Month: March 2022

The NextGen International Taskforce is a collaboration between IE School of Architecture & Design and CPA NextGen, bringing together international talent to exchange ideas on the real-estate industry and built environment. This group of NextGen professionals typically gathers on a bi-monthly basis to address topics such as sustainability, inclusivity, technology, cities and wellbeing.

The Design Educates Awards, the awards that annually recognize the best projects that respond to complex social and environmental contexts and carry educational value, have just announced the results of the 2022 edition. The awards look for what will have a lasting impact on users and the environment and showcase the world’s best ideas and realizations that can educate.

Jokopi – MERR, a local coffee shop branch that is currently expanding in Indonesia, built its first drive-thru coffee shop concept during the Covid-19 pandemic. People tend to be warier of closed indoor spaces because of how easy it is to get infected. Therefore, the drive-thru concept is applied as a design response to create a resilient space for customers and to be prepared for a possible upcoming pandemic outbreak.

Grimshaw, in collaboration with Nautes Architects, WSP, Vogt and Turner & Townsend, have been awarded first place in an anonymous competition for the renewal of Budapest Nyugati Railway Station. Selected from a shortlist of 12 international design firms, the winning design creates a “permeable station campus” with a series of car-free streets, walkways, public squares and a park, which open up the station complex to the city and restores its significance as one of the most vibrant and historic cities in Europe.

The Zero Carbon policy is intended to create a kind of ecological balance to neutralize greenhouse gas emissions. Several studies report that the construction sector is one of the main responsible for the unbalance in which we find ourselves today, after all, it consumes natural resources on a gigantic scale and still builds buildings that do not collaborate with the maintenance of the environment. Therefore, searching for paths towards a carbon neutral architecture has become fundamental and one of them is learning from past masters, such as the Brazilian architect João Filgueiras Lima, known as Lelé.

Coastal cities have always been a point of attraction for residents, tourists, and businesses. Alongside the aesthetic features, their proximity to the sea has made these cities a focal point for maritime transportation with the construction of ports, as well as hotspots for recreational and aquacultural activities. However, the past decades saw these particular regions threatened with a shortened lifespan; rising water levels, floods, and recurring cyclones, along with other natural disasters, have endangered coastal communities, putting their population, ecosystem, and built environment at risk. 

Pritzker Prize 2022 Laureate Francis Kéré is known for “empowering and transforming communities through the process of architecture”, as the jury stated in its citation. In this recently published video, Martha Thorne, Dean of IE School of Architecture and Design and former executive director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, shares some of the reasons why Francis Kéré has won the Pritzker Prize 2022.

This country house was designed for a family with two kids and many friends. It is in a gated community, and though surrounded by neighbors, it enjoys some isolation from them, so the project can better explore the interaction between the interior and exterior spaces. Relevant aspects of the proposition are to be able to contemplate the dawn, the sunset, and the open views of nature. 

The resort is situated in a rural landscape of Ayutthaya, Thailand, surrounded by the Chao Phraya River on one side and the canal on the other.  The architectural design is a contemporary re-interpretation of the local rural landscape and intends to connect people to the life of the river and its atmosphere. The buildings are scaled down to be in grain with the surrounding local houses, alternating and surrounded by lushness of trees, and arranged in clusters with variation of positioning, in and out with various building heights.