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a+u’s March issue features the architecture, landscape, and cities of Colombia. A land of intoxicating natural beauty, Colombia has employed architecture as a key agent in rebuilding its cities and civil society as it recovers from decades of civil strife stemming from drug trafficking and guerilla warfare. Situated at the northern tip of South America, the country borders the Pacific Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and the Amazon basin and is equidistant to New York and Rio de Janeiro. Photographic work by Camilo Echavarría illustrates how travels through the country cause one to feel a homogeneous, abstract passage of time. With no seasons, architecture is conditioned by various landscapes formed by the rich geographic diversity across regions. Medellín-based architect and guest editor Camilo Restrepo Ochoa takes us on a journey through his country, where architects create spaces as “types, elements, and instruments of architecture made to question limits, to build an inhabitable threshold that participates in the spatial experience of moving from outside to inside.” Changes in the way of thinking about architecture as an academic, social, and urban tool have created works “articulated through a narrow materiality and low-tech structural systems,” with “a tint of geographically driven tactile richness and a certain pragmatism.” Works by 14 architectural practices across 3 generations are presented in this issue. Also featured is the city of Medellín’s remarkable achievement of reinvigorating its poorest neighborhoods through mobility and urban space. As explained by Rahul Mehrotra, a civil society where patronage, the culture of architecture, and urban planning are aligned has enabled a city to become more efficient, accessible, equitable, and pleasant.

Architecture --- architecture [discipline] --- Colombia --- 72.039(862) --- A+U (tijdschrift) --- Architecture and Urbanism ; a+u (tijdschrift) --- Architectuur ; Colombia ; 21ste eeuw --- Architectuurgeschiedenis ; 2000 - 2050 ; Colombia

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a+u’s August issue features the work of 6a architects, founded by Tom Emerson and Stephanie Macdonald in 2001 and based in London’s historic Holborn district. Deeply immersed in the British art and design scene, and in the cohort of British architects who came of age in the post–high tech 1990s, 6a are at the forefront of a contemporary movement characterized by deep sensitivity to the environment, community, and context, while appearing to play down conventional signatures of style and theory. Divided among 4 chapters – “Repairing,” “Gardening,” “Shaping,” “Walking” – 20 projects present themselves as invitations to distinct experiences. Setting the tone for a trajectory that has endured the past 2 decades, 6a’s earliest work, at Raven Row, captures transformations accrued on the building over the past 300 years and narrates them into a new story through the bricolage of remnants and elaborate interior carvings. The ornate fireplace, relocated a century ago, is restored to its original location, while concrete that was added as a fire protection floor in the 1970s becomes the flooring of the art gallery. Each of the 4 chapters opens with a statement by the protagonists and is brought to reflection by a friendly interlocutor, describing how the architects conscientiously “work with what is already there and understand time as part of that existing material,” that “decay and maintenance are natural conditions of architecture.” 6a’s architecture becomes defined through “invisible mediums amid those things,” like site, materials, tools, and participants. They respond by gently “shaping the things and places that they have found,” and hence every project they touch “extends this idea of architecture dissolving into the city.”

Architecture --- architectural firms --- 6a Architects [London] --- 72.07 --- Architecture and Urbanism ; a+u (tijdschrift) --- A+U (tijdschrift) --- 6a architects ; opgericht in Londen 2001 --- Architecten. Stedenbouwkundigen A - Z

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Nyberg, Bernt --- 72.07 --- A+U (tijdschrift) --- Nyberg, Bernt °1927, Ockelbo (Zweden) --- Architecten. Stedenbouwkundigen A - Z

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a+u’s April issue features Bruther, a Paris-based architectural studio established by Stéphanie Bru and Alexandre Theriot in 2007. Describing architecture as a “combat sport,” the duo rose to international prominence with the completion in 2014 of Cultural and Sports Center in the Saint Blaise neighborhood of Paris. Rooted in the cultural geography of France, the project displays a nuanced mediation of urbanity, structure, and program that is informed by cosmopolitan currents and the architects’ belief in the malleability of buildings. Competitions, investigations, and experiments are all part of a work process they see as “a game of strategy and a balancing act” – balancing abstraction with function, diversity with uniformity, opacity with transparency. Twenty-nine projects, ranging from collective housing and cultural and educational institutions to pavilions and exhibitions, are presented here to convey the full extent of Bruther’s work. While many of the projects are unbuilt or small-scale, temporary studies or installations, Bruther’s use of highly realistic and detailed visualizations and models in their design process have ironically allowed for an intense scrutiny of equipment and skin, as they “turn the hidden into a compositional element” in the ever-shifting pursuit of human comfort.

72.07 --- A+U (tijdschrift) --- Architecture and Urbanism ; a+u (tijdschrift) --- Bruther Architects --- Bru, Stéphanie °1973 (°Saint-Gemmes d'Andigne, Frankrijk) --- Theriot, Alexandre --- Architecten. Stedenbouwkundigen A - Z --- Architecture --- architectural firms --- Bruther [Paris]

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Located at the “end of the world,” Chile’s idyllic landscapes create a perfect canvas for Chilean architects to express poetry in their architecture. To many, it is the utopian holiday homes that brought Chilean architecture into the international scene, and examples of these houses were previously featured in a+u 06:07 and in this issue, the House for the Poem of the Right Angle (see pp. 24–33) and Loba House (see pp. 44–51). Following 2010, however, we begin to see a different group of architects looking into less individualistic visions. Guided by a moral compass, they engage with the public or take up non-profit projects – Ruca Dwellings (see pp. 120–123) and Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center (see pp. 138–145) – that focus on social and sustainable issues which came to a halt during times of oppression. In an introductory essay, Diego Grass, an architect and tutor at Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, shares with us his insights into Chilean architecture since the 1990s. He describes how having gone through years of persistent domestic unrest, the country seeks to forge a new cultural identity that would bring a divided Chile together. 18 projects are selected in this issue to broaden our perspectives into architecture found in Chile, and the many ways these architects respond to its landscapes and urban territories.

Architecture --- architecture [discipline] --- Chile --- Architectuur, hedendaagse; Chili --- Architectuur ; Chili ; 1ste helft 21e eeuw --- Pezo von Ellrichshausen --- Radic, Smiljan °1965 (°Santiago, Chili) --- A+U (tijdschrift) --- Architecture and Urbanism ; a+u (tijdschrift) --- 72.039(83) --- Architectuurgeschiedenis ; 2000 - 2050 ; Chili