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Showing posts from April, 2022

Norman Foster: The rebuild of Ukraine

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 Norman Foster: The rebuild of Ukraine Norman Foster has come out and said he wants to help rebuild Ukraine's cities. Having discussed previously how Ukraine will rebuild after this catastrophic war. Norman Foster and Partners have put together a plan for the rebuild for Kharkiv. Working with the "best planning, architectural, design and engineering skills in the world" he aims to rebuild the city having met the mayor of Kharkiv, Ihor Terekho. Having written a manifesto on what he would want out to create, he pitched to the mayor his master plan on how he would do it.  Foster has been thoughtful about making sure it is still related to Ukraine by using the talented architects and designers of Ukraine. Combining them and the expertise of Norman Foster and Partners and others around the world. The project should be successful in creating the infrastructure and buildings for the city. It will also boost the economy brining back jobs for people. However Ukrainian architect Ba

Modular capsule homes: A way to create housing for the homeless?

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 Modular capsule homes: A way to create housing for the homeless? Every week I receive  an email of stuff happening in the architecture world. Something that caught my eye was the demolition of the Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo. At the time I was also considering my manifesto idea, I wanted to write about how to create housing for the homeless. Seeing this and the pictures of the capsules gave me some ideas for how this housing could be created. I love how they would be modular as well. Although the interior is very ugly I thought the use of a circular window to let light in was ingenious. I think that there is an opportunity to take inspiration from this original design and integrate into the future designs for small housing for the homeless.  Other examples include two homeless housing projects in LA which have inspired my manifesto. I like the idea of bringing together these ideas that could change the world for many people. I believe combining the interior of the Nakagin Tower and

Accountability

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  Accountability in Architecture The world I would say is lacking in accountability. Not many of us enjoy being wrong in life especially things we think we know well. The most recent example of this would have been the Downing Street Parties, where the evidence of parties happening was too much for the police not to follow it up. However the Prime Minister and colleagues will not take accountability for their actions. In the same way architects may not take accountability for a poor design. I believe being able to hold your hands up and go yeah I made a mistake is a characteristic which is greatly admired. But also from there being able to say r ight how do I correct that mistake. In the architectural profession, accountability is huge, for example when a client does like your design, accountability could look like "yes I chose to do this because... I believe this would aid the design because...", instead of going "well this is what you asked for" or something along