Curated lists of the best new building-products, materials and design solutions to inspire your next project.
I am a sucker for well-designed theme parks, the best of which are surreal utopian worlds that combi ne the gloriously kitschy architectural style of Las Vegas with the airy innocence of a gargantuan candy store. They also put pedestrians ahead of vehicles, are planned with vast stretches of public open space, and include swathes of…
IKEA – having comfortably established itself as the world’s premier purveyor of both budget-fr iendly designer furniture and Swedish meatballs from the same premises – is constantly seeking ways to break out of its enormous blue and yellow boxes, aiming to touch everyday lives with an ever-expanding portfolio of promotional tools and techniques. After going big…
Earlier this week, the Obama administration quietly announced that it is launching a new defense age ncy “to combat the deepening threat from cyberattacks.” Meanwhile, in the last couple of years, the NSA has come under fire for a host transgressions, dubious wiretapping, and ogling your potentially NSFW selfies. Edward Snowden is hiding in Russia for…
Ok, ok, we get it. The earth is heating up at a historic rate. While this seems like boring old fact by now, it will have very real impacts on our everyday lives. To put it in perspective, Climate Central developed this interactive map that charts these effects of climate change and what 1,001 cities…
“A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier. That is why Chippendale is famou s.” Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe’s quip perfectly epitomizes the challenges of product design, which share a range of contrasts and commonalities with those faced by architects shaping the built environment. Daniel Libeskind presented his latest foray into…
In the 1920s El Lissitzky developed and proposed the idea of horizontal skyscapers — Wolkenbügels, o r “cloud-irons” — eight structures intended for the Boulevard Ring in Moscow. His logic was that as long as humans could not fly, moving horizontally was natural, and moving vertically was not. In an area where there is not significant…
Brutalism gets a bad rap for its over-bearing scale and sweater-snagging rawness. Polish studio Zupa grafika wants to challenge this perception by making several brutal icons of London into small, cut-out paper models. By introducing an element of arts and crafts (the pastime, not the movement), the foldable models cast brutalism as something miniaturized and makeable.…
The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) has just released its infographic charting the top ten states with the most LEED projects per capita built last year. Image via USGBC Congrats to Illinois for topping the list for 2014 — which shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering the Prairie State’s track record for going green,…
A collection of courthouses that redefine the architecture of the judicial system.