Bairro do Silva Housing / Heim Balp Architekten

In the center of Porto, an abandoned dwelling structure from the early 19th century in a former working-class neighborhood has been rehabilitated into a flourishing microcosm. The project constitutes the intervention in Bairro do Silva, a dwelling structure from the early 19th century, settled inside a city block in Porto. A former working-class neighborhood is typical in the city, also known as "Ilha". The structure was left abandoned in the last decades, but with a strong, bucolic, and romantic identity. It had already a very pronounced spatial richness that came from its complex system – different accesses, alleys, heights, hierarchies, and small-scale housing models.

House WADV / BASIL architecture

This former chalet was transformed into an airy house, whereby the volume of the extension was adapted to the positioning of the existing oak trees. The structure is made of steel and finished with black-oiled wooden cladding and a gold anodized facade. Maintaining a holiday feeling, opening up to the garden as much as possible, as well as creating a captivating spaciousness through the expanding roof shape in contrast to the limited ceiling heights of the existing parts. The kitchen is situated in between the old and new and forms the transition between day and night functions.

Sculpting the Earth: Engaging With the “Land” in Land Art

Artists are frequently inspired by land — be it painter Robert S. Duncanson’s renditions of American landscapes, or William Kentridge’s subversions of colonial-era British paintings depicting African vistas. Some artists, though, have preferred to work directly with the land, creating structures that sit on landscapes, or carving into the land itself. This art style — formally termed as Land Art — gained prominence in 1960s and 70s United States, in the context of the rise of the environmental movement amidst civil rights and antiwar protests, and as artists looked to separate themselves from the art market.

CHUZHI House / Wallmakers

Chuzhi is a project that helps to understand what can be built in odd sites that are generally deemed ‘unsuitable’ for construction. Situated in a gated community called Sanctity Ferme in a picturesque location called Shoolagiri, the owner was in a fix as there were unwanted obscure plots at the periphery of the community characterized by steep rocky topography, huge trees, and thick vegetation making people reluctant to make homes there as the buildable area seemed less.

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