Magazine

On 1 May 2015 the Pulitzer Arts Foundation opened with an expanded building and a new name. Previously known as the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, the institution that calls itself "a sanctuary for the ever-evolving experience of art" opened in 2001 in a building...

A thin undulating roof caps the Visitor Center that Bohlin Cywinski Jackson designed for Vanke and its Pearl Hill Preserve development in Qingdao, China. The form mimics the surrounding natural landscape, while the roof and its supports serve as a contemporary interpretation of...

In a list of building types that are the least regarded architecturally, surely gas stations are present if not right at the top. Design seems to be set aside in favor of economy and signage, but the redesign of Rompetrol's Litro stations by Eight Inc. admirably combines formal minimalism...

On top of running her eponymous New York architecture studio, Toshiko Mori is a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she formerly served as chair. Following a conversation with a friend at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation she gave her GSD students a project for a...

Architect Kazuhiko Kishimoto of the Kanagawa-based firm acaa designed this wood-framed ranch-style home in the snowy city of Kitakami, Iwate Prefecture. In order to adapt the home to the region’s harsh winter climate, Kishimoto says he took particular care in designing the structure and...

"Cultural design collaboration" is not seen typically in a list of an architect's consultants, but it makes perfect sense here, given the client's mandate that the new terminal at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport embodies "the heritage of India and the...

Opening fifteen minutes early might not seem like much when it comes to a building, but when considered as a piece of an Expo – an event that often sees pavilions being worked on after the gates open – it is quite an undertaking. But it is only one among many for the USA Pavilion...

The glass box is the default form for office buildings in the 21st century, meaning that detailing and articulation – glass surfaces, spandrels, and mullions – are the most important means of expression. But what if a glass box is malleable? Handel Architects' design for...

Often the best buildings aren't the most flashy or iconic; they are the ones that fit into a city so well they seem to be forever a part of it. This isn't to say that Mecanoo's design for the offices of the Boston Public Schools Division doesn't have contemporary flourishes...

The flowing, perforated facade is the first thing that attracts attention in this expansion to the Central World Shopping Center in Bangkok. But a glance beyond the facade reveals flowing internal spaces – indoor and outdoor – that give cohesion to the project and some legitimacy...

Designed by Akio Nakasa of naf architect & design, Arch Wall House makes use of the curved walls that are a common theme in much of the firm’s work. Here, an arch both separates and links two homes: a single-story residence for a woman living alone, and a two-story residence for a...

The use of hot springs for wellbeing and medical care is an age-old practise in China. The new Ruff Well Water Resort designed by Shanghai-based architects AIM is an outstanding example of how that practise is reflected in contemporary society, particularly in new facilities for the urban...

In June 2013, Women for Women International opened the first-ever Women’s Opportunity Center in Kayonza, Rwanda, "to create economic opportunity and rebuild social infrastructure for women," according to the organization that began working in the country in 1997, three years...

Harumi is an artificial island built on reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay that saw the development of office and residential towers starting in the 1990s. That development will no doubt continue as the island is the site of the Olypmic Village for the 2020 Olympic Games. The announcement of...

Al Maryah Island (formerly known as Sowwah Island) is a 114-hectare mixed-use development that serves as Abu Dhabi's International Financial Center. A key portion of the development is the five-building Abu Dhabi Global Market Square designed by Chicago's Goettsch Partners. The...

In recent years, architectural practice has undergone deep transformations. In countries with a strong artisan tradition, as is the case of Spain, the old model of studying architecture that could lead to being in charge of projects of very different scales has been substituted by vast...

Architect Zoka Zola may be based in Chicago, but her roots go back to Croatia, specifically to Rijeka, the country's third largest city. So it's fitting that one of her most recent projects took the architect back to her city of birth to design affordable housing after a competition...

Designed by Hiroshima-based architecture firm Keisuke Kawaguchi +K2-DESIGN, Locomotive Hills is an adult day service center located partway up a gently sloping, forested hill. The shape of the building itself is patterned on a hill and is designed to continue the thread of green through the city....

University Town is a new campus for the National University of Singapore that recently opened near its Kent Ridge Campus. The large expansion consists of a number of components, including the university's Campus for Research Excellence And Technological Enterprise (CREATE), which...

The spatial and administrative separation of Paris from its suburbs is one of the permanent problems that plagues the metropolis. An intelligent project that combines transport and leisure functions contributes to overcoming the barriers created by the ring motorway.

Kanagawa-based architecture team Ryumei Fujiki and Yukiko Sato/F.A.D.S designed this home for an art appreciator and amateur artist who wanted a “house like an art museum.” Planned with careful consideration for air circulation as well as for the harsh, snowy climate of the Japan Sea...

Resembling a simple glass-box office building from a distance, up close the 50-story FKI Tower reveals a simple yet ingenious wall section that incorporates solar panels angled to absorb more of the sun's rays than a strictly vertical surface. Further, a number of atriums and a rooftop...

Just as this house is for two personalities – an architect and a chef – the exterior exhibits two main gestures: Sculpted panels made from fiberglass wrap the cube-like volume, while charred cedar pieces with horizontal windows break through at an angle. The combination is a...

For a site in the Resonant Sand Bay in the Gobi Desert near the city of Baotou in Inner Mongolia PLaT architects from Beijing designed a hotel that reflects, in plan, the shape of a lotus flower. However, the inspiration of the design developed from the idea of creating a construction on top of...

Located in Nakanoshima, Osaka’s business district, Mitsui Garden Hotel Osaka Premier was designed around the concept of stimulating all five senses of its cultured clientele. Kanagawa Prefecture-based landscape design firm STGK (Studio Gen Kumagai) created the hotel’s gardens with an...

Guilford is a town in southern Vermont that is home to only about 2,100 people. It is also the location of Guilford Sound, an energy-efficient recording studio for those who want to get away to what the proprietors call "your own private recording haven." Designed by Ted...

PRODUCTORA is a budding architecture studio with its headquarters in Mexico City, founded by architects from different countries: Abel Perles from Argentina, Wonne Ickx from Belgium, and Carlos Bedoya and Víctor Jaime from Mexico. Shortly after its beginnings in 2006, the studio came...

Not many architects can boast of having a cultural anthropologist on its team when designing a building, but when it came time for Liollio Architecture to tackle the design of a library for the residents of St. Helena Island in South Carolina, they brought one on board to help understand the...

The workshop of O-office Architects in Guangzhou was built on top of an old silo building that was part of a brewery. Its views go south across the river towards downtown and north towards a generic new high-rise housing estate. The architects reused the industrial space with basic but radical...

"Urban unfill" is the term that Spillman Farmer Architects uses to describe its "non-building" for Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. The Arts Plaza transforms an old auto-repair facility into a raw, open-air space for the school's art students. Architectural...

Single-family homes in the United States tend to be one- or two-story buildings that sprawl across the land. Another tactic is taken in the aptly named Tower House designed for a steep and narrow Portland lot by architect Benjamin Waechter. Building up four floors allows for economical...

This home for a family of four designed by Naoi Architecture & Design Office sits in a farming-district-turned-suburban-subdivision in Shiga Prefecture. In order to enable a lifestyle in harmony with nature for the outdoors-loving residents, the architects kept the surrounding landscape...

Mid-20th-century modern architecture is old enough that the question of demolition versus preservation comes to fore. In many cases the choice of preserving modern architecture involves renovations and additions, so particular buildings continue their usefulness over becoming museum pieces....

Many former industrial buildings in Chinese cities have been converted into hubs for the creative industries. There is political support for the shift of production from inner city neighbourhoods to newly established industrial zones on the fringes of the metropolises. Of course, environmental...

Shou Sugi Ban is an old Japanese technique for charring wood to make it insect resistant and weatherproof it on the outside of buildings. The technique, which creates a wildfire-resistant shell, is one way that this retreat on a cattle ranch between...

In the United States battlefields from the American Revolution and Civil War are considered sacred ground, preserved as open space and used as sites for education and interpretation. The American Revolution's Battle of Monmouth took place on a hot day in June 1778 in central New Jersey....