Since these conditions are rarely discussed, this issue is also dedicated to ‘beginnings’ and their paradoxes: ‘you are supposed to begin knowing something but also doing something completely new,’ writes Renee Gladman in the Keynote. Taking in napkin sketches, competitions, references and photographs, AR November 2023 serves a useful reminder that others came before, and that the beginning is behind us.
This issue also includes the work of the architects shortlisted for the Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture – recognising emerging talent in architects under the age of 45 from around the world – and the MJ Long Prize for Excellence in Practice, which celebrates architects who are working in UK‑based practices, with a focus on their role in the design and delivery of a recently completed project.
Charles Jencks and Maggie Keswick | Anupama Kundoo | Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky | João Batista Vilanova Artigas | Laurie Simmons | Kochi Architects Studio | Ekar Architects | Atelier Tho.A | Chat Architects | Fernanda Canales Arquitectura | Brillhart Architecture
Very few people have the resources to realise the house of their dreams, yet the results can be extraordinary. From the London home of Charles Jencks and Maggie Keswick, which is a manifestation of their postmodern fantasies, to the local materials and construction techniques of Anupama Kundoo’s Wall House in Auroville, this issue revisits houses designed by architects for themselves, and sometimes their families. Also celebrated are the winning projects of the 2022 AR House Awards, featuring innovative and intriguing dwellings from Mexico, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam and the Bahamas.
House 101 by Atelier tho.A. Photograph: Anh Chuong
Casa Ter by Mesura. Photograph: Salva-López
The private house occupies a unique position in both the history of architecture and human imagination. Beyond its core function of shelter, it is an object of fantasy, a source of delight, a talisman and a testing ground.
Bass Coast Farmhouse by John Wardle Architects. Photograph: Trevor Mein
Blockmakers Arms by Erbar Mattes. Photograph: Ståle Eriksen
Brillhut by Brillhart Architecture. Photograph: Bill Abranowicz
Casa Eva by Fernanda Canales Arquitectura. Photograph: Rafael Gamo
As students all over the world head back to school this month, this issue maps the different sites for learning – both inside and outside academic institutions. From rainforests to classrooms to disused water basins, spaces for education come in all different forms, but face similar challenges and are subjected to the same damaging forces: of marketisation, racism and colonialism, and asymmetries of power. Architecture schools are no exception, as this issue lays bare.
Wolff Architects | Alison Brooks Architects | Feilden Fowles| Níall McLaughlin Architects | Wright & Wright | Henley Halebrown | Comunal | Raumlabor | Joar Nango | bell hooks
For two and a half years, risks of contagion have justified restrictions on public life around the world, at times tipping towards punitive control and attacks on civil liberty. The essays in this issue examine some of the forces that encroach upon public spaces, whether they be the economic imperatives that govern late capitalist cities or anti‑democratic political regimes that grab common land. The affordances of public spaces are never singular and neither are their publics. The voices in this issue question assumptions about who – or what – the monolithic ‘public’ is, advocating spaces that make room for difference. Also featured are the commended projects of the inaugural AR Public awards, which take us from Paris, Dhaka, and Guiyuan Village in China, to Singapore, London and Bangkok. Public spaces are complex and often imperfect – a ‘versatile, if unevenly distributed, resourcescape’, to use Álvaro Sevilla-Buitrago’s phrase – but as the pandemic continues, it is crucial that designers and publics continue to negotiate them.
For two and a half years, risks of contagion have justified restrictions on public life around the world, at times tipping towards punitive control and attacks on civil liberty. The essays in this issue examine some of the forces that encroach upon public spaces, whether they be the economic imperatives that govern late capitalist cities or anti‑democratic political regimes that grab common land. The affordances of public spaces are never singular and neither are their publics. The voices in this issue question assumptions about who – or what – the monolithic ‘public’ is, advocating spaces that make room for difference. Also featured are the commended projects of the inaugural AR Public awards, which take us from Paris, Dhaka, and Guiyuan Village in China, to Singapore, London and Bangkok. Public spaces are complex and often imperfect – a ‘versatile, if unevenly distributed, resourcescape’, to use Álvaro Sevilla-Buitrago’s phrase – but as the pandemic continues, it is crucial that designers and publics continue to negotiate them.
Keynote: Publicity, Álvaro Sevilla-Buitrago
Reputations: Michael Sorkin, Kate Wagner
Unceded land, unpublic use, Timmah Ball
Reclaiming Asunción, Laurence Blair
Pockets of promise in Gugulethu, Kathryn Ewing
Outrage: Legacies of Covid-19 in Shanghai, Flora Ng
Boomers Daily 