Magazine

"Cultural design collaboration" is not seen typically in a list of an architect's consultants, but it makes perfect sense here, given the client's mandate that the new terminal at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport embodies "the heritage of India and the...

Opening fifteen minutes early might not seem like much when it comes to a building, but when considered as a piece of an Expo – an event that often sees pavilions being worked on after the gates open – it is quite an undertaking. But it is only one among many for the USA Pavilion...

In 2009 Steven Holl Architects won a two-stage competition for a building to house the Glasgow School of Art's design department. Located across the street from Charles Rennie Mackintosh's 1909 Arts and Crafts landmark, Holl responded through contrast – glass instead of stone...

The glass box is the default form for office buildings in the 21st century, meaning that detailing and articulation – glass surfaces, spandrels, and mullions – are the most important means of expression. But what if a glass box is malleable? Handel Architects' design for...

Often the best buildings aren't the most flashy or iconic; they are the ones that fit into a city so well they seem to be forever a part of it. This isn't to say that Mecanoo's design for the offices of the Boston Public Schools Division doesn't have contemporary flourishes...

The flowing, perforated facade is the first thing that attracts attention in this expansion to the Central World Shopping Center in Bangkok. But a glance beyond the facade reveals flowing internal spaces – indoor and outdoor – that give cohesion to the project and some legitimacy...

Parking garages are a necessary evil in cities, particularly in an auto-centric metropolis like Los Angeles. Yet while most garages are bland additions to cityscapes, they can also be canvases for creative expression, as in the case of this colorful structure designed by Behnisch Architekten...

In June 2013, Women for Women International opened the first-ever Women’s Opportunity Center in Kayonza, Rwanda, "to create economic opportunity and rebuild social infrastructure for women," according to the organization that began working in the country in 1997, three years...

The 2015 Building of the Week feature on American-Architects is focusing on U.S. architects building overseas, so it's not surprising to see the importance of collaboration coming to the fore. The Melbourne School of Design is a particularly good example of this, since it is the result...

Harumi is an artificial island built on reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay that saw the development of office and residential towers starting in the 1990s. That development will no doubt continue as the island is the site of the Olypmic Village for the 2020 Olympic Games. The announcement of...

Al Maryah Island (formerly known as Sowwah Island) is a 114-hectare mixed-use development that serves as Abu Dhabi's International Financial Center. A key portion of the development is the five-building Abu Dhabi Global Market Square designed by Chicago's Goettsch Partners. The...

Boston's MASS Design Group burst onto the architecture scene with the 2011 completion of the Butaro Hospital in Rwanda. Their design responded to the African context through a grouping of buildings perched upon a hilltop, while the interiors addressed disease and patient comfort through...

Architect Zoka Zola may be based in Chicago, but her roots go back to Croatia, specifically to Rijeka, the country's third largest city. So it's fitting that one of her most recent projects took the architect back to her city of birth to design affordable housing after a competition...

Bernard Tschumi was born in Switzerland, where he studied architecture, and burst onto the architecture scene in the 1980s with his competition-winning design for a park in Paris, but he is associated with New York, where his practice is based. These days much of his work is back in Europe,...

A few years ago Architectural Record asked, "Is Vietnam the new frontier for architects?" The article referenced projects by large corporate offices underway at the time, but it also mentioned a couple buildings designed by Carlos Zapata Studio; its 2010 Bitexco Financial...

University Town is a new campus for the National University of Singapore that recently opened near its Kent Ridge Campus. The large expansion consists of a number of components, including the university's Campus for Research Excellence And Technological Enterprise (CREATE), which...

Santa Monica, California's Brooks + Scarpa headed south of the border to carry out an industrial building with the firm's signature emphasis on sustainability and bold design. Most striking are the perforated skin and jagged roofline, which filter light and views, bring in plenty of...

On 16 November 2014 the renovated and expanded Harvard Art Museums opened in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after six years of planning. Designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, in collaboration with Boston's Payette, the project consolidates three of Harvard University's museums –...

Resembling a simple glass-box office building from a distance, up close the 50-story FKI Tower reveals a simple yet ingenious wall section that incorporates solar panels angled to absorb more of the sun's rays than a strictly vertical surface. Further, a number of atriums and a rooftop...

For the last two years the Buildings of the Week on the U.S. platforms of World-Architects looked at one building in each state over the course of fifty weeks. For 2015 we are going a different route and looking at buildings overseas designed by architects based in the United States...

Just as this house is for two personalities – an architect and a chef – the exterior exhibits two main gestures: Sculpted panels made from fiberglass wrap the cube-like volume, while charred cedar pieces with horizontal windows break through at an angle. The combination is a...

Designed for an engineer and an artist, the Topo House is an apt name, given the way it peels up gently from the Wisconsin landscape, melding itself with the site's topography. Johnsen Schmaling Architects' low-slung design can also be seen as a response to the state's cold...

Every four years thousands of Boy Scouts, leaders and staff converge for the 10-day National Scout Jamboree. Held in various locations since its 1937 beginning, the Jamboree has a permanent base at the Summit Bechtel Family National Scout Reserve in Mount Hope, West Virginia. Connecting...

Wood in architecture is undergoing a 21st-century resurgence of sorts, finding applications from the thinnest of veneers to structural frames for mid-rise buildings. Most architectural applications utilize milled wood, which exhibits the grain and character of wood but does not convey the...

Since 1991 Georgetown University has offered first-year and transfer students an "overnight experience" away from its Washington, D.C. campus with it ESCAPE program. Last year the school dedicated the program's new venue, the Calcagnini Contemplative Center, named for alumnus...

Guilford is a town in southern Vermont that is home to only about 2,100 people. It is also the location of Guilford Sound, an energy-efficient recording studio for those who want to get away to what the proprietors call "your own private recording haven." Designed by Ted...

Parking garages are one of the lowliest of building types, often built as gray, open-air concrete boxes without any architectural consideration. But a number of garages, such as Herzog & de Meuron's 1111 Lincoln Road in Miami, reveal the potential hidden in parking structures. Axis...

Healthcare architecture brings to mind large buildings and complexes with fairly generic exteriors and interiors to match. This is not the case with Legacy's small emergency rooms in suburban Dallas, Texas, designed by 5G Studio Collaborative. In the second and most recent ER, in Allen, a...

Tennessee is home to two music meccas: Memphis and Nashville. While the latter is the home of country music (and even the Country Music Hall of Fame), Memphis is synonymous with blues, soul and gospel. As Jason Jackson of brg3s architects testifies, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Muddy Waters,...

Not many architects can boast of having a cultural anthropologist on its team when designing a building, but when it came time for Liollio Architecture to tackle the design of a library for the residents of St. Helena Island in South Carolina, they brought one on board to help understand the...

Rhode Island may be the smallest state in the U.S., but its architecture has warranted studies by historians Henry-Russell Hitchcock in Rhode Island Architecture and Vincent Scully in The Shingle Style with the Stick Style. The latter is mentioned by architects Estes/Twombly...

"Urban unfill" is the term that Spillman Farmer Architects uses to describe its "non-building" for Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. The Arts Plaza transforms an old auto-repair facility into a raw, open-air space for the school's art students. Architectural...

Single-family homes in the United States tend to be one- or two-story buildings that sprawl across the land. Another tactic is taken in the aptly named Tower House designed for a steep and narrow Portland lot by architect Benjamin Waechter. Building up four floors allows for economical...

What looks like a low-slung industrial box rising from the plains of Oklahoma, with oil derricks projecting from its roof, is in fact a library inspired by the natural and economic characteristics of the place. Designed by LWPB Architecture with Richard+Bauer, the building is an unabashed...

This addition to a 100-year-old bungalow in Bay Village, Ohio (a small town west of Cleveland), is particularly striking for the way it melds architecture and landscape through the plants covering its wall and folded roof. Further, a sunken terrace helps to bring sunlight into the...

The impact of architecture is often felt beyond the walls of a particular building. In the case of this residence hall serving the students of Williston State College in North Dakota, the building frees up much needed space in the community to alleviate a housing shortage. The...