Media & Press

When Jessica Collins and photographer Iwan Baan visited Lagos in 2013 to document a radical new school, the Makoko slum was facing demolition. Now the building’s global recognition is helping to give the community fresh hope.

NLÉ Company Profile March 2015

About 15,000 people live permanently afloat on canals, rivers and coasts in Great Britain alone, but thousands more enjoy holidaying on boats or own them as weekend retreats in the UK and abroad. This book will feature not only static residential boats and floating dwellings but also those used as holiday homes and funky modern businesses – houseboats can range from canal boats, riverboats, narrow and wide beam boats, barges, Dutch barges, static houseboats and even seaworthy cruisers moored in marina. The book will cover stylish boats from the UK, North America, Europe and Australia. The houseboats engage the reader through their history and owners’ stories, which are told in lively text and colourful images. People fall in love with boats and own them for a variety of reasons: out of affordability and necessity; a love of the water; closeness to nature and the environment; or just because they yearn for a different and more relaxed style of living/working space. This book shows how houseboats can offer an attractive, practical and alternative solution, as well as amazing and often idiosyncratic solutions to living successfully in a small space. My cool houseboat covers the following themes: stylish architectural, from San Francisco to Prague; thrifty and eclectic, as an affordable solution to conventional city dwelling; businesses, using houseboats as unusual workspaces, from a book barge to an allotment; modernist, from a Finnish floating office to an Amsterdam watervilla; recycled, ranging from an Ellis Island ferry houseboat to a converted minesweeper; and soulful, covering alternative ways of life, relaxation and recreation, from a New York City houseboat to a stylish Paris home.

A 60-strong list of international studios has named the official participants of the first-ever Chicago Architecture Biennial – the “largest international survey of contemporary architecture in North America.” Chosen by Biennial Co-Artistic Directors Joseph Grima and Sarah Herda – who are supported by an advisory council comprising David Adjaye, Elizabeth Diller, Jeanne Gang, Frank Gehry, Sylvia Lavin, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Peter Palumbo, and Stanley Tigerman – each participating practice will convene in Chicago to discuss “The State of the Art of Architecture” and showcase their work from October 3 to January 3, 2016.

PIN–UP is a biannual English language architecture and design magazine based in New York. It was founded in 2006 by architect and writer Felix Burrichter.

The temptation to talk about an African architecture is great, but it is, of course, ridiculous. There is no such thing and never was.
Africa’s architecture is infinitely, thrillingly diverse and its variety embraces everything from the modernist ambition of postcolonial visionaries to the invention of the ad hoc informal settlements around some of the world’s most dynamic and fast-growing cities.

The inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial announced the list of participants and artists that who will participate in the “largest international survey of contemporary architecture in North America” this fall from October 3 to January 3, 2016.

From March 2015, a major exhibition by the Vitra Design Museum sheds new light on contemporary African design. Showcasing the work of over 120 artists and designers, »Making Africa – A Continent of Contemporary Design« illustrates how design accompanies and fuels economic and political changes on the continent. Africa is presented as a hub of experimentation generating new approaches and solutions of worldwide relevance – and as a driving force for a new discussion of the potential of design in the twenty-first century.

PANAJI: The concept of floating buildings is not a novel one. But what if a 420 sq m structure of 3 floors could be built on water with locally available material and the manpower of only eight individuals?

This new and innovative form of an urban structure was materialised by Nigerian architect, designer and ‘urbanist’, Kunle Adeyemi.

Saturday afternoon saw some massive intellectual stimulation as Adeyemi shared his ground-breaking project on floating structures in his discourse on ‘Great city, terrible place’, at the latest edition of the Z-Axis annual conference being held at the Kala Academy, Panaji. Adeyemi developed the Makoko floating school as a prototype for construction in the coastal region of Makoko, a place which has regular floods due to unpredictable water levels.

‘Why the Chicago Architecture Biennial’s Kiosks Will Be CHI-IL As Heck.’ With the its local scene gaining momentum, the Chicago Architecture Biennial is threatening to steal some of the Venice Biennale’s thunder. (Please don’t give me concrete shoes!) One of the most exciting things in Chicago — and part of what is fueling the momentum of the Biennial — is the schools there. They have a complex history, as the skyscraper was born in Chicago, and Mies and Tigerman famously had a productive back-and-forth for many years at IIT and UIC respectively. Today, Chicago’s schools are thriving under strong leadership that has attracted some of the top design talent in the United States and the world.