The Angry Architect
McMansion /məkˈmanʃ(ə)n/ noun: a large modern house that is considered ostentatious and lacking in a rchitectural integrity. A single, all-encompassing definition of the word ‘McMansion’ is hard to come by, but there seems to be a broad consensus over its negative connotations: in the early 1980s, American suburbia saw a rise in expansive luxury homes, often…
Staircases are, by their very nature, one of the most visually striking elements in architecture — t hey are one of the few components of a building that can be highly functional yet also incredibly sculptural, ebbing and flowing to fit whatever space is granted to them. Via Core77 Core77 recently deemed this staircase in Portugal…
As a Johannesburg native, Neill Blomkamp knows the quirks of this complex, multi-layered city better than anyone. Not only was he born and raised in the “city of gold,” he also produced the critically acclaimed sci-fi fable District 9 there in 2009, and his familiarity with the nuances of Johannesburg’s urban fabric came to the…
The best retreats on the planet have the capability to make you feel you have been flung down Alice’ s proverbial rabbit hole, as though you’ve been sucked into another universe entirely. Now, architect Espen Folgerø has taken this sensation to whole new level, compelling anyone who wishes to take in the incredible views from his…
If you are anything like me, you spent an unhealthy amount of time as a child playing SimCity — ther e was no greater satisfaction than assuming the role of all-powerful mayor, conjuring up the ultimate pixelated metropolis and watching it expand in all its axonometric glory. Now though, you can hold those objects of municipal…
Each of the 35,000 buildings was carved out of wood and carefully painted by hand to match its real- world counterpart.
In architecture school, impressionable students are taught to reach for the stars in their mission t o create the greatest buildings of their generation. Thomas Wong, partner and Design Principal at Ennead Architects, has taken this advice to heart, channeling all manner of heavenly influence in his proposal for Shanghai’s latest civic landmark, a 38,000 square-meter…
One of the most iconic architectural typologies in history is set to be resurrected in Cairo! Four a nd half millennia after the Pyramids of Giza were completed on the outskirts of the city, the Ministry of Housing has unveiled a proposal for a tower, Zayed Crystal Spark, to anchor the planned development of Sheikh Zayed…
Welcome to the future! The Googleplex is coming, and it’s exactly how you imagined it: a bustling me tropolis full of luscious parks, cyber cafés, public art, cycle paths and yoga classes … all encased in gargantuan glazed bubbles, naturally. When Google’s Vice President of Real Estate David Radcliffe spoke of his company’s search for the…