We Architects are Politicians: Interview With Giancarlo Mazzanti

By Vladimir Belogolovsky, ArchNewsNow.com
December 13, 2011

The work of Colombian architect Giancarlo Mazzanti, whose projects succeed in improving lives of ordinary folks, reflects significant social shifts in Latin America today. It is therefore not surprising that the most fascinating architectural projects in this part of the world are social, such as schools, kindergartens, libraries, and sports arenas. Moreover, by and large the most intriguing and successful of them are built in the poorest neighborhoods. Comparing many of these humble projects with the elitist concert halls, condominiums, banks, and museums, often built as fanciful gestures wrapped in expensive skins in countries with developed economies, one begins to sense a certain decorative nature and even detachment of contemporary architecture in the West from challenges of real life. Is architecture mainly about pleasing the eye? Is it not also about trying to make our lives safer and more convenient, as well as to provide more options for such new functions, forms, and spaces that could improve qualities of our lives? More …

Role Call: University Endowment Lands Advisory Design Panels

The AIBC invites applications from architects interested in serving on University Endowment Lands Advisory Design Panel. The role of an advisory design panel member is to give impartial, professional advice directly on any proposal or policy affecting the community’s physical environment in the public interest. To learn more about the procedures for serving on a panel, please refer to the following documents:

• AIBC Bulletin 65: Advisory Design Panels – Standards for Procedures and Conduct (insert link)
• ADP Frequently Asked Questions (insert link)

An application form is available via the AIBC website at http://www.aibc.ca/member_resources/practice/pdf/Design_Panel_Application_20110107.pdf.

Please forward all submissions to the attention of Practice Coordinator Ryan Dinh at rdinh@aibc.ca.

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Laneway housing in Vancouver is fast becoming a viable means to increased densification in the city’s suburban neighbourhoods.

By Matthew Soules MAIBC, Canadian Architect

November 2011

In an era increasingly focused on maximizing the spatial efficiency of cities, it is not hard to describe the omnipresence of the single-purpose service lane as anachronistic. Because once an infrastructure and pattern of use is established, it tends to be exceedingly difficult to dislodge. It’s not hard to understand why this is the case. Countless North American cities have innumerable kilometres of service lanes, a shadow doubling of the named and therefore proper streets, devoted to the messy realities of parking, trash collection, and loading and unloading. However, at the outset of the 21st century, this phantom network of narrow streets is increasingly considered a territory ripe for dual duty, asked to emerge from its singular role as service space to be backed onto, and to become a space in its own right upon which architecture fronts. More …