Magazine

A new restaurant designed by RCR Arquitectes, the recipients of the 2017 Pritzker Archtecture Prize, with Pau Llimona features flooring and other sintered stone surfaces that immerse diners in an "enigmatic" environment derived from a watercolor. John Hill

Expanding a famous museum that so happens to also be an industrial icon in brick requires an expressive architectural solution. Herzog & de Meuron achieved a balancing act with a new building for the Tate Modern that is elegantly linked to its South Bank London surroundings. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

Hansel & Gretel, a collaboration between architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron and artist Ai Weiwei, opened at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City earlier this month. World-Architects spoke with iart's Valentin Spiess to learn about what went into making the... John Hill

A new office building designed by Brenac & Gonzalez et Associés, located on Paris's Left Bank not far from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, stands out with its narrow footprint and faceted facade made from aluminum tubes. John Hill

P6PA+Architects' design of the Bieblova Apartments in Prague features a facade "written" with white HI-MACS® panels incised with letters that glow at night.  John Hill

On April 2nd the Portland Japanese Garden opened its $33.5 million Cultural Village expansion designed by Kengo Kuma, the first public commission in the United States by the Japanese architect. Here we discuss the roofs that prominently wrap the village's multiple structures. John Hill

The Institute for Computational Design and Construction (ICD) and the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) at the University of Stuttgart have completed a new research pavilion that breaks ground through its robotic fabrication of glass and carbon fiber-reinforced... John Hill

Fougeron Architecture's design of 400 Grove, an apartment building in San Francisco's Hayes Valley neighborhood, groups its 34 residences about a central courtyard, or mews. The porosity of the project's massing... John Hill

The Mainzer Landstraße, a major roadway in Frankfurt am Main, has been characterized by some pretty sober commercial architecture. A new eight-story office building designed by TEK TO NIK Architekten features a complex natural stone façade that adds some movement to the street. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

How does an architect deal with adding to a historical building in a highly visible context? For Antwerp's Port House, Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) lifted the addition above an old fire station for both historical and architectural reasons. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

As part of its renovation of the bathing hall at Obermain Therme in Bad Staffelstein, Germany, Krieger Architekten Ingenieure designed a cave-like space whose form was inspired by salt crystals. Two layers of LUCEM light-emitting concrete panels give the enclosure its colorful glow. John Hill

​Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas worked on the New Convention Center in Rome's EUR district from 1998, when they won a competition for its design, until October 2016, when it officially opened. Most striking is the Cloud suspended within the glass box exterior. The engineers at formTL oversaw... John Hill, Thomas Geuder

The last bit of coal rolled out of the Duhamel mineshaft in June 2012, ending the Saarland region's 250-year history of mining. A lookout designed by Pfeiffer Sachse Architekten that sits atop the mining heap and overlooks the town of Ensdorf honors this tradition. The lighting... John Hill

Think "Bordeaux" and most likely the French wine comes to mind. Yet Bordeaux is also a city that wants to modernize its image, and is doing it partly with contemporary architecture. Herzog & de Meuron's new stadium is one recent example, as is XTU Architects' La Cité... John Hill, Thomas Geuder

The conversion of a Ford Motor Company garage from 1915 at 184 Shepherd’s Bush Road in London includes three new floors built under a glass dome. Transparent and opaque glass panels in diamond and triangular shapes cover the new roof. John Hill

This year's London Design Festival had a lot to offer for design enthusiasts. A standout project was "The Smile," a 34-meter-long sculpture by Alison Brooks Architects and Arup that was on display at the Chelsea College of Arts. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

Gasholder No. 8 is a historic cast iron structure that has been transformed into Gasholder Park as part of the huge King's Cross development in London. A subtle yet dramatic lighting design by Speirs + Major ensures the striking structure has a strong presence at night. John Hill

An area of 45 square meters is not much for the planning of a house. Nevertheless L3P Architekten managed to make room for a family of four in Dielsdorf near Zurich – using the logic of the surrounding grapevines to articulate the structure. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

Italian architect Cino Zucchi has covered the new automated warehouse for furniture company Pedrali with aluminum fins in three shades of green in reference to the countryside that surrounds the building. John Hill

"The Park," the first-ever park on the Las Vegas Strip, opened to the public in April. Designed by New York's !melk landscape architecture & urban design, the five-acre park is dotted with clumps of steel shade structures alongside some 250 trees. John Hill

In London's Shepherd's Bush area, Henning Stummel Architects has built a house whose rooms are arranged like monks' cells around a courtyard. The roofs and walls are clad in standing seam metal panels covered with a unique bio-based coating. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

Riegler Riewe Architekten designed the Silesian Museum in Katowice, Poland, with primarily underground galleries. The building reveals itself on the surface as glass cubes with an almost icy appearance. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

The much anticipated extension of the Kunstmuseum Basel opened to the public in April. Architects Emanuel Christ and Chrisoph Gantenbein have crafted a building that interprets the classical elements of architecture found in the museum's main building. A dynamic Light Frieze across the facade... John Hill, Thomas Geuder

The Machado Silvetti-designed Center for Asian Art, an addition to the Ringling Museum of Art, is covered in more than 3,000 deep-green, glazed terra cotta tiles that boldy mark the entrance to the grand Florida institution. John Hill

Three of the most impressive structures within Reporting from the Front, the exhibition directed by Alejandro Aravena, are masonry vaults: one made from brick and "unqualified labor"; one made from unreinforced, cut stone; and one made from clay tile and built by students. John Hill

At the 2016 AIA Convention in Philadelphia this week, Shildan Group launched Fabrik® by Flexbrick, which consists of a stainless steel mesh woven with materials such as ceramic tiles to create unique screen walls. John Hill

On Friday, May 6th, the Bridge for Laboratory Sciences at Vassar College was dedicated. Designed by Richard Olcott of Ennead Architects as part of the school's Integrated Science Commons, the new building features two types of bird-safe glass that make it a welcome addition to the... John Hill

The aptly named Crystal Houses in Amsterdam, designed by the Dutch architects at MRVDV, features a replica facade made of traditional terracotta bricks that dissolve into solid glass bricks at street level. John Hill

"A warmly glowing, floating metal sculpture" is how the architects at pape + pape describe the new bus station they designed for Gummersbach, Germany. Sited by the train station, the new structure creates a striking image at the entrance to the country town. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

Benthem Crouwel Architects, working with designer Irma Boom, have created a cycling and pedestrian "slow traffic corridor" at Amsterdam's Central Station that is clad on one side by nearly 80,000 Delft Blue tiles. John Hill

A combination of horizontal shelves, vertical fins and hidden LEDs dramatically illuminates the glasses within Bolon Eyewear's first flagship store, designed by Ippolito Fleitz Group with Pfarré Lighting Design. John Hill

Twenty-five years after an anonymous water tower in Milan's Porto Garibaldi was covered with a colorful palette of ceramic tiles, the team behind Torre Arcobaleno (Rainbow Tower) returned to refurbish the local landmark. John Hill

GG-loop's renovation of a corner building in Altamura, Italy, features a bold, faceted red facade made from EIFS (Exterior Insulation and Finishing System), a system associated otherwise with bland, run-of-the-mill buildings. John Hill

Stuttgart-based architects h4a have completed the new sports hall for the Kepler- and Humboldt-Gymnasiums in Ulm, a boxy building stacked with three gyms one above the other. The interior is elegantly blurred by a sculptural facade of twisting aluminum fins. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

The motto of Expo 2015 in Milan, "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life," was translated in the French pavilion into a built landscape designed by Parisian architecture firm XTU, with lighting design by Bonn's Licht Kunst Licht. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

The campus of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) is known best for SANAA's Rolex Learning Center built in 2010. Dominique Perrault has just completed an adjacent building whose facade dissolves through the use of a custom, movable aluminum mesh. John Hill, Thomas Geuder