Articles by Valeria Silva

The local authority wants to build a new cultural and sports facility that will be able to host regional-level sports competitions. The chosen location is next to two existing facilities: the Pierre de Coubertin sports complex and the André Blot cultural centre. Other facilities are close by but disconnected from these: the stadium, tennis courts, bowling green, and BMX track.

The local authority wants to build a new cultural and sports facility that will be able to host regional-level sports competitions. The chosen location is next to two existing facilities: the Pierre de Coubertin sports complex and the André Blot cultural centre. Other facilities are close by but disconnected from these: the stadium, tennis courts, bowling green, and BMX track.

On November 10, 1943, the city of Recco was destroyed forever. Twenty-two bombers of the British Royal Air Force dropped 33 tons of explosives, attempting to demolish the railway bridge, an iconic element of the town and a crucial point for the supply of Nazi-fascist troops. The bombing caused the deaths of numerous civilians and almost completely destroyed the characteristic Ligurian village. The town was razed to the ground. On November 11, the landscape around the railway bridge bore the spectral image of one of the most picturesque villages on the Levante coast: Recco was now only a memory, with only a few houses and a few scattered monuments left intact. During the years of reconstruction, some renowned architects were called upon to revive the town, including Luigi Vietti, the designer of the Town Hall building. Among the victims of the bombing was a large part of a beautiful Franciscan complex dating back to the 1400s, of which the church was almost entirely destroyed.

Qingshuiyan Ancestral Hall Supporting Facility Renovation Set within the core scenic area of the thousand-year-old Qingshuiyan Ancestral Hall in Anxi, Quanzhou, this project renovates a decommissioned old bus station left unused after its functional relocation. The site is anchored by a moss-draped ancient banyan tree at the center of a forest-framed open square, with a dilapidated two-story station building, native rock formations, and ancient mossy paths defining its unique natural and historic context. First built in the Northern Song Dynasty, Qingshuiyan Ancestral Hall sits at the northern foot of perennially mist-shrouded Penglai Mountain. As a vital folk belief center for Fujian, Taiwan and Southeast Asian communities with over 100 million believers, the hall shaped the project’s core ethos of harmony with nature and local heritage. The in-situ renovation integrates tea houses, vegetarian restaurants, and rest areas as a complementary facility for the ancestral hall.

In these turbulent times, people yearn for connection and for spaces with a special atmosphere. Our most evocative image is a bright, luminous vessel for faith.

The construction site is part of the Klafar area in the northwest of the city. The urban layout of the apartment buildings is based on the principle of a traditional city block, which defines a hierarchy and character of spaces—from public street areas, through semi-private courtyards, to private front gardens. The proposed block forms the corner of Sázavská and K Milířům streets. The spatial arrangement of the buildings creates a semi-public courtyard oriented to the south, while leisure areas with vegetation are located in the western part of the site.

The client’s brief was to design a new retirement home on the site of a former orchard adjacent to a hospital. The building is conceived as four independently functioning households for approximately 60 residents, fully barrier-free. An orchard and brick walls near a cemetery with a church, a historic town with a beautiful town hall. Tall trees. And then old age as a phenomenon—calm, silence, brick as the archetype of home. The proximity of the hospital and cemetery may invite bitter associations; here, however, we see quality, an image of quiet and contemplation, an image of the peaceful edge of town. A chateau-like, symmetrical, almost classicist layout brings atriums, gardens, views, and abundant daylight into the Home. Old age is one of today’s European themes. How do we approach ageing? What do we do for older people, how do we perceive them, what do we offer them, and what do we ask of them? What is it like to be an elderly person in the Czech Republic in 2026?