Magazine

In the United States, a push for small class sizes and therefore small schools has reoriented educational architecture towards, among other things, campuses rather than megaschools. This approach results in projects—like the Marysville Gretchell High School north of Seattle—with...

Tougaloo College is “a private, historically black, liberal arts institution” founded in 1869 on the northern edge of Jackson, Mississippi. The Bennie G. Thompson Academic & Civil Rights Research Center is the first building to be constructed on the historic 500-acre campus...

Retrofitting suburbia is a 21st-century concern in America as buildings created for short life spans now require attention. The infill and improvement of suburban sprawl towards more sustainable ends includes projects like this office building, located in a business park near the New Jersey...

Peters Park occupies a plot of land in Boston’s South End that was actually water before the city was built up in the 19th century. The park coincides with the Neck to the Shawmut Peninsula, a historic location without a trace of its watery past. Local residents formed the Neck Art...

On the northern edge of the University of Minnesota Duluth’s campus sits the Bagley Nature Area, an area for student learning and research. A new classroom building adjacent to Bagley Pond serves the students, while itself serving as a learning tool for sustainable design. The LEED...

This guest house, small at only 850 square feet (80sm) has a strong presence on an impressive site overlooking the Dry Creek Valley near Sonoma, California. Almost the same amount of area is given over to terraces, taking advantage of the beautiful vistas. Architects Chris Cooper and Wendy...

In 2006 the Gary Comer Youth Center designed by John Ronan Architects opened on Chicago’s underserved South Side. The colorful building housing recreational facilities received numerous awards and led to the recent Gary Comer College Prep, which forms a small campus with its...

Philip Johnson designed the 1953 Wiley Residence as a glass pavilion cantilevered above a stone podium. The house, in the same town as Johnson’s iconic glass house, also included a pool adjacent to an existing barn on the site. Roger Ferris + Partners renovated the house and barn for a...

The Levine Center for the Arts in Charlotte, North Carolina is made up of four downtown venues that instill culture in a city better known for banking, finance and racing. One such component is the Mint Museum Uptown, which houses a collection of art, craft and design and international traveling...

Arthouse at the Jones Center occupies the site of the first three-story brick building in Austin, Texas. In the century and a half since, a theater and department store also called the corner of 7th Street and Congress Avenue home. Arthouse, a contemporary arts venue, recently reopened its...

The Astronomy Department at Wellesley College in Massachusetts was created in 1901, housed in a building that now takes the name of school trustee and donor Sarah E. Whitin. A small expansion and restoration by Boston-based designLAB architects had to contend with a century of use and...

Located one block from the LAPD Police Administration Building in Downtown Los Angeles, this garage and parking structure serves the Police Department while creating a unique...

Architects Kathryn Ogawa and Gilles Depardon note that Wabi-Sabi – the concept of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature – influenced the design of this 11-story building in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Imperfection here is clearly found in the Cor-Ten steel...

The Hudson River Park stretches from Battery Park City at the southern tip of Manhattan to West 59th Street. This transformation of the island’s industrial waterfront and its many piers into recreational parkland features a number of new structures, including these four structures west...

Architects’ contributions to the public realm are more than just the façades of buildings. They also include street furniture and other elements of urban design, especially in cities where design is valued for making contributions to a sense of place. Robert Maschke...

Strongly informed by site conditions, both locally and regionally, inform Studio created a stunning branch for the Ann Arbor District Library (AADL) that is rooted in its place. The building acts as a bridge over an internal roadway to accommodate parking and protect the site’s landscape...

This residence on the Big Island of Hawaii is big itself, actually made up of a few separate structures. Most striking is the entry pavilion, which uses local basket weaving to infuse the thoroughly contemporary design with local culture. Digital technology also interesects with traditional...

Called Beekman Tower before its completion, 8 Spruce Street is architect Frank Gehry’s first large-scale residential project. And it is a big one, reportedly the tallest residential tower in the Western Hemisphere at 870-feet tall. Just steps from City Hall and the Woolworth Building,...

A radiating plan that reaches towards the water defines this house designed by Connecticut-based Centerbrook Architects and Planners. Further an embedding of natural features (rocks, logs) gives the project its distinctive blend of modernism and nature. The architects answered some questions...

According the U.S. General Service Administration (GSA), “border station architecture is an emerging building type [that] did not exist until the early decades of the 20th century.” This century’s post-September 11th climate means more and more border stations are being...

Described by The New York Times five years ago as “the next cool New York City neighborhood,” Bushwick was a low-income area of Brooklyn that has undergone transformation via the influx of artists, then students, and now middle- income residents. One physical sign of this...

San Juan Island is one of a number of islands in the Salish Sea, a waterway straddling the United States and Canada. On an understandably dramatic site with mature douglas firs, rocky outcroppings, and water views, Heliotrope Architects curved this long and low house to cradle the landscape...

Perched high upon Yeomalt Bluff, the Ellis Residence, enjoys a commanding 180-degree view of Puget Sound and the Seattle skyline. The architects responded to some questions about the LEED Platinum home.

The Houses at Sagaponac is a development with over 30 speculative houses on 56 acres of New York’s Long Island. In the works since the mid-1990s, it was started by the late Harry “Coco” Brown, with architect Richard Meier, and includes a roster of well known architects from...

Pratt Instiute’s northern expansion beyond its five-block main campus brings the school to Myrtle Avenue. The appropriately named Myrtle Hall by WASA/Studio A gives Pratt a strong presence on this major thoroughfare. Further the building responds to this context by differing the street-...

De Leon & Primmer Architecture Workshop is one of the recipients of The Architectural League’s 2011 Emerging Voices, an award that “spotlights individuals and firms with a distinct design ‘voice’ that has the potential to influence the discipline of architecture,...

Sacred Heart University is the second-largest Catholic University in the New England, with multiple campuses in Connecticut. Fairfield is home to the school’s main campus, growing per a masterplan by Sasaki Associates. The Chapel is the first built component of this plan, also by...

On January 15 the Museum of the Moving Image opened an expansion that doubles its size to approximately 100,000 square feet. The museum renovated its landmark 1920’s building—appropriately a film studio originally—and added a striking pale blue volume at the rear, covered in...

Finding potential in the mundane can be difficult, but when necessity dictates the result can be accommodating, as if it were meant to be. Such is the case with this small tea shop in Oregon; a wood portal frames the reconfigured interior of an old house, a window into something...

Austin, Texas-based Bercy Chen Studio enlivened the exteriors of this mixed-use development (retail, offices, residential condos) with colored panels inspired by Brazilian artist Helio Oticica. Like a sunburst across the corner façades, the design creates a strong presence in...

This five-story building features 72 student apartments serving Temple University. Built of 80 prefabricated boxes, the project is an example of off-site construction typically used for single-family houses being realized on a much larger scale. Philadelphia’s Interface Studio...

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...

Architects John Beard and Dale Riser describe their designs as "uniquely Southern," modernist takes on the region's vernacular buildings. That quality is apparent in this house in Mississippi, a design in two parts that reads like it was built at one time for one family. The...