Magazine

Rotterdam's Studio RAP recently completed Ceramic House, a new facade on Pieter Cornelisz Hooftstraat, Amsterdam's famous designer shopping street. Algorithmic design and 3D printing combined to create a contemporary riff on traditional masonry architecture. John Hill

The Learning Architecture for Learners is a new building at Tokyo Gakugei University that is part of the Explayground Project. It was designed by VUILD, the studio headed by Koki Akiyoshi that specializes in digital fabrication. Here we present a report on the project from Japan-Architects. VUILD, Neoplus Sixten Inc.

Developed by a team of students and researchers at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), TOVA is a 3D-printed prototype for housing that can be built with local materials, local labor, and zero waste. John Hill

At the Resource Rows, Copenhagen's Lendager Group — an architecture studio, business consultancy, and material supplier in one — shows how facades in new construction can be made from materials cut out of old buildings. John Hill, Martina Metzner

Designed and built by master's degree students at the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, The Voxel is a prototype for a quarantine cabin, where an individual can live self-sufficiently for two weeks. It was made entirely from... John Hill

Grafton Architects' competition-winning design for the planned Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation in Fayetteville, Arkansas, is conceptualized as a Story Book of Timber: a teaching tool for future students at the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design to... John Hill

Immobile sunscreens that are designed for a particular location and aim to amplify and optimize sunlight at certain times of the year rather than simply screening the sun are an integral element in three recent projects designed by John Hill

As part of the Gwangju Design Biennale, which wrapped up its two-month run on the last day of October, AIM Architecture installed a pop-up garden that briefly turned "a bare leftover public space into an urban oasis." John Hill

Jürg Zumtobel, longtime Managing Director and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Zumtobel Group, recalls the beginnings and the core of the family business, which today employs six and a half thousand people worldwide and has always placed architecture at the center of its activities. Jenny Keller

Like other architecture fairs, the World Architecture Festival (WAF) has its share of manufacturer booths, in this case accompanying the crit rooms where architects presented their projects to juries. A standout was the MaterialDistrict pop-up; here we present a slideshow of it and some material... John Hill

The Staatsoper Unter den Linden (State Opera House) in Berlin traces its origins to 1742, though the building was rebuilt following a fire in the 1840s and bombing in World War II. Although the latest renovation maintains the building's historical architecture, at its heart is an innovative... John Hill, Thomas Geuder

In Unterengstringen near Zurich, architect Tilla Theus shows that architecture is ideally more than just a shelter: The facade of the town's new community center expresses a piece of the town's identity. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

The Asplund Pavilion, designed by architects Francesco Magnani and Traudy Pelzel of Italy's MAP studio, is the cornerstone of the first Pavilion of the Holy See at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Covered in ALPI wood surfaces inside and out, the small pavilion was inspired by... John Hill

Facing Gaia, an installation designed by Studio Libeskind, was unveiled in Giardini Marinaressa during the preview of the Venice Architecture Biennale last week. Part of the Time Space Existence exhibition, the rectilinear column punctured by an amorphous aperture was built with... John Hill

A new building for the Kate Tiedemann College of Business at the University of South Florida-St. Petersburg features glass facades with circular patterns meant to recall the coral stones that inhabit much of the area's coastline. John Hill

The real estate mantra of "location, location, location" is particularly important for hotels, which position themselves for the convenience of travelers. The Hotel Tivoli in Aachen is located appropriately on a busy, four-lane thoroughfare, a site that gave CROSS Architecture the... John Hill, Thomas Geuder

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

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 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

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 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

The facade of SEHW Architektur's design for the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology (SIT) in Darmstadt, Germany, appears to form some kind of secret code, appropriate given the site's history. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

Hascher Jehle Architektur and artist Burghard Müller-Dannhausen treated the exterior and interior, respectively, of the new Rems-Murr-Klinikum hospital in Winnenden, Germany, with a range of colors to create a strong building identity. John Hill

At the end of 2013 the Mariners Harbor Library, a branch of the New York Public Library system, opened its doors to the public on Staten Island. A key feature of A*PT Architecture's design is a long glass skylight over the central circulation spine. John Hill

Good architecture takes its environment into account, particularly surrounding buildings. In Frankfurt am Main, Franken Architekten has taken a literal approach through a digitally drawn façade for a new home and studio in old town Sachsenhausen. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

PAD Architectes' (Periot Architecture Durable) design for the headquarters of Beneteau in Givrand, France, is wrapped in a perforated facade made from HI-MACS acrylic stone. John Hill

Our visit to the 2014 AIA National Convention included many hours walking the Expo floor to find great products used in great projects. One local building is Nagle Hartray Architecture's... John Hill

One of the highlights of the 2014 Venice Biennale's Elements of Architecture exhibition is Barkow Leibinger's Kinetic Wall, appropriately found in the Wall Room and signaling the way forward through its moving parts and elastic skin. John Hill

Situated between the busy Bahnhofstrasse and the new railway station in the center of Aarau, Switzerland, is a cushioned canopy that seems to float like a cloud. Designed by Vehovar & Jauslin Architektur, the bus terminal's ETFE membrane creates a striking entry to the region. John Hill

To mark the release of its Dekton "ultra-compact surface," Cosentino is holding an exhibition (until October 31) at the Center for Architecture in New York City. The show highlights Daniel Libeskind's "Beyond the Wall" sculpture being realized at Cosentino's global... John Hill

One of the ways that architecture can help create more sustainable cities is by designing buildings that use less energy. Controlling how much direct sunlight enters a building can reduce the energy required for air conditioning and electrical lighting. Hunter Douglas Contract: Solar Control is... John Hill