Architecture

Lista Office has been awarded a prestigious Red Dot design award for its Mindport interior furnishing system. Designed to counteract the tedium and tyranny of the typical open-plan office cubicle system these colorful "pods" come in a range of designs for different office functions - providing an antidote to the massed ranks of identical work-stations. Lista Office also picked up an award for its “LO One” cabinet system.  Read More

With its Re-Barn concept, architectural planning consultancy autotroph has come up with a strategy to preserve not just one building, but a whole family: the endangered tobacco barn of Southern Maryland. The Re-Barn idea would see tobacco burns renovated into family homes, while maintaining their potential to run a working farm.  Read More

With the Olympics just days away, one of the more intriguing structures of London 2012 has come into focus. BMW has fully revealed its Olympic Park Pavilion. We took our first look at the BMW's pavilion earlier this month, and now the German automaker with strong British ties (BMW brands include MINI and Rolls Royce) has provided a full tour.  Read More

Fighting coastal erosion is a little like fighting aging. One can can make endless expensive artificial enhancements, but one day those enhancements will fail, and when they do, things will get ugly. In the case of erosion, for many that can only mean packing up and heading off for pastures new (or at least inland), for the owners of the Hut on Sleds, it's as simple as remembering where you parked your tractor. The Hut on Sleds, you see, is designed to be moved in the more literal sense.  Read More

The London skyline has been used for celebratory illuminations quite a bit in 2012. First Tower Bridge was decked out in LEDs for the Queen's Jubilee, then a laser show marked the inauguration of Europe's tallest building, the Shard. Now the London Eye has been transformed into a social media driven light show for the Olympics.  Read More

Designed to house the personal library of Mexican diplomat Antonion Castro Leal, the Castro Leal Library in Mexico City won first prize in the institutional category in the 2012 Mexican Association of Interior Designers' AMDI Awards. And looking at the interior shots, it's not hard to see why.  Read More

Here at Gizmag we love some of the micro homes we’ve seen, from the Tiny Leaf House on wheels to the Finnish micro house, and that’s not mentioning the London one room apartment turned into a two-story luxury home! It looks like we’re not the only ones, with New York’s mayor Michael Bloomberg catching the tiny home fever and announcing a competition for an innovative micro apartment model.  Read More

Spectators turned out in the hundreds to witness the light show that marked the climax of the inauguration of Europe's tallest building, the 309.6-m (1016-ft) Shard in London. A dozen emerald-green laser beams emanated from the Shard to pick out iconic landmarks including the London Eye, St. Paul's Cathedral and Tower Bridge. The tower's 95 floors were lit up with color-changing lighting, and 30 search lights flared outwards and upwards from surrounding buildings.  Read More

That EXIT Architects describes the redeveloped Palencia Civic Center as a rehabilitation rather than a refurbishment is apt considering the 19th century building was originally a prison. Somehow, refurbishment is too small a word for such a radical change of use, implying a mere lick of paint here and a scrubbed-down banister or two. No. EXIT quite literally tore the roof off the place.  Read More