At its best, architecture can be a dream come true: the physical manifestation of the creative architect’s most exquisite design fantasies. Nowhere is this kind of creative liberty more pervasive than in architecture school—with few practical concerns for cost, policy, or even structural integrity, architecture students are free to execute the purest and most complex proposals their imaginations will allow. And indeed, as their representation and spatial skills progress, students gain the ability to realize more advanced interventions over time. In the real world, though…not so much.
Centuries of civilizations built on structures designed by architects and yet, their voice is lost among the countless stories of rulers and armies and sometimes wondrous monsters.
The Leewardists are rewriting the contemporary history of our civilization through the voice of this elusive being, The Architect.
For more of The Architect Comic Series follow them on Facebook, Instagram or visit their website.
A new collection of five minute-long On Design stories—developed by the team behind Section D, Monocle 24’s 24’s weekly review of design, architecture and craft—profile a person, survey a place, or unpack an idea that’s changing or shaping design and architecture today. We’ve selected fourteen of our favorites from the ongoing series, examining issues as wide as Postmodernism and the architectural competition, to five-minute profiles of Alvaro Siza, Josef Hoffman, Kengo Kuma and Superstudio.
You can see a curated collection of Monocle 24’s architecture-related podcasts on ArchDaily, here.
What is Postmodern architecture?
In this debut episode, James Taylor-Foster introduces us to the meaning and importance of Postmodernism in architecture.
Alexei Korolyov explains the life, work and continuing relevance of Josef Hoffmann – a Czech-born designer and architect whose influence on Viennese design can still be felt today.
Once a powerhouse of trade and commerce, Buffalo’s architectural importance well outweighs its renown. Josh Fehnert takes us on a tour of the rust-belt city that’s finally regaining its shine.
Fiona Wilson takes us through the life and work of Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, who through his buildings and writings has reinterpreted traditional Japanese architecture for the 21st Century. We explore the career of the man charged with the construction of the hotly contested Olympic Stadium for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
What did the German architect say to the Turkish one?
This episode dives into the long-standing (if at times strained) relationship between Germany and Turkey. We see how some Turkish homes still bear the mark of visiting German guest workers and learn what this says about the two countries today.
Many of the world’s most important buildings are the result of architecture competitions. But those same events are often politically fraught – and critics say they’re a waste architects’ time and energy. So is the competition really the best mechanism for commissioning building designs?
Most architects influence their discipline by completing iconic projects but others, such as Superstudio, make their mark despite leaving no building behind. We meet the 1960s avant-garde Italian collective that made architectural history working with utopias and not bricks.
We explore the life and career of Portuguese architect Alvaro Siza. During six decades of work Siza’s style has come to encompass the optimism of the post-Salazar years and speaks volumes about Portugal’s soft-power pull today.
If Madrileños needed any further reminder of the political stalemate paralysing their country, a beautifully designed but conspicuously incomplete construction project next to the Royal Palace stands out as a searing symbol of the impasse.
What can Singapore learn from the Golden Mile Complex?
The shabby brutalism of Singapore’s Golden Mile Complex and adjoining Golden Mile Tower doesn’t fit with the city’s squeaky-clean, glass-and-steel vernacular. We ask how the pair have survived in a place that’s famously unsentimental about demolishing the old to make way for the new.
The Serbian capital’s street-level design is a cacophony of clashing elements but one man is waging war against this discord, vowing to bring aesthetic harmony to the city. Will he succeed?
After Bulgaria’s first elections were held in 1990, the free market rushed in to fill the economic vacuum left by the fall of communism. On one side there arose a new class of oligarchs and on the other, against a backdrop of economic failure, the notorious organised crime sector of 1990s Bulgaria. These newly moneyed people, many of whom were involved or connected to the construction industry, needed somewhere to live, work and play. The havoc of building that followed threw up a chaotic architectural vernacular that some call “mafia baroque”.
Most visitors to the Galapagos Islands point their cameras towards the exotic animals and away from the local people. They direct their full attention to the natural landscape, as if to intentionally deny the existence of the urban space of the city, since the presence of any form of architecture would seem in logical conflict with the islands’ identity as a protected wildlife reserve.
The architecture of the Galapagos is both a conceptual and physical contradiction. Like a Piranesian joke, the San Cristobal typology of the proto-ruin falls somewhere on a spectrum between construction and dismantlement. With their “permanently unfinished” construction state seemingly in flux, it is unclear whether many of these buildings display a common optimism for vertical expansion or are instead symptoms of a process of urban decay.
The unique shapes of these pseudo-informal constructions are the product of a tax loophole found in many South American and even Southern European countries that allows residents and landlords to defer property taxes on buildings in the process of construction. (Another contributing factor to this practice is their residents’ existence in a liminal state of poverty.) The result is a strange, unintentional aesthetic of the purposefully incomplete that has a tendency to dominate many lower income neighborhoods. An especially large concentration of these building types can be found in the capital of the Galapagos, San Cristobal.
In leaving open the possibility of future construction, these semi-shelters invite the casual observer to imagine divergent possibilities for the completed construction that reflect an imagined future direction for the Galapagos Islands as a whole. Will the roofs of these homes become the penthouses of the wealthy Ecuadorians seeking a vacation home on the islands, high rise hotel towers to house the increasing flood of international tourists, or aviaries for accommodating the world-famous Galapagos finches, so as to integrate these birds into the matrix of human development?
Mapping the urban area of Puerto Baquerzio Moreno allows us to quantify the percentage of inhabitants that are actively taking advantage of this tax loophole. 1,800 buildings can be counted in Puerto Baquerzio Moreno from satellite photos. 1,253 buildings were surveyed from the ground in total: of those 960 appear to be mostly completed, 207 appear to be in a state of incomplete habitation, and 86 are apparently currently in construction. From that data, 76.5% are “completed,” 16.5% are “incomplete,” and 7% are “under construction.”
The somewhat larger and more developed Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz suggests one possible path in which Puerto Baquerzio Moreno may develop. The survey of site statistics shows 2,925 buildings in the main city: of those 2,633 appear to be mostly completed, 233 appear to be in a state of incomplete habitation, and 59 are apparently currently in construction. From that data, 90% are “completed,” 8% are “incomplete,” and 2% are “under construction.”
Joseph Kennedy is a Fulbright grantee conducting research and teaching at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. He graduated with a B. Arch from Cornell University in 2015.
Buying and selling property are both time-consuming and troublesome things. You need to take a huge chunk out of your time to manage all the details and it will definitely put a strain on your everyday routine chores. At the same time, you need to negotiate and do paperwork.
But why bother to do these things when you can let a professional do it for you? A real estate agent is experienced and knowledgeable in this niche and can save you a lot of time and worry. But don’t just go for a real estate agent. Find the best real estate agent in your location.
Here is how you find that person.
The Agent Should Be A Great Negotiator
Your agent should foremost be a good negotiator. After all, big money is at stake. A seller wants the highest price possible while a buyer wants the lowest price possible. In this case, an ordinary agent may not come up with the best results, but a great negotiator will always hit the sweet spots. All top agents are mainly good negotiators.
Digitization rules a lot of the real estate world and this has brought forth the need for real estate agents to be tech-savvy. A great real estate agent will be comfortable with the latest technology and will know how to use it to his or her best advantage. You will most likely see this agent with a very efficient system of connectivity, laptop and mobile devices, and the latest apps.
One Who Knows The Area Well
If your agent knows the area where you want to buy or sell a property and knows market trends well, these are indicators that the agent is well experienced and knowledgeable. A novice agent might bring you nothing but resentments while a great real estate agent will be that who can bring good options to you through their knowledge and experience.
Get Their Performance Details
Do a background check on their past performance in order to see if your agent meets your expectations. You can get this information from his agency, from online, or you can meet your agent’s past clients to get more intel.
In addition, don’t forget to check if they belong to a reputed organization or affiliation. After going through this research, conclude if they meet your standards.
Meet A Few Agents Before Selecting One
Don’t rush when looking for the best real estate agent. Patience plays a vital role. You should ideally meet a few agents before settling on the best choice. This way, you can measure one against the other and have more time to get to know each better.
Conclusion
Making the wrong choice of real estate agents can bring you pain, worry, resentment and lost opportunities to make money and secure the best deal. Take your time in finding the best person who can be your partner in your real estate dealings.
Crystal Clear is a single family residence located in Olympic Valley, Lake Tahoe, California, USA. Completed in 2016, it was designed by Aspen Leaf Interiors. Photos courtesy of Aspen Leaf Interiors
Thinking of continuing your studies but don’t want to start a master’s or a doctorate just yet? Around the world, short-term courses taken remotely are increasingly popular alternatives, and platforms such as edX, created by Harvard and MIT Universities make it even easier to dive deeper into the most diverse topics.
Of course, for long-term and undergraduate courses, the face-to-face experience cannot be replaced by online classes. However, being able to follow lessons and participate in discussions with people from around the world online is definitely an important advantage offered by the internet.
We have compiled a few courses in areas ranging from video game design to bio-cellular engineering, and from the history of Japanese architecture to courses in architectural imagination. See our list below:
From the architect. Dwell in productive landscapes
Made to maximize new landscape experiences, Retreat in Finca Aguy was prefab-born in a factory near Montevideo and transported 200km to its final destination in Pueblo Edén on the edge of an olive field. Perfect combination of industry and landscape: new kinds of landscapes deserve new ways of dwelling.
To build in far away territories from the surroundings in which we usually live is a great challenge. Remoteness not as a limit but as a possibility, as a value, as a generator of fields and conditions. Remote landscapes confronts us with the awareness of immenseness. It puts us in our role in reality.
In landscapes of high natural value, it is fundamental to respect their original condition and so it is essential a reversibility condition. Prefabrication allows us to work with industrialized materials that enable high-precision processes. Thus amortizing the impact of construction on the ground, minimizing waste, staff in situ and displacement: a perfect combination of nature and industry.
Floor Plan
Eppur si muove!
Houses do not move. They are made of heavy materials, put together with mortar, concrete must be used. These prejudices are hard to break, as the immobility of constructions.
On the other hand, Prefab Houses are produced in a controlled environment and carefully made. They are born in a factory and taken to its final destination. Houses do not move, however…
Sig Nordal 