Magazine

On February 8th at Empa in Dübendorf, Switzerland, the "Urban Mining & Recycling" residential unit (UMAR) was inaugurated inside NEST. Designed by Werner Sobek with Dirk E. Hebel and Felix Heisel, the unit aims "to advance the construction industry's transition to a... John Hill

Harvard GSD's Material Processes and Systems (MaP+S) Group teamed up with ASCER Tile of Spain to create Ceramic Tectonics: Tile Grid Shell at the Cevisama International Fair for Ceramic Tiles and Bathroom Furnishings that took place in Valencia, Spain, earlier this month.  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

The aptly named Brock Commons Tallwood House – currently the world's tallest mass timber tower – opened on the University of British Columbia's Point Grey campus in July 2017. The building, designed by Acton Ostry Architects, delivers on the promise of mass timber and aspires... John Hill

Migliore+Servetto Architects has completed a two-part installation for the Grattacielo Intesa Sanpaolo, a two-year-old tower on the edge of Turin's historic town center designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop. John Hill

Barozzi / Veiga's extension to the Graubünden Museum of Fine Arts in Chur, Switzerland, is a strong architectural statement that relates to its predecessor through prefabricated concrete elements that cover its facade in a regular grid. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

A few recently completed buildings share a predilection for creating textured surfaces from that most humble and rectilinear of materials: brick. John Hill

DDG recently completed a residential building at 12 Warren Street in New York City's Tribeca neighborhood. The twelve-story building is faced in bluestone blocks with a jagged appearance that recalls quarries or natural rock formations. John Hill

Leuphana University of Lüneburg is one of the best known universities in Germany and one where Daniel Libeskind has served as a visiting professor. The architect has now supplied the university with a new Central Building in his recognizable style. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

In June London architect Norman Foster opened an eponymous foundation in Madrid focused on interdisciplinary thinking and research. In addition to the historic main building it occupies, the Norman Foster Foundation consists of a pavilion with a transparent façade and some glossy... John Hill, Thomas Geuder

In Oldham, England, Maggie's recently realized another one of its helpful and inspiring cancer centers. With a growing awareness of wood's soothing effect on people, dRMM designed a building with restorative spaces full of American Tulipwood. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

To fit in with the brick facades of other developments on Churchilllaan in Kanaleneiland, Utrecht, Mei architects and planners finished their De Verkenner Residential Tower with brown concrete exterior walls embedded with 13,000 ceramic tiles. John Hill

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

The Ordre des infirmières et infirmiers du Québec (OIIQ) traded its Westmount offices for a building that is better suited to their needs in Montréal’s Angus Technopôle.  Ceragres

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