Archinect - Features

Faulders Studio's Wynwood Facade Highlights Street Art in Miami's Dynamic Parking Structure Scene

2016-11-10T13:59:00-05:00

An eight-story parking garage and mixed-use office building becomes an ever-changing reflection of its street art surroundings with Faulders Studio's modifiable Wynwood Facade.

ELL House by Domaen maximizes 'remodeled' footprint with strategic hillside ordinance loophole

2016-08-16T09:25:00-04:00

The stone, wood, and stucco form of the ELL house in Los Angeles' Benedict Canyon is not the first structure to grace its site. Oddly enough, the previous structure helped to accelerate ELL’s building process: the architects were able to list their design as a remodeled residence for permitting purposes, thereby sneaking past the Baseline Hillside Ordinance's setback and building restrictions.

Glass and concrete tread lightly in DSDHA's London 'Covert House'

2016-07-28T09:20:00-04:00

What is domesticity in the 21st century? Is it a blend of the 19th century ideal of the sanctuary with the 21st century notion of greater transparency and connectivity?

SCI-Arc students step out of the studio to build an affordable, eco-friendly home with Habitat for Humanity

2016-07-25T09:56:00-04:00

It’s not that often that architecture students get to actually build a house while still in school. But a class of SCI-Arc students led by faculty member Darin Johnstone got to design and build a new home—and an affordable, eco-friendly one, at that.

Architectural panel tape proves its strength with SPF:architects' Double Stick project

2016-04-09T10:49:00-04:00

The “Double Stick” residence comes by its name honestly. With an impressive anodized aluminum façade held in place by a high performance, two-sided architectural panel tape, this 5,000-square-foot single-family dwelling designed by Studio Pali Fekete architects is a stellar expression of modern design and engineering.

Children's drawings inspire COBE's kindergarten in Copenhagen

2016-02-18T08:53:00-05:00

Needless to say, children require very little to have a lot of fun. An imaginary world can be transformed from the most modest of settings. Really, all that’s needed is a bit of space (albeit safe and relatively clean), and a great imagination –something that little ones have an endless supply of.

So when it comes time for kids to embark on the short-lived, yet impactful journey that is kindergarten, the most nurturing of environments are those that foster diversity, social connectivity, and creativity. The Danish architecture firm COBE has used that ethos to cultivate an amazing setting for children attending preschool in the Copenhagen neighborhood of Frederiksberg. The educational institution encompasses a unique campus, a blank canvas of sorts for young minds to re-imagine a world of their own.

Modular benches provide maximum functionality and versatility for Lake Jasper House

2016-02-02T13:41:00-05:00

The Lake Jasper House, designed by Architecturama, stands in the midst of a forested haven in Chertsey, Canada. The Quebec-based architecture firm has thoughtfully combined a minimalist aesthetic with maximum functionality, optimizing the use of the house’s interior space. In keeping with their manifesto, Architecturama has approached their design with the intention “to have a present, living and enthusiastic architecture that engages the senses,” in addition to reducing an environmental footprint in any way conceivable.

Designing for horses with history: the new stables of Dyrehaven park by Bertelsen & Scheving

2016-01-20T05:00:00-05:00

Just to the north of Copenhagen, the Dyrehaven – “deer park” – shelters exactly what its name suggests: sizeable populations of red and fallow deer who roam freely across its 4.2 square miles of ancient oaks. Alongside its namesake animal population, the park is also home to the horses that transport human visitors along its picturesque pathways. Those equine inhabitants are housed within stables that recently underwent an extensive, site-sensitive and rather handsome renovation by the firm Bertelsen & Scheving.

Showcase: A’ House by Wiel Arets Architects

2015-01-05T22:58:00-05:00

Wedged between the narrow alleys and razor-sharp property lines of Tokyo's Nishi-Azabu neighborhood, A' House fits in its dense context like a shiny puzzle piece. Bold yet familiar, expansive yet compact, transparent yet opaque, open to dialogue yet impenetrable like an oyster shell.

Designed by Wiel Arets Architects, the building's innovative system of immense sliding windows responds to varying desires for privacy, air flow, light intake and participation in the neighborhood's social life.

Turns out, where Dutch and Japanese practicality intersect, one might discover concrete poetry.

Showcase: Óbidos Technological Park Main Building by Jorge Mealha

2015-01-03T09:00:00-05:00

How does one create a main piazza in the absence of a surrounding urban fabric that typically encloses a Piazza? The design team around architect Jorge Mealha drew from its traditional Portuguese typologies and conceived the Óbidos Technological Park Main Building in the countryside north of Lisbon as contemporary interpretation of a Terreiro.

While just recently completed, the project has already garnered a respectable nomination for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award 2015.

Showcase: "Groenlândia" by TRIPTYQUE

2014-12-11T15:13:00-05:00

A gentle giant of marble, glass and concrete, this stately commercial space makes an impact without imposing on the street.

Showcase: Antoine de St exupéry home for dependent elderly people, by Naud & Poux Architectes

2014-12-08T00:16:00-05:00

In the complex and fraught world of elder care, architecture can seem indifferent, dictated primarily by medical and physical concerns. Not so with Naud & Poux Architectes' facility in Villejuif, France, whose solid and distinctive design accommodates the needs of dependent elderly people, while looking more like a home than a hospital.

Showcase: Sparrenburg Visitor Center by Max Dudler

2014-11-26T12:41:00-05:00

Max Dudler's brutalist beauty falls serenely in line with Sparrenburg Fortress's 800-year history in Bielefeld, Germany.

Showcase: Garden School / Beijing No.4 High School Fangshan Campus by OPEN Architecture

2014-11-14T19:41:00-05:00

Taking cues from the urban and pastoral, Beijing No. 4 High School (aka Garden School) strives not only to model elite Chinese public education, but also to also drive development in its relatively new town of Fangshan.

Showcase: Slate House by Affleck de la Riva architects

2014-11-06T20:27:00-05:00

Suburbia doesn't have to be faceless. Slate House, a proud black sheep in a family of tract houses, manages a demurely chic presence amid the former farmlands of Laval, Montreal's largest suburb.

Showcase: Stadthaus M1 by Barkow Leibinger

2014-09-11T11:17:00-04:00

The subtle strength of Barkow Leibinger's Stadthaus M1 derives from its passive house standards and connection to local environment. The basic polygonal form of the overall structure, which includes a hotel and street-level shops separate from apartments, is jointed by a “pocket park” that serves as a serene connector between the complex’s private-public areas as well as a transition space to nearby streets. Located in the “sustainable model district” of Vauban in the already so-called “green city” of Freiburg, Germany, Stadthaus M1 is right at home aesthetically and ideologically.

Show Case: ‘Schapenboeten’ Holiday Home by Benthem Crouwel Architects

2014-07-31T19:03:00-04:00

Slightly quirky, modest and covered in fishnets, Benthem Crouwel Architect’s holiday house turns a piece of Dutch vernacular into a sleek but cozy nest. Modeled after the local ‘schapenboeten’ sheds for storing hay and tools in a windy climate, the home is now part of the landscape on Texel island, a popular tourist destination in the Wandsee known for its fishing and unique sheep breed.

ShowCase: Concrete House by Studio Gil

2014-07-29T14:22:00-04:00

Studio Gil’s extension of a Victorian terraced house in East London works from the inside out. Situated in a conservation area in the Mile End neighborhood, "Concrete House" maintains its exterior cladding while opening up its interior to the outside, knitting together remodeled inner spaces and exterior views.

ShowCase: Villa CP by ZEST Architecture

2014-05-15T14:11:00-04:00

Restored from a stone Catalan farmhouse, Villa CP by ZEST Architecture stands as a memento to historical craftsmanship and future sustainability. The sturdy stone structure has been opened up into two distinct layers on the villa’s property, and incorporates strong elements of wood, clay, metal, glass and locally-sourced cork.

ShowCase: Fall House by Fougeron Architecture

2014-04-30T16:33:00-04:00

The California Coast is a dramatic fluctuation of cliffs, redwood trees and sand dunes, at once powerful and peaceful. California’s famous Pacific Coast Highway winds down the state, with alternating western views of ocean and forest, with little else visible from the narrow road. But draped over a precarious hillside on Big Sur’s south coast, Fougeron Architects’ Fall House is a frontier-cabin like no other, on the very edge of the country overlooking the Pacific.

ShowCase: Residence in Weinheim by Wannenmacher-Möller Architekten

2014-03-25T19:05:00-04:00

While designed as a private residence, the shape of Wannenmacher-Möller's Weinheim Residence has inklings of cultural and industrial institutions. The home's stretched linearity is a sleek version of the stacked shipping container aesthetic, made of aluminum and glass on the ground floor, and light-colored stone on the upper. Inside, surfaces are similarly light and clean, resembling a bright and airy white-cube gallery. Built for a family of five, the house morphs neatly from two stories into three, as the steep plot slopes downwards from the street-facing front into the back garden.

ShowCase: White Wolf Hotel by AND-RÉ

2014-03-22T15:37:00-04:00

The White Wolf Hotel sits low to the ground in the verdant landscape of Penafiel, Portugal, calmly set by forest and stream. AND-RÉ's neutral white hotel is no-frills in and out, its simple geometry free of distracting stimuli for visitors to enjoy a complete mental and physical respite. The hotel shares its namesake with a local wolf species, and while it bares little biomimetic relation, appears similarly at home in the landscape.

ShowCase: Casa H by Bojaus Arquitectura

2014-03-05T14:51:00-05:00

Bojaus Arquitectura’s Casa H is a modernist white cube, but it’s also not what you think it is. The cube is sometimes interpreted as a reflex towards neutrality, to get the spaces and the inhabitants within to speak for themselves. But Casa H isn’t arbitrarily a white cube; it’s the logically resulting form of rationalist, as well as aesthetic, concerns.

ShowCase: Abedian School of Architecture by CRAB Studio

2014-01-10T10:02:00-05:00