Magazine

Our visit to the 2014 AIA National Convention included many hours walking the Expo floor to find great products used in great projects. One local building is Nagle Hartray Architecture's... John Hill

One of the highlights of the 2014 Venice Biennale's Elements of Architecture exhibition is Barkow Leibinger's Kinetic Wall, appropriately found in the Wall Room and signaling the way forward through its moving parts and elastic skin. John Hill

The sophisticated, multi-layered glass façade of Annette Gigon and Mike Guyer's Würth House in Rorschach, Switzerland, appears rippling; fitting for its setting on Lake Constance. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

From a distance Bierman Henke Architects' egg-shaped "Art Cloud" at the Museum de Fundatie resembles a stucco-like surface, but up close one can see that it is made up of ceramic tiles, over 50,000 of them in fact. Ceramic manufacturer Royal Tichelaar Makkum produced two sizes of... John Hill

Lightweight printed facades offer the opportunity for artistic expression while also enabling easy and inexpensive change in the future. For a daycare center in a new urban district under development on an old airfield in southern Germany, (se)arch Freie Architekten employed SergeFerrari's... John Hill, Thomas Geuder

Neolith is a brand of durable surfacing material created by parent company TheSize for façades, countertops, flooring, interior walls and other architectural applications. Two building façades – in Doha, Qatar, and in Seoul, South Korea – show some possibilities of the... John Hill

The new InerContinental Davos Hotel stands out in its mountain setting thanks to its oval form and the flowing gold façade. Munich's OIKIOS looked to the natural setting, particularly pine cones, in their design of the building, which was realized with Seele. John Hill

Timber structures are increasingly applauded as a sustainable alternative to the carbon-heavy production of concrete and steel. No longer the domain of houses and other small-scale buildings, wood now frames mid-sized buildings of various types and potentially high-rises in the near future.... John Hill

Herzog & de Meuron's Parrish Art Museum on Long Island exhibits artwork in generous galleries capped by north- and south-facing skylight, bringing natural daylight to the artworks on display. Panelite's ClearShade IGU (Insulated Glazing... John Hill

Situated between the busy Bahnhofstrasse and the new railway station in the center of Aarau, Switzerland, is a cushioned canopy that seems to float like a cloud. Designed by Vehovar & Jauslin Architektur, the bus terminal's ETFE membrane creates a striking entry to the region. John Hill

An integral feature of the brand new Terminal 2 at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), is the ceiling, which is made of 4,000 coffers manufactured by Formglas. John Hill

Double-curved glass walls, crafted by Folcrá and Cricursa in Barcelona, define the undulating cuts in the exterior walls at the Emporia shopping center in Malmö, Sweden, designed by Wingårdhs, hinting at the offerings inside. John Hill

EXYD GmbH's M series line of stainless steel panels are hammered and beaten to create bumpy surfaces that fragment reflections along the lines of Impressionist paintings. BEHF Architects used the panels for the canopy of the Neukauf shopping center in Villach, Austria, "reflecting a new... John Hill

A senior housing project in Düren, Germany, designed by JSWD Architects shows a rippling alternative to flat metal panels, courtesy of Fielitz GmbH's "Water Wave Vision" product. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

Studio Mishin approached Arup's Materials Consulting and Lighting Design teams for help in engineering a perforated copper stair in the center of the Villa Mallorca in Spain. The pleated planes of the three-story-high staircase are made from 200 square meters (2,150 square feet) of copper... John Hill

The Kunstmuseum Ahrenshoop builds upon the town's past and present through a 500-strong collection of paintings and sculptures by local artists housed in five interconnected one-room galleries designed by Staab Architekten. The TECU® Brass cladding from KME gives the museum a strong image... John Hill

To mark the release of its Dekton "ultra-compact surface," Cosentino is holding an exhibition (until October 31) at the Center for Architecture in New York City. The show highlights Daniel Libeskind's "Beyond the Wall" sculpture being realized at Cosentino's global... John Hill

The proliferation of building façades covered in apparently random rectangles of color should be called "the Swisspearl effect," due to the colorful spectrum offered by the Swiss company for its fiber cement rainscreen panels. Yet some architects use the colors more selectively... John Hill

For the design of the Health Sciences Education Building at the Phoenix Biomedical Campus in Phoenix, CO Architects found inspiration in Arizona's iconic canyon formations, splitting the building into two six-story wings and wrapping the exterior in a rainscreen of copper panels. Chandler,... John Hill

Circles at various scales predominate in the new Fletcher Hotel situated near the A2 highway southeast of central Amsterdam. Octatube worked with Benthem Crouwel Architects to realize the outer glass skin but also its structure and the inner layer, creating an integrated façade system. John Hill

The 22,000-seat BBPV Compass Stadium was built in 2012 to serve Major League Soccer's (MLS) Houston Dynamo. The design by Populous taps into EaDo's industrial roots through a tessellated exterior wrapped in extruded aluminum mesh from Amico. John Hill

The first impression upon seeing Behnisch Architekten's John and Frances Angelos Law Center at the University of Baltimore is the way the boxy volumes are covered in different types of glass. There is a checkerboard frit that responds to the library and a rainscreen of structural glass and... John Hill

Brooklyn's Barclays Center—home to the Nets basketball team as well as a venue for music and other events—presents a face to the neighborhood of predominantly one material: rusted steel. But against the urban grit can be found LED screens that extend inside where they are... John Hill, Thomas Geuder

Due to the dual nature of its program, the Daeyang Gallery and House in Seoul, designed by Steven Holl Architects, includes spaces for the display of art that do not want direct sunlight. To achieve this, Okalux's KAPILUX T insulating glass is incorporated into skylights capping the gallery... John Hill, Thomas Geuder

Since its 2007 completion, the Kolumba Art Museum of the Archdiocese of Cologne has sat atop the ruins of the Gothic St. Kolumba church, destroyed in World War II. In Peter Zumthor's design, materiality is of the utmost importance, so the Swiss architect worked with Danish company Petersen... John Hill

On April 25, the new Messe Basel building opened its doors for Baselworld, the World Watch and Jewelry Show, what is the driving force behind the new three-story addition designed by Herzog & de Meuron. With its top two floors perched above a glass base and straddling a roadway, the... John Hill

On September 19, 2012, the new Folkwang Library opened on the Essen-Werden campus of the Folkwang University of the Arts. The boxy building, designed in a 2006 competition by Max Dudler, holds a 200,000-strong musicological collection behind a translucent skin that looks like stone but is in fact... John Hill

Today's predilection for glass walls and roofs often results in glare and heat gain, two issues addressed typically through shades, louvers, and other means of blocking or cutting down on direct sunlight. SageGlass, an "electronically tintable dynamic glass," is an alternative that... John Hill

Concrete is traditionally considered to be heavy and monolithic, but the addition of glass fibers changes concrete to something lightweight and even porous. The sculptural potential of this increasingly common method can be seen in the application of Rieder's Sculptural fibreC panels... John Hill

Ziba's Portland, Oregon, office may be blessed with a 200-seat auditorium, but it one that is too compact for traditional folding chairs. So like any decent design and innovation consultancy, Ziba designed their own seats, the slender and aptly named JumpSeat, now manufactured by Sedia... John Hill

One of the ways that architecture can help create more sustainable cities is by designing buildings that use less energy. Controlling how much direct sunlight enters a building can reduce the energy required for air conditioning and electrical lighting. Hunter Douglas Contract: Solar Control is... John Hill

The distinctive folds that cover the exterior of Zaha Hadid Architects' recently completed Broad Art Museum in East Lansing, Michigan, were a challenge to construct, but A. Zahner Company pulled it off with their usual attention to detail. John Hill

Two ovoid forms atop a square base define the new Hospital Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, Spain. Wrapping the curved surfaces is a diagonal grid of Cricursa's Cridecor® glass panels that further give the objects their distinctive appearance. John Hill

Schollglas provided glass for the aptly named "Crystal", the headquarters for Nykredit Bank in Copenhagen, Denmark designed by Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects. The double-walled façade of insulated and patterned-laminated glass gives the building its distinctive, layered... John Hill

For the second year, Portuguese architects Bruno André and Francisco Salgado Ré (together known as AND-RÉ) have won the Iberian Urban Equipment Prize. Last year AND-RÉ won for the lighting design “Verso,” and this year's award in the “urban... John Hill

As part of Topotek1's competition-winning project of a small corner lot in Berlin-Köpenick, MDT-tex designed a large rectractable umbrella in red, matching the surface below. John Hill