Architectural case studies and material exemplars to spark your creativity and inspire your next project.
There’s no denying that LED technology has enabled lighting fixture designers to conjure up some inn ovative and intriguing luminaires — particularly for the wall. The slim profile and small package of chip-on-board LEDs, for instance, make for great, flat, light-emitting surfaces that, in turn, can lead to more compact or flat fixtures that don’t awkwardly…
After surviving long, intensive university programs and continuing professional development througho ut their careers, architects understand the importance of education better than anyone. It is no surprise, then, that an international competition to design a major new educational complex in Russia attracted some of the biggest firms in the world, including Dutch studio MVRDV and Japanese…
“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.” The words of Vincent Van Gogh must have resonated with Hans van Heeswijk of Amsterdam-based firm Hans Van Heeswijk Architects when he sat down to develop ideas for a new addition to the museum dedicated to the world-renowned Dutch…
Columbia, Md.–based manufacturer SolarWindow Technologies recently unveiled their innovative solar t echnology that could turn every skyscraper into a solar collector.
Behind every great building there lies a story: one of diligence, determination, and creative inspir ation. Telling this story with a visceral flourish can help architects communicate concepts to clients, as well as convincing doubters and inspiring trust in the design process. One of the most powerful ways to do this in recent years has been…
While the practice of drinking tea has a long history in China, the nation’s relatively modern relationship with coffee dates back to the mid-nineteenth century, when China opened to foreign trade and Western missionaries and businessmen brought the bean to treaty ports. Among the industrialized treaty port cities, Shanghai became known as “Paris of the…
Delightful dots and diamonds are among some of the motifs one encounters in this sophisticated cemen t-tile collection from Bisazza. While the Italian company may be best known for its glass mosaics, its foray into cement tiles is proving successful thanks to smart collaborations, such as this one with French architect and designer India Mahdavi. The…
On the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, Latvia’s landscape is composed of lowland fields, farms, an d hilly pastures. The country’s natural beauty has been well preserved, and offers hundred of miles of untouched seashore and scenic forests to explore. Wooden houses dating back centuries can still be found in the countryside and in Riga,…
Zaha Hadid Architects is a firm known for its epic fly-through videos used to illustrate its grand p lans with beautifully rendered details. Recently, though, the studio is increasingly using this medium to show its buildings coming to life in the real world. The following “teaser trailer” gives a bird’s-eye view of the site for a…