Resources to help you find materials, perfect design details and master the tools you need to create better buildings.
By James Biber, architect of the USA Pavilion at EXPO 2015. Expos, since their inception in the Vict orian London of 1851, have managed to rely on architecture as the leitmotif of modernity. Paxton’s Crystal Palace was the first truly modern building: fully demountable, entirely prefabricated of iron and glass, commissioned by competition, and realized from…
By modeling design in three dimensions, Building Information Modeling (BIM) can increase productivit y across the board for designers. It surpasses the 2D drawing process by streamlining coordination between collaborators and alerting all users to collisions between systems that previously would not have been detected until the field. If the benefits of BIM are well established,…
The lighting brand Ilex Architectural Lighting was founded on a made-in-America premise “in order to maintain our company’s domestic manufacturing base,” says Ben Duggan, who is Vice President of Product Development of both Ilex and its parent company Norwell Lighting. Yet the East Taunton, Mass.-based executive also notes that Ilex had perhaps branded itself too…
If there is one thing that Zaha Hadid Architects is known for, it’s standing out from the crowd with her signature style. From the swooping concrete planes of the MAXXI Museum in Rome to the gleaming white curves of the extraordinary Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, the British-Iraqi designer has made her name with the…
Organic and undulating in nature, wood is rarely perfectly linear or a platonic solid. Nevertheless, humans have long adopted the abundant raw material to serve their own ends, and, nowadays, designers continue to explore its possibilities. From organic and largely untouched, to repurposed to the manufactured, geometric, and parametric, these designs start with raw timber…
With the advent of mobile and ever-increasing reach of data networks, the very notion of the cloud h as taken on a new meaning in contemporary culture. The omnipresent yet radically decentralized concept may seem at odds with buildings, but rest assured the word perfectly captures the philosophy of New York City-based Clouds Architecture Office. Established…
Calling all American architects and interior designers! Hansgrohe+Axor have begun their nationwide s earch for the second annual Das Design competition. Whether it’s a five-star luxury suite in NYC or a midcentury renovation in California, the Black Forest-based company is searching for recent projects that have incorporated Hansgrohe and Axor products in a novel way. As…
The New York City-based firm Jaklitsch / Gardner Architects is known for its international scope, wi th several hundred projects throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Now it’s heading to Dodoma, Tanzania, with ambitious plans not just for the central African country’s people, but for its bees as well. Earlier this…
Concrete is the humblest of materials, a hardwearing blend of gravel, sand, cement, and water that r emains associated with driveways and basements. But in the right hands, the utilitarian mixture can be elevated to high design. Take the work of architect John Pawson, for example. His minimalist concrete interiors in the Hotel Puerta America in…