-Condict Building in New York and the Sullivan Center in Chicago. It is considered by many to be one of the country’s first office towers. Frank Lloyd Wright called it “the very first human expression of a tall steel office-building as Architecture.” Originally built for a local brewer, the tower on 709 Chestnut Street’s most recognizable features are its decorative elements, open courtyards, and the 16-foot ceiling and sky view roof located on its ground floor. The Wainwright Building was landmarked in 1968 by the National Register of Historic Places and declared a local landmark in 1972. After narrowly escaping demolition in the 1960s, the Wainwright Building was purchased by the state of Missouri in 1974 and housed government offices until its recent sale to Arch to Park Equity Fund. Proceeds from the sale will go toward a new government facility in Chesterfield, a suburb 40 minutes west of downtown St. Louis, with state officials citing rising costs and concerns about crime as key reasons for the move.  Arch to Park Equity Fund, however, appears confident in the neighborhood’s future pointing to “momentum” in the development in Downtown St. Louis. Over the past decade, the neighborhood’s residential population has nearly doubled, now surpassing 11,000 residents. With a high concentration of office buildings and local landmarks, the area also attracts nearly 75,000 commuters and visitors each day. The RFP highlights several key developments contributing to this growth, including the planned redevelopment of the Millennium Hotel, the construction of the Brickline Greenway on the east side of Energizer Park, a growing slate of social and cultural activities, and a declining crime rate. Just blocks away from two of St. Louis’s most recognizable landmarks—the Gateway Arch and Busch Stadium—Arch to Park Equity Fund wants the Wainwright Building to become a new cornerstone of St. Louis’s Downtown neighborhood, blending historic preservation with innovative, community-driven redevelopment.  The full RFP outlines the materials consultants are required to submit. The deadline for proposals is July 4 at 3:00 p.m. CST.

The International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia,  has returned, with its grand opening held in early May. The exhibition runs until November 23, 2025 The Canada Council for the Arts, Commissioner of Canada’s official participation in the International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, administers the selection process and oversees the exhibition at the Canada Pavilion. But in addition to the Canada Pavilion, Canadian architects and designers have a presence in several other exhibitions that are part of this year’s festival. Here’s a round-up of the Canadian work in Venice. Picoplanktonics. Photo credit: Valentina Mori Picoplanktonics led by Living Room Collective Canada’s official entry to the Biennale is Picoplanktonics, a 3D-printed living artwork incorporating cyanobacteria—a global first at the intersection of architecture, biotechnology, and art. The exhibition, developed by the Living Room Collective, showcases the potential for collaboration between humans and nature. Picoplanktonics is an exploration of the potential to co-operate with living systems by co-constructing spaces that “remediate the planet rather than exploit it.” The installation transforms the Canada Pavilion into an aquatic micro-ecosystem, where architectural structures grow, evolve, and naturally degrade alongside their living components. It was designed according to regenerative architecture principles, and is not only a built object, but also a breathing organism interacting with its environment, which prompts reflection on potential futures of the built environment. The creative team is led by bio-designer Andrea Shin Ling, alongside core team members Nicholas Hoban, Vincent Hui and Clayton Lee. Etude Ile Verte by Atelier Pierre Thibault. Photo credit Alex Lesage Les boucaneries de l’île Verte by Atelier Pierre Thibault Atelier Pierre Thibault has been invited to participate in this year’s Venice Biennale as the only team from Québec. His project is inspired by the old fish smokehouses, or boucaneries, of Île Verte. With the support of the fifty permanent residents of Île Verte, Atelier Pierre Thibault has designed a participatory architectural project that aims to reinterpret the boucaneries as creative canvases to imagine new uses to strengthen Île Verte’s autonomy. This includes community greenhouses, artist studios, and gathering places. The exhibition aims to highlight, as Thibault puts it, “the strength of a sensitive and collective gesture in response to the erosion of traditional buildings and the major climate challenges faced by inhabitants living year-round in an isolated island environment.” The construction of the installations, along with the exchanges sparked with the community, was documented through photography and video, and captures both the process and the spirit of collaboration that defined the project. Celebrating the Verdoyants’ collective intelligence and inviting reflection on the future of the boucaneries, this participatory project highlights the exemplary and internationally resonant nature of this approach. The Atelier Pierre Thibault project will be on view at the Corderie dell’Arsenale. The pavilion itself will take the form of a temporary, lightweight structure constructed from reused materials, situated on the grounds of the French Pavilion, which is currently undergoing renovation. The curators have selected 50 projects to be featured across six thematic sections: Living With the Existing, the Immediate, the Broken, Vulnerabilities, Nature, and Combined Intelligences. Image courtesy of WZMH Architects Speedstac by WZMH Architects as part of Living With…Combined Intelligences  As part of the exhibition “Living With… Combined Intelligences,” WZMH Architects presents Speedstac, a prefabricated modular precast solution that aims to reimagine how urban areas devastated by war can be rebuilt. Originally designed to accelerate housing construction in Canada, Speedstac took on urgent new relevance following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. With more than 170,000 buildings damaged or destroyed and millions displaced, WZMH’s innovation, developed through its R&D lab, sparkbird, aims to offer a scalable solution: self-contained, plug-and-play building modules with integrated electrical and plumbing systems that can be seamlessly inserted into existing structures. The use of modern materials such as high-performance concrete can reduce the weight of the modules, making them easier to lift and move using conventional crane equipment. Using a robust locking mechanism, several modules can be securely fastened and unfastened as needed, to produce an adaptive modular housing solution. The Speedstac system aims to offer a solution to the challenges of traditional construction methods, enabling faster, more flexible, and more sustainable building projects. The Vivre Avec / Living With exhibition is hosted in the French Pavilion. Presentation, Northern Horizons. Photo credit: Blouin Orzes architectes Northern Horizons by Blouin Orzes architectes as part of Time Space Existence  Through a wide selection of projects—ranging from conceptual works, models and photographs to videos, sculptures and site-specific installations—the exhibition Time Space Existence, hosted by the European Cultural Centre, aims to provoke participants to question their relationship with space and time, re-envisioning new ways of living and rethinking architecture through a larger lens. Quebec firm Blouin Orzes’ participation revolves around their first-hand understanding of Inuit territories, where they have been working since 2000. Their contribution is based on their  recent publication, Northern Journeys. Blouin Orzes’ contribution in on display at the Palazzo Mora, and additional contributions to Time Space Existence are on view at the Palazzo Bembo and Marinaressa Gardens. View of Commercial and Residential Towers from Seymour and West Georgia Streets. Image credit: Henriquez Partners Studio BC Glass Sea Sponge Another contribution to Time Space Existence is the work of Henriquez Partners Studio. The transformative mixed-use development which they are presenting merges architectural innovation, social responsibility and urban revitalization, and has recently been submitted to the City of Vancouver. The project is about ambitious city-building, and aims to unlock public benefits on currently underutilized land in a way that supports some of the city’s most urgent needs, while contributing bold architecture to the city skyline. Four towers, designed by Henriquez, draw inspiration from rare and ancient glass sea sponge reefs, whose ecological strength and resilience have shaped both form and structure. These living marine organisms, which are unique to the Pacific Northwest, aim to serve as a metaphor for regeneration and adaptation. This concept is translated through the architectural language of the towers: silhouettes, sculptural forms, and sustainable performance. The tallest tower, a stand-alone hotel, proposed at 1,033 feet, is shaped by a structural diagrid exoskeleton that allows for column-free interiors while maximizing strength and minimizing material use. Developed in collaboration with Arup, the structural system references the skeletal lattice of sea sponges; a concept researched at Harvard for its groundbreaking structural efficiency. Henriquez Partners’  contribution is on display at Palazzo Bembo. Renewal Development Shishalh Project Duplex Renderings – Image credit: Renewal Development Shíshálh Nation: Ten Home Rescue Project as part of theLiving With / Vivre avec exhibition Vancouver-based company Renewal Development has been selected to appear as part of the French Pavilion’s exhibition on housing innovation. In 2024, Renewal Development partnered with developer Wesgroup and the shíshálh Nation to relocate ten high value Port Moody homes set for demolition to the shíshálh Nation on the Sunshine Coast. The Nation has been experiencing an acute housing shortage with 900 Nation members currently on a waitlist for housing. Renewal Development says that this initiative reflects its “deeply held values of sustainability, and reconciliation” and its “work to offer real-world solutions to waste and housing shortages by reimagining what already exists.” The project will be on display in the French Pavilion. The following is a list of other Canadian groups and individuals contributing to this year’s Venice Biennale: On Storage Brendan Cormier is a Canadian writer, curator, and urban designer based in London. He is currently the lead curator of 20th and 21st Century Design for the Shekou Partnership at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Prior to this he served as the managing editor of Volume Magazine. La Biennale di Venezia and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London present for the ninth consecutive year the Applied Arts Pavilion Special Project titled On Storage, curated by Brendan Cormier, in collaboration with Diller, Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R). It explores the global architecture of storage in service of the circulation of things, and features a newly commissioned six-channel film directed by DS+R. From Liquid to Stone: A Reconfigurable Concrete Tectonic Against Obsolescence Inge Donovan, based in Boston, achieved her Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Design and Architectural History, Theory and Criticism from the Daniels Faculty of Architecture at the University of Toronto in 2019 after growing up in Nova Scotia, Canada. The Curse of Dimensionality Adeline Chum is currently a Graduate Research Assistant at the Center for Spatial Research and third-year student in the MArch Program at GSAPP. She has received her Bachelor of Architectural Studies from the University of Waterloo, Canada and has worked in small and medium-sized architecture firms in Toronto, New York, and London. Oceanic Refractions Elise Misao Hunchuck, born in Toronto and currently based Berlin and Milan, is a transdisciplinary researcher, editor, writer, and educator. Her practice brings together architecture, landscape architecture, and media studies to research sites in Canada, Japan, China, and Ukraine, employing text, images, and cartographies to document, explore, and archive the co-constitutive relationships between plants, animals, and minerals—in all of their forms. SpaceSuits.Us: A Case for Ultra Thin Adjustments Charles Kim is a designer currently based in Boston. Stemming from his background in architecture, he is interested in materials, DIY, and the aesthetics of affordability. Since graduating from Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2022, he has been working as an architectural designer at Utile. Uncommon Knowledge: Plants as Sensors Sonia Sobrino Ralston is a designer, researcher, and educator, and is currently an Assistant Teaching Professor in Landscape Architecture and Art + Design at Northeastern University in the College of Arts, Media, and Design. She is interested in the intersections between landscape, architecture, and the history of technology. Doxiadis’ Informational Modernism Mark Wasiuta is Senior Lecturer in Architecture at Columbia GSAPP and Co-Director of the Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices in Architecture program. Wasiuta is recipient of recent grants from the Onassis Foundation, the Asian Cultural Council, NYSCA, and the Graham Foundation, where he was an inaugural Graham Foundation Fellow. Blue Garden: The Architecture of Emergence Tanvi Khurmi, based in London, UK, is a multidisciplinary designer and artist. Her practice is focused on addressing and combatting issues surrounding the climate crisis. After receiving a Bachelor’s in Architecture with a minor in Environmental Studies from the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture at the University of Toronto, she earned a Masters of Architecture in Bio-Integrated Design at the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London. Design as an Astronaut Dr. Cody Paige is the Director of the Space Exploration Initiative at the MIT Media Lab, a team of 50+ students, faculty, and staff building and flying advanced technology for space exploration. The Initiative focuses on helping students take their research into space. The pipeline developed to achieve this works with students from across the Media Lab and the MIT community to prototype space-related research in the lab, fly and test them in microgravity on parabolic and suborbital flights, and finally to take them to the International Space Station or on to the Moon. Cody also has a background in geology, specifically quaternary geochronology, and completed her Master of Applied Science at the University of Toronto in Aerospace Engineering and her Bachelor of Applied Science from Queen’s University in Engineering Physics.   The post Round-up: Canadian-led exhibitions at the 2025 Venice Biennale appeared first on Canadian Architect.