Magazine

Francis Kéré's design of the new national assembly building to be located in Porto-Novo, the capital of Benin, was inspired by the palaver tree, "the age-old West African tradition of meeting under a tree to make consensual decisions in the interest of a community." John Hill

Obra Architects' Perpetual Spring Pavilion occupied the courtyard in front of the Museum Of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Seoul from from September 2019 to April 2020.  Obra Architects

In summer 2019, debartolo architects moved into a 1930s warehouse located "on one of the grittiest streets east of downtown Phoenix." Their conversion of the building responds to the context with dark steel walls facing the street, while inside it maintains the openness of the space capped by... debartolo architects

The Vilcek Foundation, which "raises awareness of immigrant contributions in the United States and fosters appreciation of the arts and sciences," has partnered with artist Hiroki Otsuka on a series of manga devoted to Vilcek Prize recipients. The first is about architect Denise Scott Brown,... John Hill

For the second year in a row, a building on Chicago's South Side has received the most votes in our Building of the Year poll on American-Architects.com. In 2019 it was an academic building at Illinois Tech. For 2020 it's the dynamic orange building that Juan Moreno's firm, JGMA, designed for... John Hill

Area of a three-level home on Greece's Serifos Island that was carved into a rocky slope to protect its residents from strong northerly winds:... René Ammann

The World Around's annual summit was held on Saturday, January 30, at the Guggenheim Museum, where the organization is in residence this year. Recorded presentations and live discussions were broadcast to the strictly online audience. John Hill

Atelier Zhang Lei (AZL Architects) in Nanjing recently completed a new hotel project, just 300 meters north of the Eduard Kögel

The iconic high-tech building designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers will close from late 2023 until 2027, the same year the Parisian institution will celebrate its 50th anniversary. John Hill

Winners in the seven awards and competition programs of the Tamayouz Excellence Award for 2020 have been announced. Established in 2012, the awards draw attention to architecture in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East. John Hill

This single-family house in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood was initiated by architects Lap Chi Kwong and Alison Von Glinow, who answered a few questions about the project. Being client and architect enabled them to invert the typical stacking of a house's program: bedrooms are on the first... Kwong Von Glinow

Artist Olafur Eliasson's installation, Atmospheric wave wall, was recently unveiled on the base of Chicago's Willis Tower, which was bought by Blackstone for $1.3 billion in 2015. The artwork is part of a $500 million renovation of the iconic skyscraper still known to many as the Sears... John Hill

Swiss architect Luigi Snozzi died on December 29, 2020, at a nursing home in Minusio after contracting the coronavirus. A short video portrait made when he was laureate of the Prix Meret Oppenheim 2018 captures the architect's passions and ideals. John Hill

Residents are moving into The Smile, a mixed-use residential development in Harlem designed by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group. The main architectural feature of the Y-shaped building is a leaning facade that Ingels says "[fulfills] the century old set-back requirements in a new way." BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group

The city of Yangshuo in Guangxi Province lays about 65 kilometres south of Guilin and is surrounded by a dramatic landscape of towering karst mountains, which as a tourist attraction have been a highlight of domestic and foreign visitor programs for decades. The karst landscape has been on the... Eduard Kögel

Produced by the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), What It Takes to Make a Home is the first documentary in a three-part series that examines how people live in changing societies. First released in October 2019, CCA has made the half-hour film available online. John Hill

Rising high above the Moravian Gate valley, Helfštýn Castle is the second largest complex in the Czech Republic right after Prague Castle. Helfštýn was established in the 14th century. In 2014 the Renaissance palace ruins had to close down due to the severe safety hazards such as falling... atelier-r

The principal of Zaha Hadid Architects entered the news this week as a court case over the late Zaha Hadid's estate was decided, and Schumacher's pro-growth comments struck a nerve with other architects. John Hill

The newly opened WA Museum Boola Bardip at Perth's Cultural Centre was designed jointly by Hassell and OMA - Office for Metropolitan Architecture. A short film gives viewers a drone's eye view of the museum's glassy exterior and its exhibition spaces inside. John Hill

The World Architecture Festival (WAF) has announced the twelve submissions shortlisted for the Architecture Drawing Prize 2020. Curated by Make Architects, Sir John Soane's Museum, and WAF, the winners will be announced in the new year. John Hill

Located on a municipally owned quay that is a part of the Koege, Denmark's climate adaption strategy, the Braunstein Taphouse was "designed for disassembly' to make the recycling of building components a realistic option if the building cannot stay. ADEPT

A Legacy of Mies and King is a documentary about Mecanoo's renovation of Washington, DC's MLK Memorial Library, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1972 and named for Martin Luther King, Jr. Mecanoo is making the 2017 film available following the reopening of the renovated library... John Hill

This joint city hall and police station serves the residents of Green Forest, a small town in Northwest Arkansas. The building is easy to find, since it sits directly next to the town's historic water tower that was built in the 1930s. Modus studio answered a few questions about their design... modus studio

The eagerly anticipated Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Museum, designed by Studio Zhu-Pei, was completed recently. Composed of nine barrel-vaulted elements structured in concrete, the building stands out for its brick cladding that is composed of a mix of new bricks and recycled bricks, the latter... John Hill

Canadian interdisciplinary design firm Johnson Chou Inc. was recently awarded the Interiors: Residential 2020 AZ Award from AZURE Magazine for their project, ShadowBox. Johnson Chou Inc.

Architect Marek Jan Štěpán has occupied himself with the idea of this church intermittently for the past 30 years. However, the intention to build a church first came up in the relaxed atmosphere of 1968 and was finally fulfilled after 50 years. Atelier Štěpán

Six years after Rem Koolhaas and his firm OMA - Office for Metropolitan Architecture won the competition to design an office building for media company Axel Springer in Berlin, the... John Hill

The Indian Himalayas, a steep mountain landscape through which the sacred Ganges River meanders, is a nature that supersedes all human construction. For the development of the hotel complex Taj Rishikesh, it was this modesty in face of the grandiosity of the place that guided our... yh2

In a beachside residential area of Herzliya, TEO (the Theodor Herzl Center for culture, art, and content) comes into view as a distinct single-story building, eminently lower than the neighborhood’s enclosed private mansions. The freestanding TEO opens up a wide panorama toward the west—the... A. Lerman Architects

The Line is a "micro-budget" structure designed by Sacramento design practice REgroup that was installed in rural California late last year. The 75-foot-long white surface marks a place in the landscape that can be used for weddings, performances, and other events. John Hill

This house on Hillside Avenue in Los Angeles is so large it comes with a 12-car garage on its lowest level. Designed by Cape Town's SAOTA, the house was inspired by a nearby mid-century modern icon that makes it all about the views, not the cars. SAOTA sent us some images and text on the... SAOTA

There exists a Niemeyer in Leipzig — not a landmark in the middle of the city center, but a small sphere appended to a former boiler house in the Plagwitz industrial area. Housing a restaurant and bar, it is the last structure Oscar Niemeyer designed before he died in December 2012 just shy of... John Hill, Katinka Corts

Herzog & de Meuron has restored and extended the Musiksaal that is home to the Basel Symphony Orchestra. The extension was done "in the same neo-Baroque architectural tradition" of the 19th-century original designed by Johann Jakob Stehlin. John Hill

Punctuating the entrance of the newest Us&Co co-working location in London is a helical staircase designed by Stamos Yeoh Architects with a bevy of consultants. Here we take a closer look at how this unique stair was built. John Hill

The 13th edition of the World Architecture Festival, originally scheduled to take place in Lisbon in early December, is moving to June 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, launching WAFVirtual in its place. John Hill

Two roads were there. A wide road with traffic and a narrow alley in a residential area. The new office space for R/URBAN DESIGN OFFICE LLC was planned between these two contrasting roads. Originally, it was divided into a commercial tenant space facing the wide road and a residential space... R/URBAN DESIGN OFFICE