Biomimicry Underground

Restaurant and Apartment, Japan Text: Bálint Botzheim Photos: Junya Ishigami + Associates Architecture and construction are mostly thought of as an additive mapping process. We superimpose building materials in order to build spaces. But the resulting space is a negative one, because we can experience space from the inside. However, the history of architecture gives […]

The Attraction of the Earth

Adobe as an old-new building material Text: Bálint Botzheim Photos: Ökodome Projekt The use of adobe, as one of the oldest building materials, has declined significantly in the past decades. Due to its special properties, however, in recent years it has been receiving more and more attention in the construction industry. In folk architecture, it […]

Dream of a Beautiful New World?

A new chapter of AI architecture Text: Bálint Botzheim Artificial intelligence has quietly crept into our lives. We are surrounded by smart devices that monitor our habits and serve (or control?) us. In the digital space, our presence is even more permeated by the presence of software technologies using artificial intelligence. Architecture cannot be an […]

Green among the Bricks

Concept of an aeroponic hall Concept and text: Mária Torma – University of Sopron Consultant: Bálint Botzheim The thesis developed a plan for an urban plant growing building to make use of redundant spaces and bring in a function that is innovative and useful for the city. Aeroponic plant cultivation is a good example of […]

The City and Parasitic Edifices

Concept: Byron Cadena, Aryo Dhaneswara, Andrew Saltzman Text: Eszter Götz Students of the master course with the IAAC (Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia) in Barcelona, Byron Cadena, Aryo Dhaneswara and Andrew Saltzman revived the concept of parasitic architecture born at the turn of the millennia in their project in 2019/2020, which means that posterior […]

Post-COVID Cities

International Student Competition, RIBA, 2021 Text: Bálint Botzheim For many of us, the general quarantine that accompanies COVID seems distant, when homes became a place of work and an educational institution at the same time, streets and public spaces were almost empty. Life went on in most areas, and in light of this, it was […]

From Layer to Layer

Printed house in Germany Text: Bálint Botzheim Germany’s first printed house, the single-family house printed by PERI using a COBOD BOD2 printer was opened in Beckum, North Rhine-Westphalia. With the first 3D printed residential building in the country, positive pressure is being generated in the construction industry: for innovative construction with new technologies, for greater […]

What We have Learnt in Venice?

Text: Eszter Götz When the curator of the 17th Venice International Architecture Biennale, scheduled for 2020, Hashim Sarkis announced his program and gave the slogan, “How will we live together?”, no one yet knew what would break out into the world in a few months. The pandemic not only postponed the opening of the Biennale […]

The Building Material of the Future

Maison Fibre at the 17th Venice Architectural Biennale Project managers: Prof. Achim Menges, Dr. Jan Knippers Text: Eszter Götz Photos: ICD, ITKE, Stuttgart Maison Fibre, exhibited at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition, explores an alternative approach to the design and construction of future habitable spaces. In response to the exhibition theme “How will we live […]

Digital Masonry

Stratus Bridge, Venice, 2021 Text: Bálint Botzheim Photos: Zaha Hadid Architects Striatus is an arched, unreinforced masonry footbridge composed of 3D-printed concrete blocks assembled without mortar. Exhibited at the Giardini della Marinaressa during the Venice Architecture Biennale until November 2021, the 16×12-metre footbridge is the first of its kind, combining traditional techniques of master builders […]

Getting started

The first generation of generative software to help design Text: Bálint Botzheim Generative methods have been present in architectural research since the 1990s, however, until recent years, few thought they could play a role in real design processes. The situation is changing and today Autodesk, the largest software vendor, has also flagged the use of […]

Igloo Reloaded

TECLA Experimental Home with 3D Printing Text: Bálint Botzheim In the past year news have been flooding on a daily basis about various buildings made with a variety of 3D printings, the majority of which, however, relied on the vertical-horizontal logic of traditional construction systems, corresponding to the duality of wall-ceiling building materials. As opposed […]