Future Architecture Rooms

John Hill

25. August 2020

Image courtesy of Future Architecture

Future Architecture Rooms is a website with 27 curated "rooms" occupied by architectural institutions that are members of the Future Architecture platform. Arriving in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the project is billed as "an attempt to build an environment at the intersection of the real and the immaterial."

Although not all of the rooms are currently occupied — 8 of 27 institutions went online on the August 25 launch — they should fill up over the course of the next month. As of today, the present institutions on Future Architecture Rooms are displaying videos that give a peek at their spaces, describe how they work, and describe how they think. Andreas Ruby, director of the Swiss Architecture Museum, for instance, speaks from within the Under the Radar exhibition and then presents the new "Pandemic Space" short film produced by students at the University of Kassel under professor Theo Deutinger.

Image courtesy of Future Architecture

In addition to S AM Swiss Architecture Museum, the other institutions opening the doors to their rooms today are Lisbon Architecture Triennale, Tbilisi Architecture Biennial, Design Biotop, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, DAI-SAI Association of Istrian Architects, Architektūros fondas, and Fundació Mies van der Rohe. These institutions and the others that are soon to join them "will be able to diversify the content and curate their rooms in unique ways," per the website. So look for live feeds, texts, comments, open discussions and more to follow in the coming months.

Image courtesy of Future Architecture

Accompanying the 27 rooms for the members of the Future Architecture platform are a handful of other rooms: a Lounge Room that will open on September 9th with a talk about architecture and urbanism in times of the pandemic; an Info Room that introduces the project; a Team Room with details on the curators and others working on the project; a Library organized by dpr-barcelona; and an Open Call for the forthcoming 2021 edition of Future Architecture, titled "Landscapes of Care."

Image courtesy of Future Architecture

The Library acts as a portal to the Future Architecture Library, a standalone website "where the books produced under the umbrella of Future Architecture are hosted." Dozens of books can be browsed online, but the website also lets people combine content from the books into their own FA Book. You can compile your favorite essays or create a book focused on a particular theme or interest, whatever your preference. Future updates will allow the custom downloadable books (name your price) to be printed on demand.