Magazine

Cultural institutions are not doing well over the time where shopping malls entitle the concept of the gallery. Huge competition in 'leisure time concepts' enforce these institutions to enrich their entertainment offer to attract new visitors. Broad understanding of culture - as the...

SUE Architekten have transformed a dilapidated corner building on the market square in Ottensheim into an open local authority building in which old and new form a perfect symbiosis. The beauty of the historic vaulting, frescoes, wood ceilings and inlays in the renovated existing building has...

The Beijing-based magazine World Architecture celebrated its 30th anniversary this autumn. Every second year the magazine organizes the WA Chinese Architecture Awards. The jury for the award in 2010 selected three prizes and five honorable mentions. Two school buildings in remote areas and a...

Los Angeles may be a city known more for its sprawl that its urban core, but downtown is home to a density of high-profile contemporary architecture by the likes of Frank Gehry, Rafael Moneo, and Morphosis. Across the street from the last’s Caltrans District 7 Headquarters is the Los...

A more fitting moniker for this project – a mix of condos, artist’s work spaces, and retail – might be “The Green Lofts,” owing to the striking rainscreen that covers part of the façade. Front Studio Architects answered some questions about their design...

The International Living Building Institute’s Living Building Challenge could be described as extreme green; it “defines the most advanced measure of sustainability in the built environment possible today.” BNIM’s Omega Center for Living is one of the first buildings...

As an addition to an existing church, STL's design for Our Lady of Guadalupe outside Chicago infuses tradition with a modern aesthetic. Most impressive is the wood ceiling, further activated by a tension rod structure. STL answered some questions about the recently completed...

Marking the trailhead of a Wildlife Refuge next to the Minnesota River, the new Rapids Lake Education and Visitor Center constantly reinforces the natural beauty of its surroundings through strategically placed openings framing the landscape. Architects Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle...

As sustainability continues to take hold in the architectural profession, the most desirable projects enable designers to express green features, making them educational devices to the clients and users. Chicago firm Ross Barney Architects has done such a thing to great effect at the...

As if another excuse is needed to visit the “off-centered” Dogfish Head Brewery, the latest addition to their Delaware home is an angular addition in wood and glass fronted by a Steampunk Treehouse. Philadelphia’s DIGSAU answered some questions about their design for the...

Additions to existing buildings are faced with the difficulty of balancing historical respect with contemporary values and expression. Rarely is it pulled off as sensitively and carefully as the University of Pennsylvania’s new Music Building. Ann Beha Architects answered some questions...

The house was conceived as a large stone mass, perforated in order to create different relationships between the inhabitants and the landscape. Each opening is unique and its form, location and proportion respond to this intention.

The design of industrial buildings is far-too-often relegated to engineers and contractors, but the occasional high-profile structure of the type includes an architect's involvement. Chicago's Murphy/Jahn have created a stunning example of such at the University of Chicago on the...

The desert metropolis of Phoenix is known for its insatiable thirst for land and water, an unsustainable trend in need of reconsideration. While small, this project by local architects WEDDLE GILMORE black rock studio could have a big impact towards reorienting how residents think about the...

Once in a (great) while, Italy’s public institutions succeed in getting things done! After the slow passing of administrative time, Rome has received two new museum buildings that open the city to contemporary times: the MAXXI and the MACRO.

The Frank Sinatra School for the Arts was founded in 2001 by singer Tony Bennett and his wife Susan Benedetto. Eight years later the school moved into its permanent home across from the Museum of the Moving Image. Susan T. Rodriguez of Polshek Partnership Architects answered some questions about...

Yazdani Studio of Cannon Design contributed a striking addition to CSU's Northridge campus, making movement an integral part of the building's expression. The architects answered some question about their design of Chaparral Science Hall.

The redesign of the Domplatz is intended to extend the lively inner city atmosphere of the Hauptplatz in Linz in a southerly direction. The core of this urban conversion project is a new hotel that mediates with sovereign flair between the various eras of the buildings around the Domplatz.

Like a building within a building, Anmahian Winton's design for the Joukowsky Institute at Brown University presents an exterior "façade" to an interiors project. The architects answered some questions about the design.

Dramatic views greet visitors to the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook above Los Angeles. Safdie Rabines Architects answered some questions about the building completed last year.

Spread across 22 buildings in Chicago's South Loop, Columbia College Chicago considers itself "the largest and most diverse private arts and media college in the nation." One of the school's three new buildings in its 2010 Master Plan is the Media Production Center (MPC). Studio...

The original proposal of the Prefecture of Santo André (São Paulo) required that a children's science museum, associated with the public school network, be built inside one of the city's parks. The project presented expands the initial program and proposes a wing to house...

Hall A, opened in autumn 2008, increases the exhibition area of the Grazer Messe (Graz Trade Fair) on two levels by a total of 13,500 m2. Innovative building technology helped above all to reduce costs — and is also well hidden.

Two structures free up more than half of the lot, contributing to the public space of the neighborhood and salvaging two heritage constructions. The first adapts itself to the irregularities of the context; the second becomes an urban reference, from its corner location, of the Villa...

The commission called for new uses and meanings to be given to a space in the historic center of Guadalajara. Its essential features were to be respected, in order to reverse the process of degradation and to convert the area into a catalyst of the urban context that will emerge with the complex...

When Heinz Tesar's museum for the Essl Collection was opened in Klosterneuburg, near Vienna nine years ago it was Austria's first newly built private museum and seemed likely to long remain the only one of its kind. However a worthy successor soon came along in the form of the Liaunig...

The CEIEPAA animal production teaching and research center is located along the highway just five miles out of Tequisquiapan, Querétaro, on the way to Bernal, on a 147-hectare stretch of ranchland.

We started from the idea of recovering a typology which has barely been tried out in Barcelona: the “Mediterranean” block of Antonio Bonet, a hybrid which seeks not so much to break the rules of Cerdá as to explore the potential of untested zoning regulations,...

The Mountain Dwellings are the second generation of the VM Houses. The program is 2/3 parking and 1/3 living. Rather than doing two separate buildings, we decided to merge parking and housing into a symbiotic relationship. All apartments have roof gardens facing the sun, amazing views, and...

Together with Wolfram Mehlem and Jesper Bork Wolfgang Tschapeller has built an exceptional house in St Andrä/Wördern, close to the Danube The sharp-edged spatial tube made of fair-faced concrete hovers lightly on an elevated foundation above the expanse of the plain. Freely shaped...

Things are there and one doesn't notice them until one day one's gaze slips and one sees, explores, and is dazzled. That's how it was for me with La Oca, which wasn't La Oca but actually the Aeronautical Museum (formerly Palacio de las Artes), which I hadn't noticed, even...

Gentrification can occasionally foster good design rather than vulgar excess. As the humble cottages on narrow lots in Venice rise past the $1 million mark, the challenge for architects is to satisfy the expectations of new buyers without destroying the character of the community. Inevitably,...