Architecture

This creative family home features a series of climbing walls and ladders that guarantees to keep the family active. Located in a suburban area in Tokyo, the 3way House was created by Japanese studio Naf Architect & Design and offers an alternative to traditional family living. The structure resembles a modern Japanese family home with wooden flooring, kitchen and furnishings, however there is one obvious twist - do occupants take the stairs, ladder or wall to ascend?  Read More

For its entry in the 2012 Solar Decathlon Europe, a group of Brazilian architects, designers, students and researchers has taken its cues from the native Tupi-Guarani people, one of the largest aboriginal nations in Brazil. Called Ekó House, the project scales up Ikea’s self-assembling concept and combines it with solar power, rain collection, natural lighting, a dry toilet and a system to turn sewage into garden fertilizer.  Read More

The new Visitor Center at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens officially opened its doors earlier this month and was inaugurated with a ribbon cutting ceremony with Mayor Bloomberg. Designed by the New York based architectural firm Weiss/Manfredi, the center merges modern architecture with landscape design that blends together Brooklyn’s urban and garden environments.  Read More

In a move likely to inflict a sudden pang of inadequacy in bicycle clubs the world over, NL Architects has cooked up a concept both radical and supremely simple: a bicycle club with a velodrome on the roof.  Read More

It's rare to see a building's form so adapted to maximizing renewable energy potential as is the case with the Endesa Pavilion, Solar House 2.0. Not content with a roof completely covered in photovoltaic panels, the designers at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) led by Rodrigo Rubio have covered the building's south facade with protrusions supporting additional solar panels, which are angled optimally for harvesting energy from the sun.  Read More

Office buildings have traditionally been so staid that whimsical departures from the norm still trigger a strong response, both good and bad. The latest member of the avant-garde architecture club, the estimated US$1.08 billion, 44-floor, 768 ft (234 m) CCTV headquarters building in Beijing (already so iconic it's part of a board game for architecture groupies) is now finally complete - after nearly eight years of construction.  Read More

Look up this project on the website of its architects ACXT and you will find that it goes by the rather understated name of 242 Affordable Housing Units in Salburúa (Salburúa being a neighborhood in the Basque city of Vitoria-Gasteiz). In many ways the downplaying of the name is in keeping with ACXT's quiet approaches to sustainable design. Though there may be no obvious green bells and whistles such as wind turbines or photovoltaics, passive architectural methods combined with on-site generation contribute to what ACXT claims is a "considerable reduction" in the building's carbon dioxide emissions.  Read More

When it comes to urban living, architectural innovation is very much about maximizing use of space. This example from London based firm Hogarth Architects does just that by taking a simple studio apartment and transforming it into a luxury multi-level home.  Read More

Designer Robin Falck has created his very own micro home that is small enough to be built without a permit in Finland. According to Finnish regulations, you can bypass the permit process if the structure is smaller than 96 or 128 square feet (depending on where you build). With the help of a couple of local architects, Falck was able to make his original designs a reality and the result is this simple and stylish rural retreat.  Read More