Inspiration

Under most circumstances, bike lanes, bridges, and tunnels are designed around the existing network of sidewalks and streets. Fortunately, there are instances where cycling is not only being considered at the initial stages of urban design, but put at the forefront to create advantageous public spaces. Around the world, innovative thinkers have dreamt up newfangled…

Neat stacks of freshly pressed paper. Glittering sugar cubes. A sculptor’s pristine plaster casts. W hatever metaphor you might bestow upon the brilliant white forms of Kichi Architectural Design, there is no denying their meticulous, minimalist appeal. This young firm has adopted an aesthetic very much in keeping with the modernist ideals of many of contemporary…

The first Mario Batali restaurant to open in Boston, Babbo Pizzeria boasts a comfy, casual environme nt designed by Batali’s creative director, Lisa Eaton, in collaboration with David McMahon of McMahon Architects. Together they crafted the 160-seat venue using a warm, Mediterranean-inspired palette and a smattering of custom touches — such as pendants whose shades evoke…

“There’s so many things I love about architecture.” Cory Taylor, architect at Belzberg Architects, f eels pretty lucky. The first architect to become a partner with Hagy Belzberg, founder of Belzberg Architects, Taylor has found a career that he is passionate about and a job in which he can exert a positive influence on the world around him at an organization that is generating fresh new approaches to design each day. Life in this profession is anything but predictable — more than ever these days for those working at the Santa Monica, Calif.-based studio.

Jaemin Yoon, Director of JMY Architects, sees his firm’s work as reclaiming something that his count ry lacked the opportunity to create for itself. “In the history of modern architecture, Koreans never had the chance to modernize ourselves because of the Japanese occupation and civil war,” he says. Modern Korean cities, he feels, reflect this loss…

Color can energize any space, whether in a home or commercial setting. But if you’re looking to desi gn with just pops as opposed to large swaths, check out these five recently launched products that do the job to varying degrees. (And serve other functions, to boot.) Italian company Fontanot transforms the ordinary, utilitarian metal-spiral stairs…

Where better to address the issue of housing shortage than in one of the world’s 50 most densely pop ulated cities? Located in Seoul’s largest district, the Songpa Micro-Housing functions as a small urban village in which the line between individual living units and semi-public and open-program spaces are blurred, adding significant social value to the reconfigurable blocks of the complex.

Around 8,700 miles (14,000 kilometers) separates Chicago from Ho Chi Minh City, but certain architec tural typologies are known to transcend borders and travel extraordinary distances. Some 42 years since Skidmore Owings and Merrill oversaw the completion of the iconic Willis Tower in the Windy City, a new skyscraper with a very similar language is now…

Ceramics have long been the ultimate symbol of fragility and delicate beauty. If you hear of a space being stormed through “like a bull in a China shop,” mental images of carnage and destruction are summoned — these beautifully brittle objects are treasured by many, but are certainly not known for their resilience under pressure.…