Architectural case studies and material exemplars to spark your creativity and inspire your next project.
In 2010, the Norwegian Institute of Wood Technology (NTI) conducted a three-part study [PDF] on the health benefits of wooden interiors in healthcare facilities. Taking a very IDEO, human-centered design-based approach, NTI uncovered new ways to serve and support recovering patients by uncovering latent needs, behaviors, and desires. Beyond the comparisons between Scandinavians and non-Scandinavians,…
Rita Catinella Orrell was previously products editor at Architectural Record and the founding editor of Snap, a quarterly building products magazine. she launched DesignyThings.com, a curated list of gifts, gadgets, and gear for consumers, in 2011, and Architects-Toybox.com, a resource for architects and designers looking for the latest building products, in 2013. This post originally…
Alucobond is the Kleenex of aluminum composite material: comprising two sheets of 0.02-inch-thick al uminum thermobonded to a core material, Alucobond has become synonymous with ACM. One reason why the brand is so trusted by the design community is that it has long been used to resist fire. Just several years after the product’s 1964 launch,…
The largest aquarium in Northern Europe makes little distinction between the structure and the sea. The Blue Planet, as it’s called, is located along the shores of Kastrup, not far from 3XN's hometown of Copenhagen. The Danish architecture firm designed a whirlpool-shaped building that tied the surrounding natural waterway to the manmade waterways inside the aquarium. This seamless tie between the natural environment and the built one secured 3XN as the Popular Choice winner of this year’s Architizer A+Award for the Culture: Museum category.
As notable alumni go, Gammel Hellerup High School in Denmark has one who has made a pretty “big” nam e for himself. Bjarke Ingels was a student there before embarking on his architectural odyssey at the Royal Academy, and now his academic and professional path has come full circle — the Danish architect has designed a…
Diller Scofidio + Renfro are perhaps best known for providing one of the best places to go for a str oll in their native New York, but their latest project is dedicated to movement at a much quicker pace. The firm has unveiled a proposal for a museum charting the history of the Olympic and Paralympic…
It’s finally here! Those of you who attended the A+Awards gala last Thursday had the very firs t look at the inaugural Architizer A+Awards 2015 book, which has been shipping from Phaidon to lucky doorsteps (or mailboxes) all over the world. Now in its third year, the Architizer A+Awards program has expanded to include the publication…
With 90+ categories and 300+ jurors, the Architizer A+Awards is the world’s definitive archite ctural awards program. In anticipation of the Awards Gala and Phaidon book launch on May 14, we are pleased to share the stories behind the winners of the 2015 Awards program — see all of them here. Helen and Hard as won…
In his book Architecture Depends, Jeremy Till argues that “all architecture is building waste in transit.” He believes that architecture’s contingency is an opportunity rather than a weakness, encouraging architects to consider the element of time in the production, inhabitation, and reuse of buildings. One example might be inflatable architecture, popularized in the 1960s and…