Magazine

Constructed of approximately 100,000 black LEGO bricks, artist Ekow Nimako's Kumbi Saleh 3020 CE is an Afrofuturist cityscape that "celebrates the cultures of the African diaspora" and is a new addition to the Aga Khan Museum's permanent collection. John Hill

The 760-page Atlas of Digital Architecture is an ambitious reference book about the myriad ways architects use computers. With contributions by two-dozen experts in the digitization of architecture and hundreds upon hundreds of illustrations, the book is a nearly complete picture of the... John Hill

US President Joe Biden has revoked Executive Order 13967, "Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture," that former President Donald Trump signed on December 18, 2020, one month before the end of his term. John Hill

Located in the fast-developing Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie borough of Montréal, deNormanville is part of the first wave of post-moratorium additions exploring new avenues for the transformation of the city’s disappearing one-story typology, commonly referred to as "shoeboxes." TBA / Thomas Balaban Architecte

The Chicago Architecture Biennial and the Danish Arts Foundation (DAF) have announced the winning team for DAF Open Call, a commission for Chicago's North Lawndale neighborhood that is part of the fourth Biennial opening in September. John Hill

In 2018 artists Eric Fischl and April Gornik bought a 19th-century church in Sag Harbor, New York, hiring the firm of Lee Skolnick to help them transform it into a new arts center serving the East End of Long Island. The architects answered a few questions about the recently completed adaptive... SKOLNICK Architecture + Design Partnership

"A stealthy reimagining of urban public space" is the new TED Talk by architect Elizabeth Diller, partner at New York's Diller Scofidio + Renfro. The ten-minute video, which discusses a few projects in New York and Moscow, is Diller's third TED Talk since 2007. John Hill

McGill University needed a new building to house three 1.5 MW emergency facilities, generators that will protect research activities in the event of a power outage. Les architectes FABG

Two years after Diller Scofidio + Renfro's competition-winning design was unveiled, the Centre for Music at the Barbican has been cancelled, with the City of London focusing on refurbishing the Barbican Centre instead. John Hill

Longwood Gardens, founded by Pierre S. du Pont more than 100 years ago on 1,100 acres west of Philadelphia, has unveiled Longwood Reimagined: A New Garden Experience, a transformation of its core area of conservatory gardens, with a short film. John Hill

TECLA is a project developed by Mario Cucinella Architects and WASP (World Advanced Saving Project) that addresses the housing crisis through 3D printing. Construction is underway on a prototype near Bologna, Italy. John Hill

Shanghai Huijian invited Wutopia Lab to design a welcoming stage in front of the sales center of their project in Huzhou. The only request from the client was to make it different. Wutopia Lab

A Story for the Future is a new exhibition that sees MAXXI, the contemporary art museum in Rome, looking back at its first decade of existence. Inside Outside, the Dutch firm of Petra Blaisse, designed the immersive exhibition as a response to the curved walls of the museum's Zaha Hadid... John Hill

The Tainan Public Library, designed by Dutch firm Mecanoo and Taiwan's MAYU architects, opened last month in Tainan City, in southern Taiwan. John Hill

In the Approximation House, the craftsmen express themselves through personalizing their way of shaping thousands of pieces of wood that are the main material for the façade. Habibeh Madjdabadi Architecture Studio

A team led by James Corner Field Operations, the landscape architecture firm behind New York's High Line, has won the competition to transform an unused railway in London into the Camden Highline. John Hill

London's National Gallery has announced its "NG200" plans, which include reconfiguring parts of The Sainsbury Wing, designed by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown in 1991, leading up to the museum's 2024 bicentennial. John Hill

For decades, St. Thomas’ Parish in Washington, DC, sat as a remnant of its former self, after a fire in 1970 destroyed much of the late-19th-century church. The church gave the community a small park where the sanctuary once stood, but now it has a new home: a contemporary building designed by... Hickok Cole

Share of the 264 stores on London's world-famous Oxford Street that have permanently shuttered since the coronavirus... René Ammann

Anime Architecture, the new book from curator Stefan Riekeles, presents hundreds of backgrounds from eight classics of Japanese animation. The stunning book immerses readers into the "imagined worlds and endless megacities" of Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Metropolis,... John Hill

The UOP Fragrances Factory, designed by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano before the duo won the competition for the Centre Pompidou in 1973, has been demolished. John Hill

The Hudson River Park Trust has unveiled plans for Gansevoort Peninsula, a 5.5-acre project that will include Manhattan's first public beach. Designed by James Corner Field Operations, it is located one block from the southern tip of the High Line. John Hill

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

In December the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) named seven regional winners of the 2020 Young Champions of the Earth prize. Engineer Nzambi Matee, of Nairobi's Gjenge Makers, won for Africa, for a machine that turns discarded plastic into paving stones. 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 Japan: Nation Building Nature, Joachim Nijs searches for an “alternative interpretation of Japanese architectural history” through a matrix of four ecological phenomena. Ulf Meyer — a fellow European as enthralled with Japan as Nijs is — read the recently published book and sent us... Ulf Meyer

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

Reduction of the price of 300 homes in the federal state of Maharashtra, India, resulting from the... René Ammann

As announced by the Obama Foundation on February 3rd, the years-long federal review process of plans to build the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park on Chicago's South Side is complete, meaning the project will break ground later this year. John Hill

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

The new Manufacturing, Technology and Engineering Center (MTEC) at Daley College sets the framework for a wider master plan. The project unifies the existing complex by creating a campus environment with engaging pathways and collaborative spaces throughout. JGMA

Adelaide’s Aboriginal Art and Cultures Centre (AACC) has released updated renderings of its proposed 11,500 square meter building designed by New York's Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Australia's Woods Bagot. John Hill

Blending into the trees of Tokyo’s only major public park, Kengo Kuma and Associates' new museum for the Meiji Jingu is a testimony to Japan’s current architectural soul searching. Ulf Meyer

Three years after Amazon opened The Spheres at its downtown Seattle headquarters, the tech company has unveiled The Helix, part of its new HQ2 in Arlington, Virginia. NBBJ is the architect for both biophilic designs. John Hill

Aeon Video has posted "A Little Piece of Earth," a short film by director Ryan Malloy that profiles Charles Bello, an 86-year-old architect who lives an off-the-grid life on 400 acres in Northern California. John Hill

A list of 449 works nominated for the 2022 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award has been released. A second list of nominees will follow in the fall in response to the coronavirus pandemic and a lengthening of the biennial award's timeline accordingly. John Hill