ARCHITECTURE Space capsules are passé7/18/2016When the cities learnt to walk in superstructures – people stayed where they were, left to their own devices. Is this why yesterday’s future visions and utopias are suddenly back en vogue in architecture?
INTERVIEWS Slender head, large impact3/12/2016Ewo, a company in Northern Italy, teamed up with Jörg Boner to develop the “GO” luminaire series. Sandra Hofmeister spoke to the Ewo Head of Marketing Hannes Wohlgemuth about the collaboration.
FAIRS & EVENTS Arrival country. Home country.3/10/2016Cheap apartment buildings, hostels for refugees and spaces for integration – the German Pavilion at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale is slowly taking shape.
ARCHITECTURE Concrete art, underground2/24/2016Düsseldorf’s new subway line with its six stations is persuasive in architectural, artistic and engineering terms.
ARCHITECTURE In our bathing suit we’re all equals2/8/2016In the current debate on affordable urban housing that meets the inhabitants’ quality expectations it certainly bears casting a glance at Harry Glück’s buildings.
ARCHITECTURE Much ado about something10/29/2015An exhibition at Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt demonstrates alternatives to living as withdrawal. It conjures up examples from history showing occupants who became experts for their own cause.
INTERVIEWS The transient future10/20/2015Photographer Laurent Kronental has captured on camera Parisian residential tower blocks and some of the oldest inhabitants. The result: images full of theatrical beauty and melancholy. Adeline Seidel spoke with him about the sheer immoderation of these buildings.
ARCHITECTURE Sweating in a tin box6/15/2015In Göteborg in Sweden, the free port is gradually being transformed into a new district – complete with a sauna designed by Raumlabor.
ARCHITECTURE City-Palace-Association5/26/2015There are countless reasons and the one or other ghastly story why you immediately recognize a building. So how should one deal with this? And what does it have to do with Berlin’s Municipal Palace?
DESIGN Breaking with marble 5/21/2015Frankfurt has a new restaurant. It’s called “Stanley Diamond”, has a gentlemanly flair that also has its shady sides and pleases the plate with high-end traditional cuisine.
ARCHITECTURE Pradapolis5/5/2015Rem Koolhaas and his Office for Metropolitan Architecture have converted a former distillery in the south of Milan on behalf of Fondazione Prada – and created an anthology of diverse spaces and materials.
ARCHITECTURE Fitzcarraldo in Paris1/19/2015Its construction costs tripled, it was a good two years behind schedule, and eventually it opened before it was even completed: Jean Nouvel’s Philharmonie de Paris. All about good intentions and an architecture that reaches for the stars but sadly gets dragged down to earth by its own vanities.
ARCHITECTURE Tuk-tuks, daladalas and super-highways12/19/2014Africa is urbanizing faster than any other continent. But tends to be forgotten in the debates on ubran mobility. Perhaps because the challenges are too great? Or perhaps because we aren’t being imaginative enough.
ARCHITECTURE Will donate data. Save the city11/13/2014The Audi Urban Future Award 2014 goes to Mexico City. With their proposal for an “operating system for urban mobility”, the interdisciplinary research group centering on José Castillo won out against teams from Boston, Berlin, and Seoul.
DESIGN My colleague, the Robocar11/9/2014Many driving instructors enjoy the driver assistance systems in today's cars. The sector is not worried that piloted driving might one day cost them their job – to the contrary actually.
ARCHITECTURE My colleague, the Robocar11/3/2014Despite assistance systems in cars, driving instructors are sure that their competence still will be needed in the future.
ARCHITECTURE “The traffic in Berlin is frustrating.”11/2/2014In Berlin, traffic often is challenging. In an interview, Susi Nestraschil talks about her own ways through the urban jungle and possibilities to improve them.
ARCHITECTURE Using the social status to help society10/26/2014Team Seoul uses the car to promote social engagement as a status symbol in Korea.
ARCHITECTURE From “Slummerville” to “boom town”10/19/2014Philip Parsons, head of Team Boston, explains the opportunities of a close collaboration between urban designers and traffic planners.
ARCHITECTURE Architecture with added value 10/15/2014Just because a building looks good in a photograph doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good architecture. The winning projects in the various categories of the Zumtobel Group Award are now demonstrating what it takes to gain an extended understanding of planning and building.
ARCHITECTURE Smart elevators as a model for autonomous transport10/5/2014Elevators, that know the destination of passengers, are highly efficient. Could this principle work for cars, too? Martin Lewicki talked to Paul Friedli about driverless transport systems.
ARCHITECTURE The European Answer to Silicon Valley9/29/2014When Berlin´s new airport BER is in use, what will happen with the former area of the Berlin airport Berlin-Tegel?
ARCHITECTURE Playing on the roads9/15/2014Motivation is a central aspect of “gameful design” and intends to have a positive influence on user´s behavior.
ARCHITECTURE A car for your handbag9/7/2014The divisible car as a new interpretation of car sharing? Charlotte Malz talked to Prof. Fügener about concepts of future mobility.
ARCHITECTURE The Secret of Happy Cities9/1/2014What kind of urban realm makes you feel good? Scientists have developed different methods to demonstrate the psychological impact of cities on their inhabitants.
ARCHITECTURE Hot Spots: swimming in the city or in the river7/18/2014Is there anything nicer than having a cool dip on a scorchingly hot day? Best of all downtown.
ARCHITECTURE Cocoon by fashion patterns6/27/2014Compared to last year’s Serpentine Pavilions, the new one by Chilean architect Smiljan Radić’s is certainly the most astounding and unpredictable yet.
ARCHITECTURE Simple city life6/6/2014“Yourtopia” is the name Dutch architects SeARCH have given their pavilion located next to Het Nieuwe Instituut. An urban “Walden” and a call for us to leave our comfort zones.
ARCHITECTURE Resisting fitting the grid6/4/2014“A structure I have always wanted to demolish” was the title of a design assignment that Arno Lederer gave several times at Stuttgart and Karlsruhe universities. Not that the architect had always been hell-bent on tearing down the buildings belonging to the Stuttgarter Hospitalhof complex. Now he has had them demolished after all – and in their place realized a very convincing alternative that exudes nothing but perfection. Almost.
ARCHITECTURE Supercube reloaded5/30/2014The architects at Dutch firm Personal Architecture planned the partial refurbishment of the cube complex that Piet Blom built in 1980s Rotterdam. Now the “Supercubes” have been reintegrated into Rotterdam’s urban fabric and society.
ARCHITECTURE Budapest concrete5/26/2014Budapest’s fourth metro line opened this spring. Hopes of additional urban development projects are associated with this infrastructure project.
INTERVIEWS High density alone is not enough to have a city5/25/2014On the occasion of the fifth annual conference on global urbanism at the Columbia University, New York, Catriona McLaughlin talked to thinker Saskia Sassen about the relation between invisible and visible mobility, the power of open-source-systems and her ongoing research on “urbanizing technology”.
FAIRS & EVENTS Transport, not ecstasy5/18/2014Can a KIA “Picanto” write design history? Is there even any justification for cars’ continued existence in the future? Journalist Niklas Maak, philosopher Martin Gessmann and architect Max Schwitalla sat down in Cologne to discuss the most popular form of auto-motion.
FAIRS & EVENTS Autoethnography: Team Seoul4/22/2014Phone, city, house – everything becomes smart. Also cars? How does the digitalization of our everyday life change car functions and the requirements autos must meet? This is the focus the ethnographer Sung Gul Hwang, the urban planner Cho Taek Yeon and the product designer Yeongkyu Yoo.
FAIRS & EVENTS Mobilonomics: Team Boston4/22/2014How is urban space changing with piloted parking? Can one estimate what impact infrastructure projects will have on urban space? These are the questions the Boston team are tackling, in an effort to expand the limits of the mobility market.