Practice

The igloo is surely one of the finest — and earliest — examples of modernism the world has ever seen . Louis Sullivan may have coined those famous words ‘form ever follows function’ back in 1896, but the Inuits of the Arctic North have been putting that principle into practice in Alaska, Canada, and Greenland for…

Shipping container architecture is not new in London. A pair of now-iconic projects demonstrate how the modules can be configured: Boxpark in Shoreditch has been the world’s first ‘pop-up’ mall, while Container City was the first of a series of successful projects to house apartments and offices like the BBC Broadcasting Studios. In the kingdom…

The ability to 3D-print objects in exceptionally strong materials like Kevlar, fiberglass, and for t he first time, carbon fiber, means one thing: “No more Yoda heads,” according to MarkForged creative director Jeff Klein. MarkForged (stylized as MARKFORG3D) is the Boston-area startup behind the Mark One, a 3D printer that launched in its current form in…

The history of the rugged landscape of Far West Texas is inscribed in its passageways. The largest c ity, El Paso, gets its name from the historic Spanish mission, El Paso del Norte. It was the point marking passage from South to North, while the Rio Grande River cuts up from there through the mountains, marking…

Beijing’s got its Big Shorts (CCTV Tower, OMA, 2012), London’s got its Gherkin (30 St Mary Axe, Norm an Foster, 2003), and al-Wakrah’s got various euphemisms for the female anatomy that just aren’t fit to put in writing (al-Wakrah Stadium, Zaha Hadid, 2018). San Francisco, how ’bout you? Last month may have been the best one…

In case you somehow failed to notice, your fridge’s crisper drawer is a stroke of genius, a compartm ent that provides the optimal humidity and temperature settings to keep your organic Tuscan kale stalks as crisp as can be while the milk and eggs chill out on their own on other shelves. But don’t your milk…

Samsung is on a mission towards a smarter home, as Architizer saw Monday during the brand’s Consumer Electronics Show presentation. These are the four top gadgets we’d like to live with. Super Surround Sound Samsung’s Audiolab has developed an “omnidirectional sound experience” for our modern multi-tasking world with the egg-shaped WAM7500 and WAM6500. “Unlike traditional…

“How far apart should those ceiling shackles be? What dimensions did you want for that waterboard? A nd of course, I think it all looks best in black.” The relationship between architecture and ethics has always been a turbulent one, and debates over the moral responsibilities of our profession have reached fever pitch in recent times.…

Speaking of Airbnb, the startup is also a prime example of the so-called “sharing” econo my’s nebulous legal status when it comes to taxes, regulations, and building codes. But even as the company faces controversy (most recently in Paris), cities like Portland, Ore., have welcomed Airbnb’s business model, going so far as to change their laws…