Beyond Universal Models: The Turn Toward Situated Architecture

"Specificity has re-emerged as a central language in architectural discourse. In an increasingly globalized field, where projects often follow familiar models regardless of context, architects are now turning toward approaches rooted in the particularities of each site. This renewed attention to context reflects broader social, climatic, and political pressures: cities are facing extreme heat, ecological challenges, shifting demographics, and new forms of collective life that demand responses grounded in their immediate conditions."

"Situated architecture describes this shift. It refers to design approaches in which form, program, and materiality emerge from the specific environment that produces them: its microclimates, cultural structures, and everyday rituals. Rather than beginning with universal templates, these practices start with observation, prototyping, and direct engagement with local dynamics. This logic is visible in the climatic and material experiments of TAKK in Spain, such as Portable Garden and 10k House, which"

Specificity has become central to architectural practice as designers prioritize site-specific responses to social, climatic, and political pressures. Situated architecture produces form, program, and materiality from local microclimates, cultural structures, and everyday rituals. Design processes begin with observation, prototyping, and direct engagement with local dynamics rather than universal templates. Projects experiment with climatic and material strategies as lightweight prototypes tuned to thermal and ecological gradients. Examples include TAKK's Portable Garden and 10k House; Studio Ossidiana's Art Pavilion M shaped by layered soils and ecological cycles; Izaskun Chinchilla's reinterpretations such as 100 Sillas and 3 Salones Urbanos; Common Accounts' narrative domestic spaces; and Raumlabor's site-responsive urban interventions.

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