Inspiration: Collections

The tactile qualities of these materials are catching the eye of contemporary architects.

To celebrate the opening of our 4th Annual A+Awards, we’re taking a look back at some of our f avorite projects from 2015. Want to get in on the action? Check out the A+Awards Page to find out how to enter. On September 22, we officially announced the Fourth Annual A+ Awards, the largest awards program…

Following up on our post from last year “Treehouses to Indulge Your Childhood Dreams,” w e revisit the topic with a fresh stock of treehouse designs. These houses range from dwellings to follies and all capture the drama of occupying the forests’ dense canopy. Drawing on the embedded association of the treehouse, the designs bring to…

To celebrate the opening of our 4th annual A+Awards, we’re taking a look back at some of our f avorite projects from 2015. Want to get in on the action? Check out the A+Awards Page to find out how to enter. Urban dwellers know the story of condensed quarters and maddening crowds all too well. Perhaps…

Arctic architecture arises from its constraints. Few places across the world have such extreme envir onmental, socio-political, and material demands. While vernacular projects have been designed throughout the region for centuries, the Artic is currently experiencing intense, newfound attention, especially in architecture, planning, and infrastructure. Increasingly diminishing polar ice levels have opened up the Northern Sea…

Natural elements can wreak havoc on buildings. As architects and designers, we are always fighting w ater, solar heat gain, thermal bridging, and a number of different climatic or environmental conditions. Architecture simply does not exist outside its context; every building is sited among unique, broad systems that constantly challenge our “pure” forms. As architecture has…

Under most circumstances, you’ll find yourself waiting to fill your prescription in the basement of some big-name drugstore. Longing for natural light, you may find yourself wondering why. Perhaps for security purposes? Maybe natural light taints whatever is being dispensed? Whatever the reason, it remains an unsolved mystery. One of the ways architects have fashioned…

Architecture and faith are intimately intertwined. Countless religious structures have been erected the world over, buildings designed to venerate our deepest values and beliefs. Carefully studied by architects and occupied by the masses, these powerful monuments stand as symbols within their communities and surrounding contexts. Ranging from synagogues and mosques to cathedrals and cemeteries, religious…

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, modernism in Mexico was robust with experimentation as well as recon ciliation with the country’s traditions and history that were being endangered in the race towards modernization. Prominent Spanish architects in Mexico sought to embrace the movement and characteristics of European architects such as Le Corbusier, while being conscious of the…