Articles by Dima Stouhi

American architect Gyo Obata, FAIA, co-founder of renowned architecture firm HOK, has passed away on March 8 at the age of 99. The news was announced by the office through a statement, honoring the architect’s legacy and highlighting his holistic approach which “helped drive HOK’s ongoing expansion into new specialty practices, market sectors and geographic regions”.

Moving forward with his “ultra-marathon of photoshoots”, architectural photographer Marc Goodwin is putting together an Atlas of Architectural Atmospheres by Arcmospheres, a project that seeks to document diverse architecture and design studios from around the world. Since 2016, the architectural photographer has been traveling “far and wide to capture the atmospheres of architecture studios in order to produce an online and print resource for the architecture community”, and after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, Goodwin resumed his project with an exploration of Berlin’s architecture offices, capturing the work environment of renowned firms such as Hesse, LAVA, JWA, and FAR frohn&rojas, to name a few.

The culturally-significant town of Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, is an area of rich history and religion, preserving traces of walls, moats, and temples from a past that dates back to the 13th century. Between its lush trees and scenic landscapes sits architectural design studio Sher Maker’s workshop and office, a locally-sourced space that accentuates the process and meaning behind building construction. Their workspace is no different than their portfolio; having an interest in the origins of architectural formations, the context of local materials and technologies, as well as the atmosphere that surrounds the building both physically and atmospherically, the team translated their design approach to create their own working space.

Foster + Partners has been chosen by Masterise Homes to serve as Architectural Advisors for the development of The Global City, an all-inclusive neighborhood in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and the first of its kind in the country for the architecture office. The practice will provide innovative and sustainable design solutions for a fully-integrated master plan that features a full range of facilities, residential units, and connections to highways, major roads, and metro lines.

The British Council has announced that Jayden Ali, Joseph Henry, Meneesha Kellay and Sumitra Upham will be the curatorial team that will represent Great Britain at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The team will transform the British Pavilion into celebratory spaces that “embrace collective construction methods and processes that avoid exploiting people and the planet”. The 18th International Architecture Exhibition will be held from May 20th until November 26th, 2023.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, in partnership with Atlanta’s Goode Van Slyke Architecture (GVSA), have unveiled Centennial Yards’ first ground-up tower. Titled One Centennial Yards, the project will feature 28 stories and over 500,000 square feet of office space, 19,000 square feet of amenities, and 21,980 square feet of outdoor spaces, all aligned with the innovative, health, and wellness goals of the Foster + Partners designed master plan.

The World Monuments Fund has released its 2022 World Monuments Watch list, a selection of 25 sites from across the globe that hold great cultural and heritage significance but are being faced with economic, political or natural threats. This year’s selection highlights themes of global issues such as climate change, imbalanced tourism, underrepresentation, and recovery from crisis, urging for prompt preservation plans.

Setting the stage for Rotterdam Architecture Month this upcoming June, MVRDV have designed a temporary rooftop platform on the Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam. The 600-square-meter event space titled The Podium will be elevated 29 meters and covered with a striking pink color, making it visible to all pedestrians on ground level. The installation will open to the public on June 1st, coinciding with the inauguration of the Rotterdam Architecture Month Festival, and will continue to be used for events until August 17th.

As revolutionary as the construction sector may seem nowadays, it currently accounts for nearly 40% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, 11% of which are a result of manufacturing building materials such as steel, cement, and glass. Fast forward a couple of years later, after a life-changing global pandemic and indisputable evidences of climate change, CO2 emissions are still on a rise, reaching a historical maximum in 2020 according to the 2020 Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction. Although a lot of progress has been made through technological advancements, design strategies and concepts, and construction processes, there is still a long way to go to reduce carbon emissions to a minimum or almost zero in the development of built environments.

Following an extensive report on the impacts of climate change last year, the second installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nation’s body for assessing the science related to climate change, addresses the current and anticipated impacts of climate change on ecosystems, biodiversity, and human communities across the globe, along with action plans on how the natural world and human societies could adapt to these changes before reaching an “irreversible” state.