Articles by Daniel Tapia

Mike and Ellen Fedosh are a couple of keen solar eclipse chasers; they have traveled the world to destinations like Svalbard, Libya & Cook Islands and have seen a total of 10 of these rare astronomical events. Like modern-day Indiana Jones, this hobby has shaped Mike and Ellen’s personal aesthetic, largely in part to the collection of local art that they have acquired from various cultures along the way. A common thread, that is obviously not only through their art but their personal style, is that Mike and Ellen embrace color. When talking with Mike, he’ll be quick to tell you that, simply put, color brings him joy. It is easy to believe as he’s telling you this while wearing a blue Hawaiian shirt, Panama hat, and sunglasses.

Located on the beach of Xangri-lá, north coast of Rio Grande do Sul, the house Malibu H25 is located in a corner of 414sqm facing a small square with predominantly east sunlight. It is a 226sqm ground floor residence consisting of four suites, guest toilet, laundry area and social area with living and dining areas integrated into the kitchen. The needs program seeks to meet a family in which parents, grandparents, can get together with their children and grandchildren for the summer. 

The architectural project is based on the conception of an industrialized modular construction, with two monolithic volumes, each from two 20-foot containers joined in parallel, totaling 34m2 of an area in each set. Starting from the concept of a Tiny House, within the culture that mixes detachment, sustainability, less waste generation and a brake on exacerbated consumerism, the containers follow the idea of mini dwellings, where the guest has all the convenience and technology in a small space.

This single-family home is located in a plot of hardly over 1000 m2. The program is mainly developed on the lower floor, with a double-height in the living room which articulates the small program of the upper floor. The municipal setback is given to the street forming an open space that is used as a guest´s parking while offering an expansion of the street as a public space. In urbanism where everything is fenced up and closed it is very surprising to see the generosity of offering this space. The program is atypical and, paradoxically, its novelty consists in being traditional and almost forgotten: accommodating a family formed by three generations. 

The Roux Center for the Environment provides a greatly expanded platform for environmental studies at Bowdoin College set in rural Maine. This new 29,000 SF interdisciplinary building features an ensemble of flexible classrooms, laboratories, research labs, faculty offices, and unstructured learning spaces. A glassy, tiered space known as the lantern hosts lectures for 150 people, informal gatherings, and serves as a focal point for the entire campus community.

In its debut in the largest exhibition of architecture, interior design and landscaping of the Americas, CASACOR, the office TRPC Arquitetos, signs two spaces, the “Loft do Colecionador” and the “Cafeteria Coffeetown”. For a cafe, young architects Adalberto Vilela, Cecília Miscow, Tiago Schultz and Vanessa Sampaio worked on a recurring theme in their architectural investigations: the architecture of the house, a combination of volumes and scale, considering a careful setting in the food court of the event.

Located five kilometres from the town of Pinotepa Nacional, Oaxaca, our proposal arises from the collaboration between different architects, developers and above all the inhabitants, in a project of designing the homes of thirty-eight families in a community dedicated to agriculture. This group of homes is a clear example of participatory and community architecture, where residents were interviewed to represent their ideal home in a drawing, collecting different points of view on their lifestyle and traditions.