Interesting Ideas in Architecture Now

New trends in architecture are always on the horizon. Let us take a look at some of the newest developments.

  • Starchitecture- flashy buildings that are designed by high-profile architects, has been the face of the industry for decades now. Some more interesting ideas have now emerged. This is more about building a better world than a better building, with participants addressing issues such as poverty, disease, segregation, access to sanitation, and pollution.
  • Communities that tell you or even show you what they need-designing temporary infrastructure to be permanent. Instead of proposing a design, local residents are invited to use vacant, available spaces and start using the space as it was. This leads to making the temporary infrastructure permanent.
  • Using abandoned buildings as a source of new materials-using abandoned factories has proved highly effective. Broken bricks, concrete chunks, fragments of glass, and other materials are collected, sorted, and granulated. Off-site waste materials from consumer, industrial, and agricultural streams are also processed and mixed with those materials. They create a kind of aggregate that can be formed into building blocks.
  • Listen to the people who build your buildings– For society to be fairer, the workers who erect buildings must come out of the shadows. In a world of fair trade, developers must promise to pay workers a living wage and take their safety seriously.
  • If you are going to welcome immigrants, design cities to accommodate them– a country receiving immigrants should build or retrofit “arrival cities” and municipalities designed around the newcomers’ needs. These arrival cities should provide cheap rents, access to ethnic networks that facilitate adjustment, and easy transportation to jobs.
  • Do not just redesign houses, redesign ways of paying for them– incremental housing is residential units that are half-finished by contractors making them affordable, then completed by homeowners when they have the time and money. Building houses without non-essential finishes or features allows banks to provide mortgages that working-class people can afford. Homeowners would then provide the non-essentials over time.
  • Ways architecture can borrow from biology based on the natural air conditioning system of the nose. Another manipulates bacteria to light up in the presence of pollutants, acting as microscopic sentinels. A group investigated whether bryozoa-colonial aquatic invertebrates could be used to create building skeletons the way they create their own skeletons. Another looked at the males of the sapphirnid copepods, small marine crustaceans that can change color in response to light conditions. This could suggest possible use in buildings.

While many of these ideas and trends in architecture may seem radical, it shows the forward-thinking of those in the architectural community. If we are to survive and thrive, we must think outside the box. Sometimes the most successful ideas are the least popular. We at SCARANO ARCHITECT, PLLC agree with these methods. We also care deeply about the environment, long-term housing issues as well as affordability in housing. Check out our website to see our many award-winning projects.


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