Magazine

Rotterdam's Studio RAP recently completed Ceramic House, a new facade on Pieter Cornelisz Hooftstraat, Amsterdam's famous designer shopping street. Algorithmic design and 3D printing combined to create a contemporary riff on traditional masonry architecture. John Hill

The Learning Architecture for Learners is a new building at Tokyo Gakugei University that is part of the Explayground Project. It was designed by VUILD, the studio headed by Koki Akiyoshi that specializes in digital fabrication. Here we present a report on the project from Japan-Architects. VUILD, Neoplus Sixten Inc.

At the Resource Rows, Copenhagen's Lendager Group — an architecture studio, business consultancy, and material supplier in one — shows how facades in new construction can be made from materials cut out of old buildings. John Hill, Martina Metzner

The new Brooklyn outpost for D.S. & Durga, the perfume house founded by David Seth Moltz (D.S.) and Kavi Ahuja Moltz (Durga), stands out for the striated walls that resemble rammed earth. The walls are actually concrete, though, a product of circumstance and hands-on testing. 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

The coronavirus pandemic may have kept New Yorkers from traveling to London last year, but it didn't stop the transatlantic collaboration that resulted in a timber pavilion recently built on a residential rooftop. Made from dozens of interlocking curved timber tiles, the canopy designed by New... John Hill

A new pavilion, made of laminated veneer lumber (LVL), acts as an architectural ambassador of Finland in Japan. The new Metsä Pavilion, designed by Helin & Co Architects from Helsinki, stands on the grounds of the Finnish Embassy in Tokyo's Roppongi district. Ulf Meyer

Klapster is a space-saving auxiliary staircase that folds up neatly against the wall when not in use. Designed by Frankfurt's raumvonwert, the modular system is ideal for city dwellers living in small spaces.  John Hill

There exists a Niemeyer in Leipzig — not a landmark in the middle of the city center, but a small sphere appended to a former boiler house in the Plagwitz industrial area. Housing a restaurant and bar, it is the last structure Oscar Niemeyer designed before he died in December 2012 just shy of... John Hill, Katinka Corts

Concrete's high carbon footprint has led to many calls for alternative materials. It might also be possible to keep using concrete, but do more with less. Researchers at ETH Zürich are exploring a significant reduction of the material through optimized shapes, as illustrated by a new... John Hill, Elias Baumgarten

The facade of 30 Warren Street, a 12-story residential building nearing completion in New York's Tribeca neighborhood, is covered in precast concrete panels with a corded texture formed from rolls of corrugated cardboard. John Hill

The Vectorworks 2020 Service Pack 3 launched in March includes quality fixes and performance improvements but also new features made possible by industry partnerships. Here we delve into the integration of Enscape and NBS Chorus into Vectorworks. John Hill

A new building in Chicago's West Loop neighborhood features a parking garage clad in Wall-PF1, Bendheim's patent-pending parking facade system that has generous built-in tolerances and a striking contemporary appearance. John Hill

World-Architects recently toured the inside of 152 Elizabeth, the seven-story residential building most notable as Japanese architect Tadao Ando's first building in New York City. Here we focus on the high-end finishes and details of the interiors designed by Michael Gabellini. John Hill

Immobile sunscreens that are designed for a particular location and aim to amplify and optimize sunlight at certain times of the year rather than simply screening the sun are an integral element in three recent projects designed by John Hill

A curved bench with the name "The Best Weapon" was recently on display at the entrance to the United Nations in New York City. Coinciding with the 74th session of the UN General Assembly, the bench invited dignitaries to heed Nelson Mandela's advice and "sit down and talk." John Hill

Architect Joan Miquel Seguí's design for the new entrance to the Intermodal Station in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, is appropriately the winner of a 2018 Tile of Spain Award: the ceramic latticework filters sunlight during the day and glows like a beacon at night. John Hill

The North Rhine-Westphalia Textile Academy (Textilakademie NRW), established in 2018, aims to ensure the future of the textile and clothing industry in Germany through education and vocational training. Appropriately, its new home is draped in a textile membrane. John Hill

The Interlock, a new five-story mixed-use building in London's Fitzrovia neighborhood, features a brick facade that was designed by Bureau de Change Architects to appear "of uncertain heritage: simultaneously historic and contemporary, familiar yet foreign." John Hill

The new van Hasselt Centre at Cranleigh School in Surrey, England, was designed by Allies and Morrison with timber facades and a hybrid structure of steel and wood that includes LVL (laminated veneer lumber) floors and roofs by Metsä Wood. John Hill

While the new TWA Hotel at New York's JFK Airport is highlighted by the renovation of Eero Saarinen's TWA Flight Center from 1962, it's the two seven-story wings housing 512 hotel rooms that make the project financially feasible. Furthermore, it's the curtain walls made with seven layers of... John Hill

The Shed, the cultural venue on Manhattan' West Side that features an attention-getting movable shell, opened to the public in April. The sliding enclosure is enabled by Vector Foiltec's lightweight ETFE foil cushions. John Hill

An existing parking garage in Cambridge, Massachusett's Kendall Square neighborhood has been wrapped in a new fabric facade: a surreal drawing of rectangles and shadows designed by French 2D. John Hill

A "living sculpture" on display at the Centre Pompidou in Paris consists of oxygen-producing bacteria inserted into a 3D-printed substructure. Could this be the next generation of living walls that adorn buildings? John Hill

The Eco Brooklyn Show House is a traditional brick rowhouse with a difference: it's fronted by a living wall. Completed late last year, the Eco Brooklyn Living Wall hopes to set a precedent for the facades of residential buildings in the borough of Brooklyn – and beyond.... John Hill

Two new lecture halls on a medical campus outside Stockholm are covered in concrete panels that glow from the inside, thanks to a technique developed by Sweden's Butong. John Hill

In Unterengstringen near Zurich, architect Tilla Theus shows that architecture is ideally more than just a shelter: The facade of the town's new community center expresses a piece of the town's identity. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

A new lobby installation designed by James Carpenter Design Associates enlivens the lobby of a twelve-year-old office tower in Chicago's West Loop. The combination of stainless steel mesh and LED lighting rightfully earns it the name Suspended Light Veils. John Hill

The new Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC, is located just two blocks from the National Mall, in an old warehouse from 1922. Designed by SmithGroupJJR, the museum features channel-glass walls from Bendheim that illuminate parts of the renovated building. John Hill

On the first day of June, the Kunsthalle Mannheim will celebrate its grand opening, with a new extension designed by Hamburg's gmp. The architects conceptualized the extension as a "city in the city," using the metal panels and metal mesh on the facade to express it. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

As part of the renovation of 22 Parkside, the 50-year-old "flexible machine for living" that Richard Rogers designed for his parents and is now used by Harvard University as a fellowship residence and event space, renovation architect Philip Gumuchdjian lined its two wet rooms with... John Hill

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

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

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

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