Articles by Santiago Baraya

For houses throughout the world, the barriers between the inside and outside of houses are solid and well-defined, allowing the spaces within the home to be protected from the weather conditions outside and made comfortable for the inhabitants inside. In countries like Colombia, which sit close to the equator and enjoy a warm, subtropical climate, temperatures average just above ideal thermal comfort.

As Covid-19 spread across the globe last year, cities underwent a transformation unlike any we had seen in the last century. The sudden disappearance of both human and automotive traffic as people bunkered down under quarantine was visible in cities worldwide and, astonishingly, continued even after quarantine restrictions were lifted. 

For much of the world, this past year was spent within the confines of our homes, undoubtedly blurring the lines between our public, professional, and private lives and transforming our living spaces into places of work and productivity. This transformation of spaces and how they are used is nothing new in the world of architecture as countless spaces take on various roles beyond what they were originally designed for–a fact reflected in their layout, design, and the materials used within them.

Educational architecture is crucial for creating spaces that, not only nurture and mold the minds of the future generations, but also provide spaces for the wider public to come and share knowledge and ideas. 

During the first days of the quarantine, we noticed a drastic change throughout the world’s cities—streets, plazas, and parks deserted and devoid of life, putting into perspective the powerful effect that humans have on urban spaces. Here, we have compiled a list of projects and spaces that show just how humans bring life to the places they inhabit.

ArchDaily’s theme of the month, How We Will Live Together, invites readers to contemplate the way we inhabit spaces with those around us. In this article, we address different aspects of coexistence in a world impacted by COVID-19 and the changes that need to be made in order to create a world where everyone has the space to live, work, and grow. 

When building for a more sustainable world, the materials you choose undoubtedly play the biggest part in minimizing your project’s carbon footprint. Building a wall out of plastic bottles, for example, prevents them from adding to the hoard in a landfill. However, there is a material used for centuries throughout the world that tops all the rest when it comes to sustainability: adobe.

The focus of buildings should ultimately be the well-being of the people using them. When we think of our experiences in hospitals, clinics, the dentist’s office, and other medical facilities, the feeling is rarely pleasant. Perhaps it’s the smells, the dull, monotone colors, or the sound of medical gadgets working away on some unlucky patient. 

According to Howard Gardner, human intelligence can be classified into 8 different categories. One of these is spatial intelligence, which describes the ability to mentally create and imagine three-dimensional spaces. Architecture is one of many disciplines that benefits from this ability and in this article we will explore just how visual representation in architecture has evolved throughout history–from displaying the most brilliant of ideas to capturing the wildest of dreams.

In countries where architecture adapts to the seasons, projects must respond so that they are comfortable for the users, both in the hot summer temperatures and in the cold winter. Tropical countries, such as Colombia, are a bit luckier. The temperature of construction sites depends less on the seasons and more on where they are located geographically according to the altitude above sea level; the closer they are to the sea, the warmer it is. For this reason, it is not essential to seal or insulate the interior spaces. On the contrary, the good management of constant ventilation creates a more permeable and contextual architecture.