Architecture

Though a large imposing house may draw admiring glances, it’s also generally expensive, and a waste of resources for a smaller family. Los Angeles-based Big & Small House by Anonymous Architects bucks the trend of sizable LA residences, and instead offers an example of small living at its most practical and appealing.  Read More

Henning Larsen Architects recently announced that it is preparing to construct a new campus near Copenhagen to house Microsoft's Danish headquarters. Rather than being exclusive to Microsoft employees though, the new buildings will feature offices side-by-side with student housing and retail shops.  Read More

When Coca-Cola found itself with an unused helipad on top of its building in Mexico City, the simplest thing to do would have been to strip everything down, leaving a bare rooftop. But that would have been a waste of usable real estate, not to mention just plain dull. Instead, the company enlisted the help of design teams at Rojkind Arquitectos and AGENT to convert the area into a sustainable rooftop garden and customizable office space.  Read More

Architecture studio 3Gatti has taken inspiration from colorful parasols carried during Shanghai’s hot summer months to design a new facade for the 2010 Shanghai Expo’s Madrid Pavilion. The new screen for the re-purposed office and retail block will feature steel umbrellas that can be individually opened and closed and used to manage interior light levels.  Read More

Located within Spoleto’s high security prison is an inmate carpentry workshop which produces furniture for other prisons throughout Italy. Artist collective Cibic Workshop joined forces with co-operative organization Comodo in order to task these talented carpenters with the creation of Freedom Room: a flexible and low-cost micro-living module concept that could be employed as a tiny dwelling, social housing solution, hostel, or perhaps even a more comfortable prison cell.  Read More

The American Institute of Architects announced its top ten green buildings in the US for 2013 on Monday (Earth Day, uncoincidentally). It's a diverse list, containing a cheese factory, senior citizens' apartments, school buildings, and a smattering of LEED certificates. There's only one net zero building on the list, though it's worth remembering that it's much easier to build a net zero home than it is a net zero office or factory. Step inside for a short profile of each of the buildings, or head straight to the gallery for the architectural eye candy.  Read More

The world of architecture figuratively doffed its cap to Earth Day on Monday with the opening of the Bullitt Center in Seattle. The Bullitt Center aims to meet the rigorous Living Building Design Challenge, which looks beyond design criteria and scrutinizes a building's green credentials, including energy self-sufficiency, over the course of a year in use. But more significantly, its developers claim that the Bullitt Center is the greenest commercial building in the world.  Read More

Plans are afoot to build a high tech mini-city outside the city of Paris, France. Like all good grandstanding architectural schemes, the task of designing a 0.8-sq km (0.3-sq mile) retail, leisure and culture park was put to a competition. This was won by a team including Bjarke Ingels Group (aka BIG) which has outlined its vision for a mixed use, green-roofed development dubbed EuropaCity, which looks something akin to a crashed, overgrown UFO.  Read More

The architects responsible for the Panorama House have made a staircase of epic proportions that acts as a functional centerpiece of the house. The staircase serves as a multifunctional hub, not only providing a way to get from downstairs A to upstairs B, but forming a central element of the house's library, cinema, and play area.  Read More