Hartmut Thimel: A Secret Architect in Brazil

Ricardo Rocha writes about the German-Brazilian architect Hartmut Thimel. Forgotten by canonical historiography, he worked with Georges Candilis, Yona Friedman, and later with Oscar Niemeyer. His work is a bridge between 1970s Brazil, addressing the international avant-garde - Team X, Metabolism, Spatial Urbanism, and Prospective, among others.

Constructing With Concrete: Hardcore Projects and Products

Widely recognized as being responsible for 8% of global CO2 emissions, concrete should be a blacklisted material, relegated to the shameful annals of architectural history. Rapid global urbanization, however, will ensure its unequaled production simplicity and structural strength help retain concrete’s firm grip on the construction industry.

Building Community Kurfürstenstrasse / June-14 Meyer-Grohbrügge & Chermayeff

The 25-unit residential building in Berlin was built with a building group, a community of private individuals, who joined together for the purchase of land and construction of a building, this way being able to cut the developer's profit margin and to participate in the decisions concerning their space and the building.

La Mejicana Refurbishment / Alba Balmaseda

La Mejicana looks for opportunities in the limitations. A project that consciously respects the existing and attempts to reduce interventions to a minimum. A special focus on reviving disregarded elements and reinventing interior and exterior spaces. This project is a renovation of an existing building. It would be impossible to build a new house in that proximity to the seafront, given the strict regulations in Spain for coast protection. The only allowed interventions for this existing building were repair, upgrade, structural consolidation, and energy improvement. Being expressly forbidden to increase the built volume. These restrictions have both strongly conditioned the development of the project and at the same time opened up unexpected possibilities. The transformation of the existing space is designed from a deep understanding of what is inherited from the original structure and its inhabitants, the conditioning factors of strict regulation, the needs of the new residents, and what the place gives.

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