The 126 Best Architecture Books

The 126 Best Architecture Books

© Leandro Fuenzalida | ArchDaily

• Written by ArchDaily Team
• Published on December 30, 2023

Architecture has deep wells of research, thought, and theory that are unseen on the surface of a structure. For practitioners, citizens interested, and students alike, books on architecture offer invaluable context to the profession, be it practical, inspirational, academic, or otherwise. So, for those of you looking to expand your bookshelf (or confirm your own tastes), ArchDaily has gathered a broad list of architectural books that we consider of interest to those in the field.

In compiling this list, we sought out titles from different backgrounds with the aim of revealing divergent cultural contexts. From essays to monographs, urban theory to graphic novels, each of the following either engage directly with or flirt on the edges of architecture.

The books on this list were chosen by our editors, and are categorized loosely by type. Read on to see the books we consider valuable to anyone interested in architecture.

The Essential Reads

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A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction / Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein

Every design challenge represents a problem to be solved. In this book, Christopher Alexander proposes a cataloging of the types of problems (or design challenges) and analyzes what lies behind each situation, describing it in its essence and proposing a standard solution | Recommended by Eduardo Souza

The Architecture of the City / Aldo Rossi

The obligatory world-acclaimed book that proposes a critical reflection on the value of the collective memory in the architecture —of the city | Recommended by Fabian Dejtiar

Athmospheres / Peter Zumthor

Peter Zumthor shortly highlights the importance of the sensations in the construction of ‘Athmospheres’, to create a good place for the development of people | Recommended by Fabian Dejtiar

Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture / Robert Venturi

A “gentle manifesto for a non-straightforward architecture,” Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture expresses in the most compelling and original terms the postmodern rebellion against the purism of modernism | Recommended by Diego Hernández

Conversations with Students (Architecture at Rice) / Louis Kahn

Inspiring text based on conversations led by Louis Kahn in different workshops | Recommended by Martita Vial

Experiencing Architecture / Eiler Rasmussen

A classic book with a very sensitive atmosphere about promising architecture and design | Recommended by Martita Vial

The Eyes of the Skin / Juhani Pallasmaa

This book a quick, delightful, and inspiring read – and entirely essential as we continue on the asymptote towards entirely digital practice in architecture. Pallasmaa encourages architects to see the world around them not just with sight but with touch, sound, even smell! | Recommended by Katherine Allen

The Image of the City / Kevin Lynch

In this 1960s classic, Kevin Lynch presents studies of how cities are perceived and imagined, and shows how his findings can impact the building and rebuilding of cities | Recommended by Becky Quintal

In Praise of Shadows / Junichiro Tanizaki

Explains the beauty of oriental architecture through their perception of light and shadows in their art and architectural traditions | Recommended by Martita Vial

Learning from Las Vegas / Denise Scott Brown, Robert Venturi, Steven Izenour

Seminal work for the history of architecture, the authors analyze the Las Vegas’ strip to better comprehend the common and ordinary architecture, rather than the iconic buildings proclaimed by modernism | Recommended by Romullo Baratto

Mutations / Rem Koolhaas, Stefano Boeri, Sanford Kwinter, Nadia Tazi, Hans Ulrich Obrist

Mutations’ reflects on the transformations that urban accelerating processes inflict on our environment, and on the spaces in which architecture can still operate | Recommended by Victor Delaqua

Neufert Architects’ Data / Ernst Neufert, Peter Neufert

It presents appropriate standard measures and design tips. A very useful book for all architects | Recommended by Eduardo Souza

The Poetics of Space / Gaston Bachelard

Really beautifully written book on the poetics of space within the home. It explores the philosophy of space and how it relates to memories and dreams | Recommended by Yiling Shen

The Seven Lamps of Architecture / John Ruskin

“Know what you have to do and do it,” said John Ruskin – words that neatly sum the contents of this book. Ruskin’s writing describes lamps as characteristics that any piece of architecture must have in order to be considered this real architecture – in turn, the principles he deems necessary for architecture to be considered art | Recommended by Martita Vial

Superstudio: Life without objects / Peter Lang

This book exposes the work of one of the most famous architecture groups for the radicalization and criticism of utopias | Recommended by Monica Arellano

Ten Canonical Buildings: 1950-2000 / Peter Eisenman

Based on interesting diagrams and drawings, Peter Eisenman provides evidence of how some renowned architects of the 20th century changed our way of thinking | Recommended by Fabian Dejtiar

Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965 – 1995 / Kate Nesbitt (org)

A collection of the most important and seminal essays in the field of architecture published between 1965 and 1995 | Recommended by Romullo Baratto

Theory and Design in the First Machine Age / Reyner Banham

Banham’s response to the second industrial revolution | Recommended by Diego Hernández

Universal Principles of Design / William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, Jill Butler

This book explains the disciplines of designing anything —from a house to a coffee cup | Recommended by Dima Stouhi

The Works: Anatomy of the City / Kate Ascher

After years in architecture school, you may understand how a building is put together – but how much do you actually understand the processes that make that building function in the first place? Kate Ascher reviews the systems that manage traffic, water, heat, electricity, and much more, tying architecture not just to an image of the urban environment, but to the actual workings of the city | Recommended by Collin Abdallah

Yona Friedman: The Dilution Of Architecture / Yona Friedman

Yona Friedman takes up the work of groups such as Archigram to propose cities that propose new ways of inhabiting cities | Recommended by Monica Arellano

Guides

Architecture: Form, Space and Order / Francis D. K. Ching

This book systematically and exhaustively analyzes the foundations of architectural form, space, and arrangement based on prototypes and historical examples from all periods, cultures and geographical areas | Recommended by Martita Vial

Architectural Acoustics / David Egan

For many architects, designing for the senses often means simply designing for sight and touch. This book gives a comprehensive overview of designing for sound, from detailed drawings to texts on the subject. The hope? That better acoustic environments will also mean better buildings | Recommended by Collin Abdallah

Detail in Contemporary Architecture Series / Virginia McLeod

As compelling as concepts are to discuss, they’re rarely what makes the experience of a building special – that falls instead to a building’s details. We notice how a wall touches the ground, how a railing curves underneath our hand – but how do you design these things? This book provides a vast variety of examples to help architects consider and design the details | Recommended by Collin Abdallah

Elemental: Incremental Housing and Participatory Design Manual / Alejandro Aravena

The field experiences developed by Elemental and Alejandro Aravena, winner of the 2016 Pritzker Prize and Director of the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, are compiled in this book that not only tells the history of the team but also presents its financing strategies and the participatory methods used | Recommended by José Tomás Franco

Thermal Delight in Architecture / Lisa Heschong

In an increasingly air-conditioned environment, it can be easy to discount thermal comfort in the design of a building. But architecture (particularly vernacular design) has long been built on traditions surrounding thermal comfort, ranging from Roman baths to Islamic gardens to the porches of Southern US homes. As energy-efficiency increasingly becomes a part of the conversation, it’s wise to learn from the past to design for the future | Recommended by Collin Abdallah

Architects, Firms, and Movements

Archigram / Peter Cook

More than a few revolutions took place in the 60s, but perhaps the most memorable one for architects is that of Archigram. The legendary British group created visions for cities that still feel fresh and fantastical today, and are carried on by designers such as Neil Denari, Lebbeus Woods, and Morphosis. This book is an excellent dive into their thinking in their own words, and includes a massive (though unfortunately black and white) selection of their famous collages. Those enamoured by the post-digital drawing craze will enjoy seeing where the current movement partly stems from | Recommended by Katherine Allen

Atlas of Novel Tectonics / Jesse Reiser

New York-based architects Reiser+Umemoto use short, informative chapters to explain their design process through a series topics that have driven their work | Recommended by Becky Quintal

BIG, HOT TO COLD: An Odyssey of Architectural Adaptation / Bjarke Ingels

This reading offers insight not only to one of the world’s most creative practices, but into how to design for a changing climate – a message we’d all be wise to pay attention to | Recommended by Yiling Shen

Cities for People / Jan Gehl

Jan Gehl presents his latest work creating (or recreating) cityscapes on a human scale. He clearly explains the methods and tools he uses to reconfigure unworkable cityscapes into the landscapes he believes they should be: cities for people | Recommended by Eduardo Souza

Design Like You Give a Damn / Architecture for Humanity

Many of us enter the field with a core belief that we can leverage the profession to do good for others. But often, the places most in need of optimism are the ones least likely to get it. Design Like You Give a Damn is the resource for socially-conscious design, gathering together projects, history, and information about the movement – and what’s possible with a little optimism | Recommended by Katherine Allen

Eladio Dieste: Innovation in Structural Art / Stanford Anderson

This book deals with the work of the Uruguayan engineer-architect Eladio Dieste, whose greatest production was developed in the capital of his native country and adjunctive cities in the second half of the twentieth century | Recommended by Matheus Pereira

Forensic Architecture: Violence at the Threshold of Detectability / Eyal Weizman

Forensic Architecture, a research group led by Eyal Weizman at Goldsmiths, leverages architecture as a framework to investigate a world in conflict, from armed violence to environmental destruction. This book details some of their work with activist groups, NGOs, and the UN | Recommended by Katherine Allen

Freeing Architecture / Junya Ishigami

Junya Ishigami is known for a singular portfolio, one in which structures blur into near invisibility, taking on the appearance of forests, strands of ribbon, and even the sky | Recommended by Shuang Han

The Future Of Architecture / Frank Lloyd Wright

This work by Frank Lloyd Wright brings together a large part of the writings and conferences that, over an intense decade of its prolonged existence, offered to the eagerness of qualified audiences, collaborators and students. Until its author reunited them under the generic title of “The Future of Architecture”, the lessons of the great master exhausted the original editions. It was essential that these enlightening texts be brought to light for the new generations of architectural scholars | Recommended by Martita Vial della Maggiora

Isay Weinfeld: The Brazilian Architect / Gestalten

This book presents and discusses part of the works of Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld, from homes to hotels in Brazil and other regions of the world. The book also features previously unpublished photographs that visually describe their work | Recommended by Matheus Pereira

Kicked a Building Lately? / Ada Louise Huxtable

Ada Louise Huxtable reinvented the field of not just architectural criticism, but criticism itself, winning the first ever Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. In her canny eyes, the city was not something abstract or academic, but something that was living, tangible – kickable. Her legacy is one that lives on today in the (perhaps improbably) thriving field of architectural criticism | Recommended by Katherine Allen

Lina Bo Bardi / Zeuler R. M. de A. Lima

A comprehensive study of Bo Bardi’s career using an extensive archival work in Italy and Brazil | Recommended by Pedro Vada

MOS: Selected Works / Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample

MOS is an office known as much for their wit as they are for their architecture. Architecture, under their idiosyncratic gaze, is lively, ironic, and even a bit awkward. In short, it’s as human as we are ourselves | Recommended by Kaley Overstreet

Oscar Niemeyer / Philip Jodizio

This book discusses the work of Brazilian modern architect Oscar Niemeyer with a focus on the works produced in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960 | Recommended by Matheus Pereira

Rafael Moneo: Remarks on 21 Works / Rafael Moneo

Twenty-one carefully selected projects are presented in detail, from the initial idea and through construction to the completed work and illustrated by Michael Moran | Recommended by Nicolas Valencia

Slow Manifesto / Lebbeus Woods Blog

Lebbeus Woods, until his death in 2012, kept a blog that was part-journal, part-forum. This book compiles some of the 300+ posts in what is likely the most encompassing insight into his particular genius. Perhaps the only thing missing from the book is Wood’s complex and unique illustrations. But never fear! They are all available on his still (thankfully) open blog. Read the two together for the fullest possible experience | Recommended by Katherine Allen

SMLXL / Rem Koolhaas

Poll any architect on the most essential books of the field, and this tome from Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau will undoutedly come up. The book weaves together OMA projects by scale, using drawings, collages, images, and texts to challenge conventional understand of architecture, scale, and the city | Recommended by Becky Quintal

Solano Benitez / Solano Benitez

This book presents some of the architect’s projects, discussing the language adopted from the technical, structural, philosophical and social point of view | Recommended by Matheus Pereira

Thinking Architecture / Peter Zumthor

Admirers of the Swiss architect’s sensitive approach to building and form should consider this text required reading for practice. Zumthor presents his philosophy through the lens of his own work and experience. Who better to learn from than the master? | Recommended by Katherine Allen

Thought by Hand / Flores & Prats

This book documents the work of the architecture studio Flores & Prats, approaching its way of doing architecture through an artisan design process with different types of handmade drawings and details | Recommended by Fabian Dejtiar

Uneasy Balance / Christopher Platt, Brian Carter

An intriguing look inside the design and construction of Steven Holl’s Reid Building next to the famed Glasgow School of Art. The process is one of balance and reconciliation, illuminated through drawings, photographs, and interviews | Recommended by Niall Patrick Walsh

We’ll Get There When We Cross That Bridge / Amale Andraos and Dan Wood

Set up as a conversation between WORKac co-founders Amale Andraos and Dan Wood, We’ll Get there When We Cross that Bridge switches seamlessly between portfolio review and an impassioned discussion of issues relevant to the practice. It’s an invaluable insight into how one of the most exciting contemporary firms works, thinks, and plans for the future | Recommended by Kaley Overstreet

Yes is More / Bjarke Ingels

If non-architects know any practicing architect today, it’s probably Bjarke Ingels. This book is a big part of the reason why! Yes is More introduced the world to a new way of looking at and speaking about architecture – one that was lively, energetic, and open to all. Since its publication in 2009, we’ve all joined BIG’s hedonistic revolution, and it’s shaped architecture for the better | Recommended by Katherine Allen

Novels

The Australian Ugliness / Robin Boyd

A scathing literary satire by Australia’s most influential architect on how ugly Australian suburbs are still relevant today | Recommended by Yiling Shen

Citizens of No Place: An Architectural Graphic Novel / Jimenez Lai

In this book, architect Jimenez Lai creates a collection of short stories on architecture and urbanism, represented through manga-style storyboards | Recommended by Romullo Baratto

Invisible Cities / Italo Calvino

In this book, somewhere between a novel and a set of essays, Marco Polo describes the cities he’s visited to emperor Kublai Khan. Each city is lushly, if fragmentarily described. This is surely the way we should talk about our cities: as shimmering reflections and formless memories. Easily readable in parts, this book is the perfect detox for those needing an escape from all the unbearable talk about smart cities and circular economies – and a reminder why we fall in love with cities in the first place | Recommended by Katherine Allen

The Pillars of the Earth / Ken Follet

This novel describes the evolution of Gothic architecture as a response to its Romanesque precursor against the backdrop of (lightly fictionalized) medieval European life | Recommended by Martita Vial.

History

A World History of Architecture / Michael Fazio, Marian Moffett, Lawrence Wodehouse

A complete historic round-up of architecture styles | Recommended by Dima Stouhi

Architecture of the Islamic World: Its History and Social Meaning / Ernst J. Grube, James Dickie, Oleg Grabar, Eleanor Sims, Ronald Lewcock, Dalu Jones, Gut T. Petherbridge,, George Michell

This book explains the history, evolution, and ornaments of Islamic architecture | Recommended by Dima Stouhi

Barcelona Supermodelo / Alessandro Scarnato

Alessandro Scarnato explains how Barcelona, an infested city, became a global city after Spain recovered its democracy in the ’70s | Recommended by Nicolas Valencia

Clip, Stamp, Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X to 197X / Beatriz Colomina

An explosion of little architectural magazines in the 1960s and 1970s instigated a radical transformation in architectural culture, as the magazines acted as a site of innovation and debate | Recommended by Victor Delaqua

Los Hechos de la Arquitectura / Alejandro Aravena, Fernando Perez

Alejandro Aravena joins Fernando Perez Oyarzún and José Quintanilla to discuss and analyze several architecture projects along with history, all accompanied with drawings, essays, and external references to make understand architecture from all its different angles and points of view | Recommended by Fernanda Castro

Modern Architecture / Alan Colquhoun

An extensive overview of the history, motivations, successes, and failures of the Modernist movement in architecture, offering invaluable and unparalleled context on an already widely published topic | Recommended by Shuang Han

Modern Architecture: A Critical History (Fourth Edition) / Kenneth Frampton

One of the most complete and relevant books on modern architecture, in the fourth edition Frampton added a major new section to his masterpiece that explores the effects of globalization on architecture all over the world | Recommended by Romullo Baratto

Palladio, The Villa and the Landscape / Gerrit Smienk, Johannes Niemeijer

This book documents and analyzes ten of Palladio’s surviving villas in terms of their relationship with their natural surroundings | Recommended by Niall Patrick Walsh

Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture / Ulrich Conrads

The most influential architectural manifestos from 1903 to 1963, collected here in chronological order | Recommended by Becky Quintal

Project Japan: Metabolism Talks / Rem Koolhaas, Hans Ulrich Obrist

An editorial design accomplishment by itself, this book interweaves historical research with interviews with some of the most prominent architects from Japanese Metabolism movement | Recommended by Romullo Baratto

Reyner Banham and the Paradoxes of High Tech / Todd Gannon

Todd Gannon sheds light on one of architecture’s most influential critics, giving readers context to the man and opinions behind the writings. From his tentative enthusiasm for Archigram to his views on the high-tech architecture of the 80s and 90s, his opinions need not be a mystery | Recommended by Kaley Overstreet

Teorías e historia de la ciudad contemporánea / Carlos García Vázquez

García Vásquez reveals how the contemporary city has evolved, according to psychologists, historians, and architects | Recommended by Nicolas Valencia

The Prisons / Le Carceri / Giovanni Battista Piranesi

A compilation of Piranesi’s etchings of prisons, Le Carceri represents not only a huge artistic accomplishment but also a milestone on architectural perception with its numerous vaults, staircases and other ambiguous structures | Recommended by Romullo Baratto

Theory

Architecture As Space / Bruno Zevi

This classic examines how architecture defines our understanding of space – and how buildings are sometimes indifferent participants in the urban environment. In Zevi’s capable hands the components of architecture come alive, offering an illuminating and provocative perspective on the field of architecture | Recommended by Martita Vial.

Architecture Depends / Jeremy Till

The popular image of the architect is one of ego and power – but as any practicing architect will tell you, this is rarely (at best) the truth. Architecture depends on just about everything: the client, contractors, code, materials, zoning, budget…how much of a building is actually designed by the designer? This book investigates the gap between architecture’s dependent nature and the aggressive perfectionism with which we pursue our work | Recommended by Katherine Allen

The Architecture of Image: Existential Space in Cinema / Juhani Pallasmaa

By analyzing the relation between cinema, art, and architecture through the lens of existential spaces, Pallasmaa dives into the work of Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Andrei Tarkovsky and how they used architectural imagery to create emotional states | Recommended by Romullo Baratto

Are We Human? Notes On Archeology Of Design / Beatriz Colomina

This book explores the bases of design from the very antique tools to the new digital era to propose new theories that allow us to rethink the way we design | Recommended by Monica Arellano

Arquitectura y política / Josep Maria Montaner, Zaida Muxí

The authors carry out a historical journey that narrates the social role of architects and planners until the current era of globalization | Recommended by Nicolas Valencia

The Art-Architecture Complex / Hal Foster

The book is an inescapable reference for thinking about contemporary art and architecture | Recommended by Victor Delaqua

BLDGBLOG Book / Geoff Manaugh

From nomadic architecture to underground sewerage landscapes, this book examines the possibilities of architecture outside of how it is normally viewed and discussed | Recommended by Yiling Shen

Cities of Hope: Australian Architecture and Design by Edmond and Corrigan / Conrad Hamann

This is an iconic book analyzing the post-modern work of Edmond & Corrigan and how they reflect ideas about Australian suburbia and theatrics in their architecture | Recommended by Yiling Shen

The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change / David Harvey

David Harvey identify different contexts to create a great panorama of The condition of Postmodernity | Recommended by Pedro Vada

Constructing a New Agenda: Architectural Theory 1993-2009 / A. Krista Sykes

Critical architectural theory from the mid-1990s to now | Recommended by Pedro Vada

Content / Rem Koolhaas

In OMA/AMO’s words, Content is a product of the moment. Inspired by ceaseless fluctuations of the early 21st Century, it bears the marks of globalism and the market, ideological siblings that, over the past twenty years, have undercut the stability of contemporary life | Recommended by Diego Hernández

Delirious New York: A retroactive manifesto for Manhattan / Rem Koolhaas

Basically, the work that made Rem Koolhaas famous. This book exposes the consistency and coherence of the seemingly unrelated episodes of Manhattan’s urbanism focusing on its “culture of congestion.” | Recommended by Romullo Baratto

The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War / Robert Bevan

You’re unlikely to find this book on any typical architecture reading lists, but that doesn’t make it any less essential. Robert Bevan guides the reader through the architectural landscape in times of and after a conflict, giving words to what we know but don’t often say: that the built environment has cultural and personal significance that stretches far beyond shelter. The leveling of buildings in war is less often the byproduct of hostilities than it is the hostilities themselves. The active and systematic erasure of an urban landscape is the strategic and leveling of identity, culture, and people | Recommended by Katherine Allen

Domesticity at War / Beatriz Colomina

Beatriz Colomina studies the phenomenon of postwar architecture as well as the factors that helped to build the idea of modern architecture based on the work of Charles and Ray Eames | Recommended by Monica Arellano

Future Practice: Conversations from the Edge of Architecture / Rory Hyde

Seventeen conversations with practitioners from the fields of architecture, policy, activism, design, education, and research speculating on the future direction of the architectural profession | Recommended by Niall Patrick Walsh

The Good Life: A Guided Visit to the Houses of Modernity / Iñaki Ábalos

It is a critical tour about concepts for living in seven iconic twentieth-century homes | Recommended by Pedro Vada

The Language of Architecture / Andrea Simitch and Val Warke

This book provides students and professional architects with the basic elements of architectural design, divided into twenty-six easy-to-comprehend chapters | Recommended by Winnie Wu

Lo Ordinario / Enrique Walker

A selection of articles that address the notion of the ordinary in architecture over the last 40 years | Recommended by Nicolas Valencia

The Manual of Section / Paul Lewis, Marc Tsurumaki, and David J. Lewis

The section is the greatest and most legible tool of architecture – who among us did not grow up entranced by the cut sections of buildings such as the Pantheon or Kowloon Walled City? This book is the grown-up answer to our childhood fascinations, offering detailed drawings of contemporary works. Essays offer invaluable insight into not just the buildings selected but to the idea of the section itself | Recommended by Kaley Overstreet

Oppositions Reader: Selected Essays 1973-1984 / Michael Hays

Oppositions Reader collects the most important essays from 26 issues of Oppositions, the journal of the New York-based Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS). An excellent selection of authors and prevailing subjects | Recommended by Antonia Piñeiro

Pornotopia: An Essay on Playboy’s Architecture and Biopolitics / Paul B. Preciado

This book studies how architectural production is popularized and inclined to design erotic spaces based on a specific context, demonstrating how different factors of the modern culture shaped the places we inhabit | Recommended by Monica Arellano

The Structure of the Ordinary: Form and Control in the Built Environment / N.J. Habraken

According to Habraken, architects consider the context to be the ‘ordinary’ into which they are challenged to produce the ‘extraordinary.’ But as vernacular architecture disappears, ordinary environments are more difficult to define. Without a clear counterpoint, how can architects situate concepts of innovation in architecture? | Recommended by José Tomás Franco

Theoretical Anxiety and Design Strategies in the Work of Eight Contemporary Architects / Rafael Moneo

Compilation of eight lectures from Rafael Moneo on eight of the most renowned architects from the last half-century, including James Stirling, Robert Venturi, Aldo Rossi, Peter Eisenman, Alvaro Siza, Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas | Recommended by Romullo Baratto

Toward an Other Globalization: From the Single Thought to Universal Conscience / Milton Santos

The great Brazilian geographer presents an alternative theory of globalization | Recommended by Pedro Vada

Tschumi on Architecture: Conversations with Enrique Walker / Enrique Walker

This volume presents, in a sequence of ten “conversations,” Bernard Tschumi’s autobiography in architecture | Recommended by Nicolas Valencia

Why Architecture Matters / Paul Goldberger

The most famous architectural critic offers an architectural dictionary to understand how we live spaces | Recommended by Monica Arellano

Cities & Urbanism

Building Brasilia / Marcel Gautherot and Kenneth Frampton

This book brings Gautherot’s photos about the construction of the building of Brasilia with essays by Kenneth Frampton | Recommended by Pedro Vada

Cities for a Small Planet / Richard Rogers

Richard Rogers presents a program of action for the future of cities. It demonstrates the influence of architecture and urban planning on everyday lives, and warns of the impact modern cities can have on the environment | Recommended by Eduardo Souza

The City of Tomorrow: Sensors, Networks, Hackers, and the Future of Urban Life / Carlo Ratti, Matthew Claudel

MIT’s Senseable City Lab remains at the cutting edge of urban design, placing designers in future scenarios to steer human progress | Recommended by Niall Patrick Walsh

Cities Without Ground / Adam Frampton, Jonathan D. Solomon, Clara Wong

An amazing illustrated vision in a crowded urban center and how its exploit its most limited resources —soil— at its best expression | Recommended by Nicolas Valencia

Collage City / Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter

Grand urban visions may make for compelling theory and research, but how often do they succeed in practice? Collage city offers a more nuanced view on urbanism – one that is as patchworked and diverse as urban societies themselves | Recommended by Kaley Overstreet

Concise Townscape / Golden Cullen

This book pioneered the concept of townscape. ‘Townscape’ is the art of giving visual coherence and organization to the jumble of buildings, streets, and space that make up the urban environment | Recommended by Winnie Wu

The Death and Life of Great American Cities / Jane Jacobs

The New York Times describes this book as “perhaps the most influential single work in the history of town planning.” An essential read for architects young and old | Recommended by Niall Patrick Walsh

The Granite Garden: Urban Nature And Human Design / Anne W. Spirn

The city is an extension of nature and the urban projects must be in tune with this same nature. The book is the result of extensive interdisciplinary research, as well as the author’s extensive experience as a landscape architect | Recommended by Eduardo Souza

The History of the City / Leonardo Benevolo

Leonardo Benevolo describes the basic history of the man-made environment in Europe | Recommended by Pedro Vada

Ladders / Albert Pope

If you are interested in urban form issues, this analysis of different cities explains the characteristics of the open system and closed spaces | Recommended by Fabian Dejtiar

Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space / Jan Gehl

The book describes essential elements that contribute to people’s enjoyment of spaces in the public realm | Recommended by Eduardo Souza

The New Science of Cities / Michael Batty

The geographer Michael Batty presents the new vision about cities as systems of network and flows | Recommended by Pedro Vada

Triumph of the City / Edward Glaeser

Economist Edward Glaeser explains how and why cities shape the economy, including how the ways we develop and build we affect the future of cities’ inhabitants | Recommended by Becky Quintal

The Urban Apparatus: Mediapolitics and the City / Reinhold Martin

In The Urban Apparatus, Reinhold Martin analyzes urbanization and the contemporary city in aesthetic, socio-economic and political-political terms | Recommended by Antonia Piñeiro

Walkscapes: walking as an aesthetic practice / Francesco Careri

A guide to study the city based on the theories of the situationists and the drift of Guy Débord that studies the simultaneous episodes that make up the urban | Recommended by Monica Arellano

Latest Additions

The Barefoot Architect / Johan van Lengen

The architect proposes explanations about climatic contexts, forms, and materials that enable energy, water and sanitation solutions that help in the work, through the use of alternative eco-technologies | Recommended by Eduardo Souza

Constructing Architecture / Andrea Deplazes

A book that features numerous solutions from Materials, Processes, Structures | Recommended by Eduardo Souza

Non Places / Marc Auge

Augé uses the concept of “supermodernity” to describe a situation of excessive information and excessive space. In this fascinating essay, he seeks to establish an intellectual armature for an anthropology of supermodernity | Recommended by Martita Vial

How to Study Public Life / Jan Gehl & Birgitte Svarre

Gehl and Svarre draw from their combined experience of over 50 years to provide a history of public-life study as well as methods and tools necessary to recapture city life as an important planning dimension | Recommended by Eduardo Souza

City on a Hill / Alex Krieger

In a time where the future looks darker than ever, Alex Krieger reminds us of how utopian dreams once galvanized American (city planning) history and shows that our current worries―rather than dreams―require new utopias to be imagined | Recommended by Nicolas Valencia

Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time / Jeff Speck

Making walkability happen is relatively easy and cheap; seeing exactly what needs to be done is the trick. In this essential new book, Speck reveals the invisible workings of the city, how simple decisions have cascading effects, and how we can all make the right choices for our communities | Recommended by Eduardo Souza

Catálogo Arquitectura Movimiento Moderno Perú / Alejandra Acevedo & Michelle Llona

A must-read comprehensive catalog to understand the legacy of the most relevant architecture movement from the XX century in Peru | Recommended by Nicolas Valencia

Soft City: Building Density for Everyday Life / David Sim

Soft City is about ease and comfort, where density has a human dimension, adapting to our ever-changing needs, nurturing relationships, and accommodating the pleasures of everyday life | Recommended by Paula Pintos

The Future of Architecture Since 1889: A Worldwide History / Jean-Louis Cohen

Beginning with the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889, Cohen compiles developments that have shaped the world in which we live today. Through illustrations, drawings, and photographs, the book presents the evolution of the early twenty-first century’s globalized architectural culture | Recommended by Romullo Baratto

Landscapes of Modern Architecture: Wright, Mies, Neutra, Aalto, Barragán / Marc Treib

An authoritative study of the interrelationship between modern architecture, landscape, and site strategy as viewed through the work of the five prominent architects | Recommended by Paula Pintos

Heroínas del espacio: mujeres arquitectos en el movimiento moderno / Carmen Espegel

A monograph compilation of forerunner women architects that should be recognized for their contribution to the modernism movement in the XX century | Recommended by Nicolas Valencia

Living in the endless city / Ricky Burdett

The cities of Mumbai, Sao Paulo and Istanbul were added to the six cities of the first volume with the same mix of compelling photographs, in-depth and beautifully presented data, and smart writing by global thinkers. Each city is explored in a series of essays that address vital themes, from security to climate change, looking closely at the problems that face contemporary cities and examining a variety of solutions | Recommended by Christele Harrouk

Ciudad Fritanga / Ricardo Greene

An iconic compilation of explorative chronicles and photo essays about over the hill, middle-scale cities in Chile. How are they? What are their favorite foods? What are their people’s expectations and frustrations? | Recommended by Nicolas Valencia

The Hidden Dimension / Edward T. Hall

People like to keep certain distances between themselves and other people or things. And this invisible bubble of space that constitutes each person’s “territory” is one of the key dimensions of modern society. Hall introduced the science of proxemics to demonstrate how human’s use of space can affect personal and business relations, cross-cultural interactions, architecture, city planning, and urban renewal | Recommended by Christele Harrouk

Drone Unmanned / Ethel Baraona Pohl, Marina Otero, Malkit Shoshan

Edited by dpr-Barcelona’s Ethel Baraona, Het Nieuwe Instituut’s Marina Otero and FAST’s Malkit Shoshan, Drone brings together researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds whose work seeks to understand and represent the nature and extent of drone operations | Recommended by Nicolas Valencia

The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects / Lewis Mumford

The city’s development from ancient times to the modern age. Winner of the National Book Award | Recommended by Christele Harrouk

City Sense and City Design: Writings and Projects of Kevin Lynch / Kevin Lynch

An invaluable sourcebook of design knowledge, City Sense and City Design completes the record of one of the foremost environmental design theorists of our time and leads to a deeper understanding of his distinctively humanistic philosophy | Recommended by Christele Harrouk

Urban Street Design Guide / National Association of City Transportation Officials

This book shows how streets of every size can be reimagined and reoriented to prioritize safe driving and transit, biking, walking, and public activity. Unlike older, more conservative engineering manuals, this design guide emphasizes the core principle that urban streets have a larger role to play in communities | Recommended by Eduardo Souza

The ArchDaily Guide to Good Architecture / ArchDaily

In partnership with renowned international publisher gestalten, we have published our first book ever which spotlights the most innovative built environments of our age—those paving the way for a better, more sustainable future. Centered around ArchDaily’s 10 principles of good architecture developed by our team, the book celebrates the most visionary architects and introduces bold new talent. It explores the key topics and trends redefining the built environment, marking the forefront of architectural thought and practice today, with an eye on tomorrow | Recommended by ArchDaily Team

Disclosure: ArchDaily earns a commission from Amazon on books and items purchased through their platform. Nevertheless, this does not influence our editorial decision.

Suburban Villa / Nacházel Architekti

Selected ProjectsMasoro Learning & Sports Center / General Architecture CollaborativeSelected Projects

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Convento do Beato Event Center / RISCO

© Carolina Delgado

+ 26

• Curated by Susanna Moreira

Monastery, Renovation, Cultural Center

•

Lisbon, Portugal

Architects: RISCO Area:  5574 m² Year:  2022

Photographs:Carolina Delgado

• Manufacturers:  Geberit, JUNG, Jansen, Reggiani, Reynaers Aluminium, Bega, CLIMAR, Saint-Gobain, iGuzzini, Assa Abloy, Bobrick, CIFIAL, Dialum, EGE, EXENIA, FLOS, FTF, Fassa Bortolo, JNF, Lasvit, +6

Products used in this Project

• Reynaers AluminiumCurtain Walls – ConceptWall 50
• JansenFire Doors – Janisol 2 EI30
• JansenFire Doors – Economy 50
• JUNGLight Switch – LS 990

More Specs

Text description provided by the architects. The dozen or so buildings that make up the Convento do Beato complex date from a number of different eras. They include the old church, what remains of the old convent, and several buildings constructed mainly for industrial use in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The convent’s original cloister, chapter room, refectory, staircase, and library have all survived and have been used as an Events Centre for several years now.

The project developed by RISCO, for Beato Lux, includes the remodeling of the Events Centre and the renovation/refurbishment of the remaining buildings for new uses, namely, services in the old church and housing in the old industrial buildings. The project also includes the construction of two car parks, one above ground and one underground, and various outdoor spaces. Work began in 2018 and is scheduled for completion in 2024. In March 2022, work on the Events Centre was completed. This focused on improving the comfort and safety of the thousands of people who come here each year for parties, corporate meetings, and product launches.

There was also a more technical side to the refurbishment, involving the replacement of the telecommunications, energy, and security systems, a restoration of the kitchen, and changes to window and door spans and railings, etc. And then there was the more creative side to the work, which centered on the design of the administrative building, the courtyards, the new sanitary facilities, and certain unique elements, such as the walkways for the library’s emergency exits. These walkways perfectly express our approach to design when faced with valuable architectural heritage. We strive to make the most of the visual contemporaneity of the new elements while avoiding clashing contrasts with the existing architecture.  

There were also the “surgical operations” required in the library, foyer, refectory, and chapter room, to install the air-conditioning system, double the number of roof support trusses, and alter window and door spans. We tried to be as discreet as possible for this kind of work.

However, the most important transformation took place in the cloister, the space that hosts larger-scale events. Since the 1980s, this had been covered by a pyramid-shaped roof, covered with acrylic panels. This did not offer the smoke clearance or thermal and acoustic insulation required for this type of use. It also had no air-conditioning system, making it pretty uncomfortable on very hot days.

The design for the new ceiling resulted from a long process of technical and formal research, made necessary by the desire to ensure that it was structurally light, technically efficient and architecturally coherent with the cloister elevations. The solution adopted consists of a system of orthogonally arranged trusses that form a set of “honeycombs” that are lit from above by skylights. The new skylights offer thermal and acoustic insulation from the outside and open mechanically in the event of fire. The “honeycombs” have been clad with highly efficient sound absorbent material, which has greatly increased interior comfort and sound quality. Air-conditioning ducts are built into the periphery of this structure.

The new ceiling respects and enhances the proportions of the cloister elevations, whilst also expressing a markedly contemporary language. The contrast between the vertical planes, of worked stone, and the ceiling, of smooth, white plaster, adds value to the space, introducing a complexity that did not exist before. In this project, as in many others, we did not follow a single “recipe”: in some spaces we hide the new technical installations, in others we accept them as elements that add to the composition as a whole. In some cases, our language is decidedly contemporary, in others we take a more conservative approach, by replicating the design of the old carpentry work, masonry and metalwork.

This was an extensive and complex job that required frequent and ongoing adaptations as the work progressed. When we look at the results of our labours, we find that we have managed to incorporate everything that is required to run a modern events centre and do so without disfiguring spaces that are quite remarkable for their architectural and heritage value. This was always the main aim of our work.

ArchDaily Selects the Best New Practices of 2023

ArchDaily Selects the Best New Practices of 2023

• Written by Nicolás Valencia
• Published on December 13, 2022

25 practices, sole practitioners, and startups from 5 continents and 18 countries have been chosen as part of the 2023 New Practices, the latest edition of the global annual survey by ArchDaily. Ongoing since 2020, the review detects and showcases those who are taking architecture in its new direction under unstable times and demanding challenges.

ArchDaily’s New Practices has invited not only designers to apply but those practicing within the broadest definition of architecture and its exercise to share their innovative, fresh, and forward-thinking mission with us. As a result, the 2023 edition features designers, landscape architects, researchers, curators, activists, writers, and three ground-breaking startups—the modular construction U-Build, Urban Beta with their Beta Port building system, and the “Google Doc of Space Design” Rayon—thus joining previously highlighted firms: AEC-industry-oriented management software Monograph, energy transition startup Baupal, online design platform and marketplace CANOA, and 3D-printed housing company ICON.

David Basulto, ArchDaily Founder & Editor-in-Chief, has stated regarding the 2023 New Practices:

As the growing complexity of our world presents us with ever-growing challenges at an unprecedented speed, our built environment has become one of our society’s most critical questions. From energy scarcity to inequality, density, diversity, waste, food production, circular economy, and identity—it all converges into the built environment. To face this, architecture needs to evolve and scale. 

The practices we choose for this year’s edition embody the spirit of innovation, and from their diverse windows they bring something new to the table: from participatory processes to climate awareness, from the local approach to scaling architecture, to make it more accessible and democratic.

Meanwhile, Clara Ott, ArchDaily Projects Manager, has this to say:

From early in their careers, they challenge the known architectural scene fueled by a desire to get involved in architecture from a fresh perspective; by bringing new ideas ranging from developing construction systems and materials, inclusive participatory processes, care for the environment and innovation through technology. Their work becomes a significant contribution and true inspiration for the development of the built environment.

Throughout 2023, ArchDaily, across seven sites and four languages, will showcase the chosen practices’ work, explaining their approach through a series of in-depth articles as happened with the previous edition’s selected firms.

Without further ado, these are the 2023 ArchDaily New Practices in alphabetic order:

Ahmadreza Schricker Architecture | Iran + United States + United Kingdom

Team members: Ahmadreza Schricker, Mehdi Holakoui, Mona Janghorban, Patrick Hobgood, Behrang Bani-Adam, Roxana Afkhami, Amin Mahdavi

Embracing the potential of modernization, architects traditionally practice in cities with rising GDP growth to play a catalytic role in urbanization. Founded in New York by Ahmadreza Schricker in 2015, the intimate experience of realizing traditional architecture in a time of constant economic volatility has reconfigured ASA’s practice to pursue design in all directions: ASA North is dedicated to the physical realm, while ASA South has taken on projects in the virtual, including the first ground-up Virtual Museum for the Afkhami Collection. ASA East explores the past, preservation of the environment & adaptive reuse and is currently in formation; ASA West seeks to invent architecture for the future in lesser-explored frontiers, from earth’s geographic poles to other planets. 

Alsar Atelier | Colombia

Being born in the middle of the pandemic, the practice led by Alejandro Saldarriaga Rubio focuses on investigating low-cost/low-tech design solutions for the persistent problems in the Global South through innovative construction methods, sustainable practices, and community prioritization. Recently the studio has started to engage with informal settlements in Bogotá, Colombia, and currently, they are speculating on new typologies, emergent from the Coronavirus pandemic, that can be reapplied to more chronic problematics of the public realm of the informal landscapes of the world.

ASPJ: Agencia Social de Paisaje | Mexico

Team members: Emiliano García, Helene Carlo, Paula Amín, José María Castro, Daniela Alarcón, Iván Cruz, Alberto García, Diana Medina, Michelle Vences, Alejandro Sosa, Brenda Delgado, Karen Rivera, Isabel Ramírez, Daniela Ruiz de Chávez, Andrés Corona

ASPJ is convinced that Landscape—with capital L—is a necessary tool to design the horizons of today and tomorrow, and that design from the deep logic of Landscape allows the creation of coherent and abundant environments. Helene Carlo and Emiliano Garcia have developed territorial studies, stormwater management projects, renaturalization of rivers and regeneration of degraded environments, and design of environments and natural atmospheres. The Landscape is the final integrator, with a hydrological basin approach, where water is the guiding thread for the establishment of regenerative living systems, proposing diverse and productive landscapes linked to human establishments.

ATELIER XI | China

Team members: Chen Xi, Zhu Zhu, Weng Cekai, Huang Zhenfeng, Lin Ziya, He Xiansen, Ye Fangnan

Founded in 2017 by Chen Xi, their work focuses on public and cultural projects at various scales, attentive to the needs of diverse groups and scales. The studio aspires to create spaces that bring unique poetry and profoundness to contemporary urban and rural environments: “We see architecture as an art of mediation between social, economic, and political interests. We try to create meaningful places with minimum resources. We want to narrate emotions and memories with spatial poetry. We believe that each space, grand or tiny, is a clue to the vastness of our world, and a testimony to the glory of everyday life. By planting these quiet and resilient spaces one at a time, we envision architecture to branch out and blossom with life and narratives.”

Branco del Rio Arquitectos | Portugal

Team members: João Branco, Paula del Río, Inês Massano, Inês Bailão

“We are a team of four people, all very committed to work, always trying new ways of organizing ourselves in order to respond to everyday challenges.”

Diogo Aguiar Studio | Portugal

Team members: Diogo Aguiar, Daniel Mudrák, Adalgisa Castro Lopes, João Teixeira, Claudia Ricciuti, Liam Romo, Marta Bednarczyk, Matyáš Řehák

Diogo Aguiar Studio operates between the fields of architecture and art, simultaneously conceiving small-scale buildings and spatial installations for public space, temporary or otherwise, believing that the ambivalent practice informs and drives the work being developed, as speculative and spatial research. Among other relevant themes that are transversal and inevitable to contemporary reality, the studio is interested in the material and sensorial exploration of immersive architectural or artistic spaces, be they archetypal or ready-made, through the study of geometric, abstract, and elementary compositions. These are materialized as formal systems, that work the limits of the filled and the empty space, seeking to claim the relevance of the process of designing the architectural space, as a powerful research instrument.

forty five degrees | Germany

Team members: Alkistis Thomidou, Berta Gutiérrez, Giulia Domeniconi, Lea Hobson

As an international collaborative practice of architects and researchers, forty five degrees is committed to the critical revisioning of space-making, exploring new methods, resources, and means. Their work investigates the built environment through research, design, and artistic experimentation, across multiple scales and in its social, economical, and structural implications. They are interested in collecting protocols and collective approaches, exploring alternative living and city-making models and new paradigms of spatial development to engage with communities and the networks they are part of. The collective strives to create inclusive and accessible spaces through careful use of scale, material, and design language and is committed to rethinking education through academia and practice, placing design at the intersection of arts and sciences. At the studio, their projects address the social and cultural spheres, developing non-profit activities and engaging with a broader spectrum of actors creating a bigger impact.

gru.a | Brazil

Team members: Caio Calafate, Pedro Varella, André Cavendish, Ingrid Colares, Barbara Amorim and Igor Machado.

Based in Rio de Janeiro, gru.a has been developing projects and works of different scales and natures, with a special interest in the intersection between the fields of architecture and the arts. Over the last few years, the office has carried out projects for cultural centers, exhibition spaces, artistic installations, theaters, residences, and interventions in modern heritage, among others. The firm has participated in exhibitions and festivals such as the Venice Architecture Biennale (Brazil Pavilion, 2018) and the Ibero-American Architecture Biennale (2019). Also in 2019, gru.a was selected among the 10 finalists for the DEBUT award, granted by the Lisbon Architecture Triennale (2019) for international practices.

Infraestudio | Cuba

Team members: Fernando Martirena, Anadis González, Dat Nguyen, Daniela Iglesias, Mauricio Chávez y Manuela Silva.

Infra is a prefix indicating “below” or “before”. As a prefix in itself, it conditions everything that precedes it. Infraestudio is less than an architectural studio: it is a fiction created to operate discreetly in a city frozen in time. Infraestudio practices narrative architecture as a design exercise without the mediation of images: they start from the same discourse to experiment with different resources such as buildings, research, exhibitions, editorial practices, writing, art, and activism. Some of their obsessions are making architecture that hides in the landscape, showing emptiness as a representation of an idea, not thinking about forms but strategies, and building the minimum necessary.

JK-AR | South Korea

Team members: Jae K. Kim, Ji Seon Yoon, Gyu Tae Kim, Tae Wook Kang, Seung Hoon Lee

Defined as an agenda-based design practice, JK-AR is a platform for design experiments, creating space and form to yield new experiences. They think of visions for human life through architecture, rethinking traditional tectonics with digital technology for producing structural forms which challenge conventional practice in design and construction. Recently, the office focuses on recreating East Asian timber structures through interdisciplinary studies of design computation and historical analysis. In this context, the projects of JK-AR intend to constitute a novel step in reinventing and evolving the historical monumental structure.

KOSMOS Architects | Switzerland

Team members: Blanca Garcia Gardelegui, Eva Theresa Haendler, Leonid Slonimskiy, Artem Kitaev, Dmitriy Prikhodko, Marina Skorikova, Vsevolod Babichuk, Daniil Ulakhovich, Rodion Kitaev

Virtually bringing together partners from different parts of Europe, KOSMOS works on projects of diverse scales and typologies: from furniture to art installations to masterplans, including big urban parks and territorial development projects. They believe that architecture is a collaborative, inclusive, and multidisciplinary profession, and often collaborate with other architects, artists, political activists, sociologists, photographers, and poets. KOSMOS believes that architecture is not just a well-designed volume of a building, facade, and internal layout, but rather a spatial frame for spaces of public interaction, for being together. Architecture should activate the space around it and become a frame for people to spend their free time or work; play or study; relax or be active; meet each other or be with themselves.

Oana Stanescu | Germany + United States

Romanian architect, designer, writer, and educator, Stanescu’s projects span seamlessly across disciplines and scales, from private residences to public infrastructure, from product design to teaching. She has worked with the New Museum in New York, MoMA, Virgil Abloh, Coachella, the Storefront for Art and Architecture, and Kanye West. The studio is run from Berlin & New York.

Office Kim Lenschow | Denmark

Through architecture and design, Office Kim Lenschow seeks to reveal and challenge ingrained values, beliefs, and material narratives in established building practices and ways of life. The firm believes in architecture embedded in our time, seeing the built environment both as a resource of materials and of cultural meaning. Office Kim Lenschow is currently searching for a more fragile and open architecture, where the materials used, and the buildings’ patterns of use are better calibrated and synchronized with each other. This includes experimenting with different ways of applying bio-degradable materials to architecture to create an architecture better suited for our planet. Their aim is to cultivate a more aware and authentic engagement with the world and the structures that surround us.

Oficina Bravo | Chile

Team members: Martín Álvarez, Sebastián Bravo, Catalina Cárcamo, Noelia Caro, Arantxa Lastra, Raúl Pacheco, Sergio Reyes, Valentina Ulloa.

Founded by Sebastián Bravo, Oficina Bravo develops projects of intervention of buildings with heritage value, commercial spaces, gastronomic, housing, and public facilities. They are interested in making simple projects with efficient use of resources (architectural, economic, constructive, and material) looking for buildings that—through a clear strategy—are a contribution to the city and have the ability to interact with the immediate context. Oficina Bravo cares about having a conversation with the clients, understanding and involving them in the process, and making them understand its work. That is the only thing that ensures that the ideas behind the project survive with dignity once the work is inhabited.

Paulo Tavares | Brazil

Paulo Tavares’s practice explores the frontiers of architecture across design, advocacy, writing, and curating. Operating through multiple media and across fields, his work opens a collaborative arena aimed at environmental justice and counter-hegemony narrative

prototype | Ukraine

Team members: Ivan Protasov, Pylyp Chaikovsky-Vamush, Uliana Dzhurliak, Serhiy Revenko

A one-word description of prototype’s approach would be microrationality. They want to inspire others with flexibility concerning the variety of the challenges the firm takes on, from cultural to industrial to residential projects and beyond, and eco-friendly technical macro- and micro solutions, whether it be upcycling, minimum/zero waste, or circular production. prototype sees the future of architecture as becoming more responsible in terms of inventively reducing the current negative impact of the construction industry on the environment and more attentive to each project in terms of both its broad context and narrow specifics: prototype might utilize scaffolding as part of a temporary building, construct half of a waste sorting station from the waste it is supposed to sort or incorporate the materials left from on-site pre-construction dismantling into the project we execute on that site.

Rayon | France

Team members: Bastien Dolla, Stanislas Chaillou, Shira Nathan, Arthur Brongniart, Quentin Tardivon, Jan Pochyla, Xavier Haniquaut

In Rayon’s vision, architectural drawings are today at the core of our entire industry’s daily work. Yet, the class of legacy software people are currently left with was built during the pre-internet era. Therefore, Rayon brings to the table a 2D, browser-based and multiplayer experience allowing people to draw, share and work together on their drawings. At a time when people are increasingly moving their work, teams, and workflows online, Rayon aspires to spearhead this revolution in our industry, and democratize space design as widely as possible. In a nutshell, Rayon is essentially the “Google Doc of Space Design”.

RoarcRenew Architects | China

Team members: Robben Bai, Helen Yu, Leqian Xue, Mengxuan Sheng, Yejing Wu, Xiaoyi Liang, Enze Wu

Roarc Renew will always express a clear constructing idea in its practices. Building logic reflects the principal logic of how things work in this world, which is substances and joints: joints can reflect the substances in the physical world and connect them all. In its practices, Roarc Renew has created a JointsPavilion (JP) series for the construction system and a SoftJoints (SJ) series for the home furniture system to leverage its know-how to make it easy and simple by connecting substances beautifully.

Spacon & X | Denmark

Team members: Malene Hvidt, Nikoline Dyrup Carlsen, Svend Jacob Pedersen, Sofie Staal, Aleksander Aarstad, Otto Engelhardt, Johan Neborg, Linn Olsson, Karoline Bach, Victor Lomholt, Victor Munch, Anastasija Vlasova, Vera Johanne Aagaard Hertz, Mette Estrup, August Wille, Mads Riishede Knudsen, Morten Nielsen, Valentin Bauberger

Spacon & X strives to disrupt and challenge architectural norms and conventional design boundaries in a diplomatic manner, something they call disruplomacy. This approach has been guiding the firm since its inception, where it worked to address the urgent issue of spatial scarcity within urban contexts by reconsidering how we consume space. Spacon & X designs surfaces, volumes, and spaces that are multifaceted; able to serve a variety of purposes and functions; where multiple activities and experiences can occur over time, on the same square meters. To create spatially optimized and characterful spaces, Spacon & X believes that the most aspiring work comes from an untraditional fusion of skills across disciplines; bringing together various ideas from different practices to generate alternative, innovative and enduring solutions.

Taller General | Ecuador

Team members: Florencia Sobrero, Martín Real.

Taller General is a space of confluence, where they find themselves day by day doing what they like, mainly through architectural work. However, the space aims to mix all the flavors that make up our lives, whether it is called activism, reading, teaching, construction, drawing, planning, or management. Taller General is comprised of Martín Real and Florencia Sobrero. However, the group mutates depending on the development of each project. Collaborative work brings together worlds, opinions, and practices, enriching the space and facilitating results that they would be unable to imagine by themselves.

Tideland Studio | Denmark

Team members: Jonas Swienty Andresen, Simon Strøyer

Tideland Studio applies architectural tools in field research to capture and unfold phenomena relevant to our time. They work in the intersection between science, art, and architecture pushing the boundaries of disciplines to create experiences that inspire and educate. One of Tideland Studio’s goals is to mobilize change by bringing attention to climate change. Therefore they embrace architectural technologies that enable to register, simulate and communicate changes to natural and manmade landscapes. 

U-Build | United Kingdom

Team members: Nick Newman, Oli Berry, Hannah Burrough, Esra Alma, Ben Baker

U-Build is a not-for-profit startup, developed by Studio Bark in collaboration with Structure Workshop. They empower people to make their own spaces with U-Build’s modular flat-pack kits. The startup uses precision-cut CNC plywood assembled into blocks that can be bolted together into any configuration. Using parametric design they can turn simple sketches into fully costed technical drawings, and cutting files that can be sent all around the world. The system has been designed for the circular economy so that all of the parts can be disassembled. In fact, U-Build commits to taking back any unwanted U-Build boxes and reusing them in other projects, and several of our projects have already had many lives. Worth mentioning it that U-Build provides its services and systems at reduced rates or pro-bono to charities and movements working for a better future.

Urban Beta | Germany

Team members: Anke Parson, Paul Clemens Bart, Florian Michaelis, Marvin Bratke, Isabella Luger, Verena Katzmarzyk

Urban Beta is a spatial innovation studio creating inclusive, innovative, and transformative spaces. The studio develops spatial systems with a participatory approach, dealing with social justice, predictive planning, co-creation, and the democratization of design. Urban Beta creates transformative spaces that grow with us and can react to the changing streams of the information society. Their planning acts at the intersection of multiple disciplines and transforms dreams, visions, and values into tangible spatial concepts with future-proof narratives. Urban Beta’s core principles are based on social inclusion and predictive planning: they see themselves as an interface for spatial innovation, developing predictive planning tools and creating platforms for participatory co-creation processes and seamless transitions between physical and digital.

vão | Brazil

Team members: Anna Juni, Enk te Winkel, Gustavo Delonero, Gabriela Rochitte, Luiza Souza

vão is a transdisciplinary office whose work meanders through the fields of architecture, urbanism, and fine arts in the most diverse scales, demands, and contexts. vão is interested in the so-called transdisciplinary, basing all their works on theoretical, technical, and experimental grounds when investigating peculiar characteristics of the territory of action that can be incorporated into the project’s reasoning.

Willow Technologies | Ghana

Mae-ling Lokko’s Willow Technologies aims to explore and activate new positions for architects and designers within a global generative justice framework. Through the identification and transformation of different forms of “alienated value” within the architectural, agricultural, and food material life cycles, its work explores how design can play an active role in broadening and deepening ‘who’ and ‘what’ to participate in our material economies. Centered around projects that leverage agricultural, forestry, and food by-products, the practice aims to develop knowledge exchange and research platforms between largely disconnected intersectoral stakeholders.

The jury also wants to acknowledge the shortlisted practices of this edition: Domain Architects, SpActrum, Cinema Urbana, Coletivo LEVANTE, 3me arquitectura, Fabrizio Pugliese, Estudio RARE, HANGHAR, Proyector, Bona fide taller, Ivan Bravo Arquitectos, AMDL CIRCLE, CatalyticAction, DROO – Da Costa Mahindroo Architects, EVA Studio, Grand Huit coop, IVAAIU City, Kun Studio, Peter Pichler Architecture, RAD+ar, RnD_Earth (Research and Design), SAGA Space Architects, SO?, ZMX, and Fria Folket.

The ArchDaily’s 2023 New Practices jury was comprised of:

• Hana Abdel, Senior Projects Curator
• Romullo Baratto, ArchDaily Brasil Managing Editor
• David Basulto, ArchDaily Founder & Editor in Chief (Final Stage)
• Agustina Coulleri, Projects Curator
• Fabián Dejtiar, ArchDaily en Español Managing Editor
• Victor Delaqua, Content and Community and Social Media Editor
• Christele Harrouk, ArchDaily.com Managing Editor
• Eduardo Leite Souza, Materials Senior Editor
• Susanna Moreira, Projects Curator
• Clara Ott, Projects Manager (Final Stage)
• Paula Pintos, Senior Projects Curator
• Han Shuangyu, ArchDaily China Manager
• Dima Stouhi, Community and Social Media Manager
• Nicolás Valencia, ArchDaily Network Editorial & Data Manager (Final Stage)

This article is part of the ArchDaily Topics: New Practices. Every month we explore a topic in-depth through articles, interviews, news, and projects. Learn more about our ArchDaily topics. As always, at ArchDaily we welcome the contributions of our readers; if you want to submit an article or project, contact us.

This week we revealed the world’s largest office

Jane Englefield | 10 hours ago Leave a comment

This week on Dezeen, we unveiled architecture studio Morphogenesis’s Surat Diamond Bourse in India, which has overtaken the Pentagon to become the world’s biggest office building.

Spanning 660,000 square metres, the complex just outside of Surat includes various offices arranged around a central spine.

Designed as a “city within a city”, the workplace for diamond traders has surpassed the size of America’s Pentagon office, which has been the world’s largest office building since it was completed in 1943.

Elon Musk has rebranded Twitter by renaming it X

Also in the news this week, US entrepreneur Elon Musk announced that he has renamed the social media platform Twitter as X to “embody the imperfections in us all”.

Musk, who acquired Twitter last year, crowdsourced the imagery for X’s new logo – an art deco-style black-and-white X with a single bar diagonally crossed with a double bar.

“Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine,” said Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino via the online platform.

The 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris will share a torch design for the first time

A symmetrical recycled steel torch with a rippled texture was revealed by French designer Mathieu Lehanneur ahead of the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris.

Lehanneur was informed by the appearance of the city’s River Seine when designing the torch, which will represent both tournaments – a decision that was made to promote equality and marks the first time that both games have shared a torch.

Saudi Arabia has officially denied human rights abuses connected to its Neom

In other architecture news, Saudi Arabia has officially denied human rights abuses connected to the country’s Neom mega project after the United Nations Human Rights Council issued a statement voicing its concerns in early May.

Addressed to the UN, a letter from the Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia rejected that three men were sentenced to death for criticising evictions for the Neom project, which includes megacity The Line, and instead claimed that the men were terrorists linked to organisations Daesh and Al-Qaida.

Also in Saudi Arabia, British architecture studio Foster + Partners released designs for the Equinox Resort Amaala hotel, which is a 128-room luxury accommodation that will feature a “floating” canopy and take cues from traditional Saudi architecture.

We questioned whether AI will end up taking architects’ jobs in our AItopia series

Our AItopia series continued with our investigation into one of architecture’s biggest contemporary questions – whether AI will end up taking architects’ jobs.

We also interviewed Sony’s global head of AI ethics, Alice Xiang, who warned that the rise of the technology could result in “a lot of people living as second-class citizens in a society of AI where, systematically, models might not work well for them or might be biased against them”.

Joanne Koch turned a 1970s wood cabin in California into an Airbnb

Popular projects this week included architect Joanne Koch’s renovation of a 1970s Californian wood cabin that was converted into an Airbnb and a monolithic home near Belfast in Northern Ireland designed by local architecture firm McGonigle McGrath.

Our latest lookbooks featured interiors that take cues from the Japanese design philosophy of wabi-sabi and those that are characterised by a breezy and cooling Mediterranean style.

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The Top Apps for Architects

via Morpholio Trace

• Written by Paula Cano
• 3 days ago

Smartphones and tablets have become so powerful that has abruptly changed the concept of workshops since the introduction of apps into the architecture industry. They have generated a more productive and efficient workflow on-site or on the go, covering different aspects of the field with versatility and variety. While some are specific to professionals, others appeal to every architecture enthusiast, with user-friendly interfaces, simplified navigations, and reachable information.

ArchDaily has selected the best architecture apps in 2022 featuring technical drawing and modeling essentials, sketching canvas for all levels, construction and management platforms, toolbox apps, and interfaces to get inspiration from.Read on to discover the top applications available on IOS and Android.

Technical Drawing and Modeling Apps

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AutoCAD 360 and Autodesk FormIt 360 (iOS/Android)

A360

Visualize any AutoCAD or Revit files on the go. Autodesk users can view and upload 2D and 3D drawings regardless of what software they use to create them. They can also navigate large-scale models, review, and markup the designs, measure dimensions, and areas, and track the project status anytime, anywhere. FormIt 360’s core functionality is free for commercial use. For those looking for advanced features like a real-time collaboration system, solar analysis, and integrated building analysis, one will need a Cloud Subscription. 

BIMx (iOS/Android)

via BIMx

Possessing a unique technology that integrates 2D and 3D building project navigation, this app allows architects to use Graphisoft files on any device and make measurement adjustments on-site. The free application gives you all the tools to explore the Hyper-model – both the 3D model and the attached 2D documentation.

RoomScan (iOS)

via RoomScan Pro

Developed by Locometric, RoomScan Pro can create an entire floor plan using any phone. Easy to use, the process only requires the user to tap his screen and highlight walls while moving across the room, and the app generates the adequate floor plan seamlessly. In addition, the application can measure and draw stairs, facades, green spaces, etc. While the free version handles the basics pretty well, one will probably find it very limiting, and it would be worth it to splurge on RoomScan Pro.

Shapr3D (iOS)

via Shapr3D

A sketching and 3D modeling app, Shapr3D, is handy during early conceptual phases because it allows users to switch between 2D and 3D design easily. Shapr3D is a freemium app, so all users have access to every modeling tool and essential feature, Shapr3D forums, and help materials at no cost.

Sketching Apps

Sketchbook by Autodesk (iOS/Android)

via Autocad 360/ Autodesk Formit

Sketchbook works for all desktop and mobile devices. From quick sketches to fully finished artwork, the app works as a digital sketching paperfree for everyone. The interface allows easy access to all the drawing tools, including steady stroke, symmetry tools, and perspective guides.

Morpholio Trace (iOS)

Esteban Suarez, Bunker Arquitectura. Mexico City, Mexico.. Image © BNKR. Image via Morpholio

Morpholio Trace gives the option to add comments on images, helping with sharing initial conceptual notions. The app comes in handy during the first phases of the designs as it allows you to scribble, draw, and express artistic thoughts, especially with its augmented reality option.

Concepts (iOS/Android)

via Concepts

Providing a natural paper-like experience, the app supports vector-based sketching, which is ideal for architects and designers. It is incredibly responsive and flexible, allowing faster sketching for illustrators, architects, designers, etc. Concepts come as a free app, and the Pro version price may differ based on the user’s location.

Construction and Management Apps

ArchiSnapper (iOS/Android)

via ArchiSnapper

ArchiSnapper is a field-reporting app that allows users to draft a report during and after site visits efficiently. Offering many options, users can take pictures, draft, and comment, and the app, available on a phone or tablet, organizes data and generates the report seamlessly.

Canvas (iOS)

via Canvas

Canvas transforms room scans into editable, high-detailed 3D CAD/BIM files and 2D drawings. As the only 3D scanning app designed for homeowners working remotely with home improvement professionals, the measurements are sent to professional with a shareable code to ensure privacy and reliability. Just the scan is free, and the cost for full features varies per square foot. 

Construction Master Pro (iOS/Android)

via Construction Master Pro Calc App

Rated five on IOS in the utility section, Construction Master Pro is an application that helps you with your calculations instead of a regular calculator. It can assist anyone in estimating areas, volumes, etc., and can be used anywhere, on-site or in the office. Construction Master is a paid app, but great for calculating everything on the roof, saving time and money.

MagicPlan (iOS/Android)

via MagicPlan

MagicPlan uses your mobile’s camera to measure spaces and create almost accurate plans that can be exported as PDF, DXF, or JPG. More accessible than other applications, you only have to stand still, preferably in the center, and let your device scan the room. The free version gets access to two projects, including all features.

Toolbox Apps

Adobe Creative Cloud (iOS/Android)

via Adobe

The creative Cloud app gives easy access to Adobe files and teams away from computers. Working as a hub, users can download different Adobe services, including Spark, Photoshop Camera, Fresco, and Capture. The Free, basic Creative Cloud membership includes 2GB of complimentary storage for file syncing and sharing. 

ARki | AR (iOS)

via ARki | AR

An app forinstant Augmented Reality experiences. Users can view, share and communicate design with ease. ARki essential toolkit is free to use, with various features such as annotating, creating animations and sequences, and playing animations. ARki supports FBX files exported from most 3d software, including 3dsmax, Maya, Blender, Microstation, Sketchup, Archicad, Rhino, Cinema4D, and Revit. 

Matterport |3d scan (iOS/Android)

via Matterport

An app to create and share immersive 3D experiences with anyone worldwide. The free version allows capturing unlimited Spaces with iOS and Android devices and 360 cameras and complete editing & markup features for one active Space at a time. 

Sunseeker (iOS/Android)

via SunSeeker

This virtual solar compass helps with on-site analysis as it identifies the sun’s position and path and illustrates visually the amount of sunlight received by the building through an interactive 3D view. Sunseeker is not only intended for architects but also has a wide range of users. 

Inspirational Apps

ArchiMaps (iOS)

via ArchiMaps

The definitive architecture guide. The map allows you to search architecture works by their geographic location and relate them with your position; the list shows buildings sorted by proximity, date, or alphabetically. Inside each ArchiMap, several ArchiRoutes offer themed selections of buildings centered on an architectural movement, a prominent author, or a fascinating area to visit, pointing out the architectural hot spots. ArchiMaps is a free app with no ads and no in-app purchases.

Behance | Creative Portfolios (iOS/Android)

via Behance

Behance is a social media platform owned by Adobe whose primary focus is to showcase and discover creative work. Behance is free, and there are no restrictions on the number of projects a member can create. There is also no limit on the number of images/media users upload.

Player FM (iOS/Android)

via Player FM

Listen to Architecture And Design Podcasts with a linkable category, making sharing easier. To explore content, visit The 7 Best Podcasts Hosted by Architects, for Architects, published in ArchDaily.

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